Tag Archives: mental health

Mental motivation around maintenance

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Good day or bad day, I work out an average 6 days a week. One day is usually just the 5km loop up the Coquitlam Crunch with a buddy, and the other 5 (or 6) days usually involve weights. I start with 20-30 minutes cardio, 1 day a week doing the Norwegian Protocol. Then I stretch for a few minutes, then I try to work one muscle group to fatigue.

That might look like 3 minutes of leg raises and crunches. A double set of fly and bench press. A tricep or bicep set, pull-ups, or weighted step-ups. But only one of these. So my full workout from cardio to stretching to weights usually takes about 50 minutes if I do 30 of cardio.

It’s not a hard routine, and while I’m working one set of muscles to fatigue, I don’t usually feel all that sore afterwards and it’s easy to work a different set of muscles the next day.

All this to say that I have a good routine, that I mostly enjoy (other than the Norwegian Protocol which kinda sucks every time). I get up, write, meditate, and start my workout. If I write for too long, I listen to a guided meditation while doing my cardio. I almost never miss a work day workout, my gaps tend to be on weekends or holidays.

So the habit is engrained, and I don’t need motivation to do my routine. I wake up and just start my routine, and don’t stop until it’s done. Easy.

What I do struggle with sometimes is how hard I push myself. For the last few days my ‘work one muscle group to fatigue’ sets have not been a push to fatigue. Mentally, I just can’t get myself to that place. Every set I do, I quit when my muscles should be pushed further.

For example, yesterday I was doing bicep curls with a slightly lighter weight than I usually use, and yet I wasn’t able to get many reps in. I would think, ‘I’ve got at least two more reps in me’, I’d do one and just decide that I would stop. Physically I could have done more. And even if I couldn’t, the half rep more trying would have meant that I took the muscle to fatigue. But I quit. I didn’t truly complete the set. I couldn’t mentally get myself to push hard enough.

And of course I beat myself up about it. Especially since I’ve felt like this for a few days. The reality is that it’s damn hard to push to fatigue every day. Especially when I’m not doing this to be a bodybuilder. I’m not on a mission to bulk up. I don’t have a race or a sport I’m training for. I’m just trying to be a bit fitter than I was yesterday.

So I’m at a point now where I’m in maintenance mode. I’m not taking a break, I’m not slacking in my routine, but I’m cruising a bit on my overall effort. And yet, despite recognizing all this, I’m still hard on myself when I can’t push to 100% for just a few minutes in the day.

I believe it would be healthier for me to think of this as a regular cycle of maintenance rather than a failure to push myself. I understand this intellectually. Yet I struggle. I feel like I’m letting myself down. I feel like I’m getting old and forgetting how to push as hard as I could before.

It’s an internal battle that I think I should have figured out by now. Sharing it ‘out loud’ feels a little embarrassing, because it feels like I’m seeking empathy or condolences or a pep talk, but I don’t want or need that. What I need is to be easier on myself as I cycle through this, knowing that the ability to push myself hard will come back.

The challenge is that I fear being easy on myself. I fear that this easing up can become more frequent… That maintainance mode can easily become my default mode. And deep down I want to keep this fear. Because that fear will reduce the amount of time that I spend in maintenance mode, and the fear reminds me that I know how to push myself. I’d rather be upset at myself and strive for improvement, than be more self-forgiving and also more likely to accept mediocrity and maintenance as my default.

It’s time to put on my weighted vest and get on my treadmill, and listen to a guided meditation. I have a routine I have to keep.

Trade your expectation with appreciation

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I was listening to The Tim Ferriss Show today and heard this great quote from Tony Robbins: “You want to change your life fast then trade your expectation for appreciation and you have a whole new life.”

(Listen to the full gratitude & appreciation quote by Tony Robbins here.)

It’s easy to forget sometimes how blessed we are. It can be all consuming as we seek and want more, while forgetting how much we have already.

Possible future you robs happiness from the present you.

Don’t let future you steal your happiness today.

Bask in appreciation of what you have: Family, friends, health, work, hobbies, food, health, wealth… you might not be exactly where you want future you to be, but if you take stock right now, you probably have a lot to appreciate and be happy about.

Empty Cup

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The timing was perfect. I was not feeling well and took the day off. Then I saw this later in the day:

There was a bit of work that still had to be done, but I needed this day… and I took it. I think now of all the times I didn’t. I’m not sure I was my best, and it probably showed. We can’t be at our best when our own cup is empty.

A Simple Shift in Perspective

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I woke up just after 4am this morning and thought to myself, ‘Nice, almost an hour more to sleep.’ Then I had this little inkling to check my alarm…

What? It’s not on?

Thinking for some reason it was a Tuesday rather than a Saturday, I turned on my 5am alarm and made sure the volume was low before snoozing until it buzzed in about 55 minutes. When it went off I hit the stop button quickly, but my wife still woke up, “Why are you getting up so early on a Saturday?” She asked curiously.

‘It’s Saturday?’

I had no idea. I was going to do my typical weekday morning routine, and head off to work. I wasn’t upset about this, it was just another normal school day in my head. I got up anyway, did my morning meditation and went back to sleep on the couch for a bit before heading to meet my buddy first our Saturday morning walk.

My buddy, also named Dave, inspired this Daily-Ink. He told me he struggled to be motivated to do our walk this morning, and I responded that I was excited to come, having realized that it was Saturday and not Tuesday. I’m not great at rehashing conversations, but this was Dave’s message in a nutshell:

‘Isn’t it interesting how that shifts your perspective. Think of how much better every day would be if you framed it the same way. What if next Tuesday you thought about what a great day it is, and ask yourself, who can I show gratitude to? Or, how can I make someone’s day great today?’

Pick any day in the last week, week day or weekend, and imagine redoing that day, but with a shift in perspective of how rich, engaging, and rewarding that day was going to be… What’s to stop us from doing this daily?

The push

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I’ve been in a workout slump recently. I haven’t stopped working out, it’s just my effort has waned. I’m finding it hard to push myself and get the most out of my workouts. I know it’s just a phase and I’ll get through it, but it’s lasting a bit longer than I hoped.

I mention it because it builds a little fear in me. The lack of drive, of push, scares me a bit. It whispers in my ear, ‘you are getting old’, it says to me, ‘you aren’t an athlete anymore’.

It hits me when I’m doing a short sprint on the treadmill and there is 30 seconds left and I want to shorten the sprint time… Not push through, not muscle it, just end it early. It hits me when I’m on my 3rd set with weights, and I start the set thinking I can get 8 reps, then at 4 reps I’ve already decided I can only do 6… and then I do 5. Or when I know I have more gas in my tank and still I leave a few reps undone, because while I wasn’t at full fatigue, my mind said ‘that’s good enough’, and I can’t push myself anymore.

Part of it might be that I’ve been working out on my own too much and I need some external motivation. It might also just be a slump. But it eats away at my confidence. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that makes the next push experience harder.

I’m confident that I’ll find my focus again, and I know that the fact that I’m still showing up and not letting this discourage my commitment is a real positive. But I have to say that this slump has been mentally challenging for me. I want to feel I’ve left nothing in reserves after I finish a set or a sprint. I want to really feel ‘the push’ again.

Fit for life

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I listen to a lot of podcasts about healthy living. It’s amazing how some key topics keep coming up again and again. it’s like there comes a point where collective knowledge just compounds and evidence piles up to support some key ideas. Here are a few things that I have been hearing repeatedly, which all suggest ways to live a long and healthy life. (Not in any order of priority.)

1. Eat more protein. We don’t tend to eat enough, and we tend to eat less as we grow older, but protein is important for both muscle and brain health.

2. Do cardiovascular exercise regularly. At least 5 days a week for the rest of your life. Don’t like to run? Then don’t run! Find something you like to do, spend a minimum of 20 minutes doing it. It doesn’t matter if you like intense cardio, or if you prefer low intensity, what matters is staying active and getting your heart rate up. It’s also important for burning calories, especially if you like food a bit too much.

3. At least once a week get your heart rate up to about 80% of your maximum. This can be done in bursts, like sprinting for 2-3 minutes then slowing down for 2-3 minutes and repeating a few times, or just pushing yourself with a consistently faster pace, or maybe walking on an incline on a treadmill. One thing that really matters for healthy longevity is your maximum VO2 (the max amount of oxygen your body can absorb during exercise). This is maintained and improved primarily by pushing your body past this 80% mark.

4. Do some sort of strength training 2-3 times a week. Constantly remind yourself body that it is not yet in a period of decline. Remind your body that it is a muscle builder. Do this by pushing at least one muscle group completely to fatigue.

5. Take creatine and vitamin D. I’m not a doctor, and you should seek medical advice for supplements, but these are two supplements I feel safe to recommend because they both have tremendous upside and are extensively researched with no downside unless you are an idiot and take extreme doses. Creatine really helps with muscle soreness and seems to have many other upsides too, including for menopausal women. This is not the ‘bodybuilding guy’s supplement’ people think it is, but one everyone can benefit from. Vitamin D is both a vitamin and a hormone used by your immune system. And unless you live in a tropical climate, 90+ percent of the population is low in vitamin D, or at the very most not at the highest levels recommended by health experts.

6. Reduce sugar intake. Our bodies crave sugar. An interesting thing that I heard recently is that this might be something ingrained in us from our monkey heritage. Fruit goes bad, and so when fruit ripens, it’s important to get a lot of it before the fruit rots. Therefore when our ancient ancestors had access to sugars, our bodies made sure to crave more while the supply lasted. Whether that’s true or not, we currently have convenient and continuous access to too much sugar and our cravings for it are unhealthy. I’ll leave you with a simple public service announcement: processed sugars are food for cancer.

7. Stretching and balance are important. It’s not enough to do the same exercise 5 days a week and not work on your overall flexibility and balance. Falls are more common as you get older, and stiff joints don’t help. Breaking a hip vastly shortens life expectancy. Keep nimble, and do things that challenge both flexibility and balance.

8. Self image is important. If you see yourself as someone who exercises regularly, you don’t have to work to get a workout in. To build a habit of good habits, create identity based habits. I am a person who works out regularly. I stretch as part of my routine. I make healthy eating choices. I enjoy doing things that keep me young.

9. Meditate. Find time for gratitude and awareness. Find time to focus on your breathing.

10. This one hasn’t been in on the health podcasts, but it’s a great place to end: Seek laughter. Find joy. Spend quality time with friends and family. Explore new ideas, and keep learning. If you are not finding ways to appreciate the life you have, you aren’t adding value to the life you are trying to extend.

Fear to share

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I’m pretty honest when I write here. I have written about challenges with my headspace, about how hard it can be to write every day, and when things haven’t necessarily gone well for me. I’ve even ranted a few times about things that drive me nuts. But if you were to look back at my 1,600+ blog posts since I started writing daily, I think you’d see that I’m a pretty positive person.

And still I find myself struggling to share that today was a crummy day for me. Nothing bad happened, I didn’t get any bad news, I just had a crappy, unhappy day. I was in a funk and I couldn’t get out of it.

I recognized it enough to ask a friend to connect with me after work, and he gave me some good advice. So I stayed off my phone other than listening to a podcast in my hot tub. And I’m in bed at 9pm writing this so that I can set it to publish in the morning and sleep in a little later.

It bugs me that I wanted to hide this melancholy feeling and pretend that everything is ok. I am thinking about the problem with the happy lives of Instagramers, who put only the happiest, most perfectly posed photos on their stories, and who hide every blemish, ever disappointment, and every mundane experience or feeling. I don’t want to replicate that. I think it’s ok to say, ‘today sucked, I’m not feeling like I’m in a good place,’ without making people worry about me, or question my happiness at work or at home.

We stigmatize sharing mental health challenges and simultaneously glorify our best lives on social media. No one wants to be seen as ‘broken’. So a simple bad day gets tucked away. And a selfie with a pet and a smile goes online.

Today was not a good day. I’m privileged enough to be able to say that because I have 1,600 other things I’ve written that normalize me and don’t make me look fragile or weak. But how many people hide it? How many smiling Facebook and Instagram posts are masks hiding darker, unshared feelings? How many people would benefit from sharing but don’t have a friend or partner to rely on, or a space to share their feelings and feel safe rather than vulnerable and exposed.

Tomorrow will be a better day for me, I know this already. I’m lucky, I have good coping mechanisms figured out and I’m told by many I have an ‘even keeled’ disposition. Those who know me aren’t going to be concerned about what I’ve written.

But what about those who aren’t ok? Who don’t have good coping strategies, and who have a fear to share? How hard is it for them to see the happy, smiling social media posts, oblivious that some of those posts mask the same feelings they have?

Not everyone is as fortunate as me to be able to share a crappy day and not feel judged.

Uncertainty and doubt

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I had a dream last night. In it someone I care about was asking my why I even bother writing my daily blog? She called it boring and a waste of time. In all honesty, this being said in my dream bugged me more than if the person in my dream actually said it in person. It bothered me because I am the author of my dreams, not the people I see in them.

So essentially I was casting doubt on myself. That’s harsh.

Why bother? Why make the effort? Who do I think I am, that anyone would care to read what I have to say? These are the internal voices of uncertainty and doubt. These are questions that tear me down rather than build me up.

These are the pangs that prevent people from sharing their ideas, their writing, their art, their creative expression, and even their love.

“I’m not good enough.”

“Other people are so much better.”

“I’m not creative enough.”

“I have nothing of value to say.”

It’s easier to silence the naysayers than it is to silence your own inner voice. I can handle all kinds of feedback. I can learn from the harshest of criticism. A perfect example is an angry, yelling coach never upset me, I just took the feedback.

But that inside voice… that nagging self-doubt, that self-uncertainty, that is something I do not always battle well with. It holds me back. It keeps me from speaking up, from stepping up, from confidently sharing my thoughts and opinions.

Why is it that the internal battles we face are so much harder than the outside ones?

What helps me is consistency. It’s developing habits where I can push through the uncertainty and doubt. It’s creating small accomplishments that lead me to successful outcomes. No, I’m not going to be the athlete I was in my 20’s ever again… but I’m fitter now than I ever was in my 30’s and 40’s, and I suffer less back pain than I did in my 20’s. Oh, and no one workout got me where I am today.

In fact it wasn’t the good workouts that got me here, it was the days that I didn’t want to work out, the times I had to talk myself into just going through the motions that made me get to this point. I’m floundering a bit right now with working out, but I still get my butt on my stationary bike or treadmill every day. I still don’t let myself miss 2 days in a row, and rarely let myself miss 3 days in a week.

Some days I might hit the publish button on my blog and think ‘that’s not a great post’. But I still hit the button, I still make the effort. I still read over my work and try to edit it. And I still get mad at myself when I see a typo or wrong word published. The same critic that tries to stop me can also be my friend. It doesn’t just shut me down, it adds an element of high expectations towards all my final work.

And that’s why my dream this morning hurt me a bit. It was my inner voice being a gremlin, trying to find fault with myself, my work, my creativity. Uncertainty and doubt are not usually our friends, they are the bedfellows of procrastination and excuses. They are the enemies of confidence and productivity. And while they may lay dormant for a while, they can creep up on us when we least expect it. Like in our dreams…

But I’m awake now. It’s time to hit the publish button. It’s time to get on the treadmill. There is work to be done and I’ll just tuck the uncertainty and doubt away.

Greater choice

In a conversation with a friend today we were talking about healing and therapy. We came to the conclusion that if therapy prescribes a specific outcome then it’s probably unhealthy and unsustainable. But if it empowers you with more choice, and if it provides you with new and better choices, and better still, if it creates the conditions that make it easier for you to choose better choices… well then that’s good therapy.

Empowered choice is where healing really begins.

Waking state

There are different levels of awakeness. Yes, I know that’s not a word, but it should be. Perhaps I should just say awareness but I’m thinking of something a little different. Awareness suggests choice, a choosing of how aware we are. Awakeness is a level of consciousness, a state rather than a choice.

There are days we are barely awake. We go through the motions of the day, oblivious and blissfully unaware of our existence beyond the trivial requirements placed on us by society: good family member, good employee… in a body than needs food and liquid substance.

There are times when we are a little more awake, and we see beauty and feel love. We recognize the value of the life we live.

And then there are moments of being fully awake. They are the rare moments when we understand that we are part of a living earth, we are beings conscious of our own existence and of the existence of the universe. We are all at once beings of purpose and yet insignificant in the cosmos: Everything and nothing.

Are we aware of how awake we are? How often do we spend at these different levels of awakeness? Should we be spending a bit more time a little more awake? What can we do to stay more awake more often?