Wallace’s Weekly Wrap
Happy Friday you wonderful humans.
Most of these thoughts, these passages of writing is a roundabout way of writing the advice I myself need to hear. I package it in a way where hopefully others glean some insight into how they can grow their capacities, but ultimately everything I write in these blogs/emails is a reminder to myself to do, and be better.
The balance between self-care, and discipline is a thin edge. On one hand, you should show yourself compassion, be kind to yourself and practice self-care often. Because hey, you probably deserve it and at times it’ll be what you need to feel and do better.
On the other hand, you’re a fallible human being, who is programmed to take the easy way out, to choose the shortcut rather than the right way. You need discipline, diligence, fortitude and resilience, and you need it in spades. Because if you take the easy way out over and over again, you’ll become incapable of climbing back up the mountain.
The fact of the matter is that we need both of these things, self-care and discipline, in a measured practical fashion, to allow us to move forward.
We are in the midst of a pandemic, yes. But we are also in the midst of an obesity and lifestyle disease epidemic.
Sloth is one of the 7 deadly sins (“what’s in the boxxx?”, Don’t click the link if you haven’t seen Se7en) and sloth is a habitual disinclination to exertion.
The opposite of sloth is diligence, an inclination towards exertion.
It’s doing hard things, with diligence, discipline, fortitude and resilience.
No one likes a cold shower. Frankly, they suck, but within the suck, we can peek into who we really are. A couple of minutes in, and the pain and suffering passes and we are left with a feeling of accomplishment, an endorphin rush and a new air of self-confidence we wouldn’t have had if we had chosen to sit under a warm stream instead.
The same can be said for many of the more of our daily activities.
No one likes getting up early to train until you connect with others and you get stuck into the session.
No one likes doing the dishes until you look across your clean kitchen.
No one likes pushing yourself to your limits during a long run until you finish up.
No one likes studying for hours or working all-day until you hand in the assignment, or finish the project.
On the flip side, it’s difficult to appreciate a Netflix binge, a couple of beers, or a big meal if you haven’t put in the work to earn it.
We like the feelings of accomplishment, confidence and pride that come with doing hard things and doing them well. Whilst we regret the actions we did not take, we regret taking the easy way out.
Over the last few weeks, with everything that has been happening in our world, we have all progressed through the stages of grief in different ways. We have all felt denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance at different times. But now is the time to step out of the depression stage, to accept this new normal (for however long it lasts) and move forward into doing things, doing hard things, to build our resilience and come out the other side more capable humans.
If you play the victim, you will become the victim. If you play the victor, you will continue to be victorious.
Do hard things, because the more you do, the better you’ll get. You’ll feel better, you’ll become more capable and your resilience will rise.
Wallace
P.S If you want some resilience training to work on, sign up for the 60 day challenge. The difficulty isn’t in completing the 4 tasks per day, The difficulty is in showing up 60 days in a row.