It’s a Process!
Today I caught myself looking in the mirror again…
All I could think was: “Are my arms bigger yet? Is the program working? Why can’t this go quicker? What am I doing wrong?”
After a few minutes, I gathered my thoughts, forced myself to suppress my ego, and quickly reminded myself that in that brief moment of self observance and anger, I had been consumed by a goal oriented outlook. This is bad. It may not sound so bad at first, having a goal oriented mindset, but when you think about the phrase “goal oriented” and compare it with other focuses it actually becomes clear why it is bad. You see, I do not want to orient my mind around goals, I want to orient my mind around the way that I will get to those goals - that is a big difference, isn’t it? A goal may be to have big biceps, thus for validation I may look in the mirror, but to my disappointment they are not big yet, even though I hit biceps for 18 sets the day before. Yet, holding all variables constant aside from the context (focus) those same smalls arms become massively motivating. Why? The reason is because when I look at small arms with a process oriented mindset I am not comparing myself to my desired outcome - that is like comparing yourself to others, which is just silly. I am actually not comparing at all. Rather, you are observing what the process has yielded up until that point, and you are considering what must change about the process in order for you to reach your goal. The process is the game, and once you learn how to play it you are alright with losing little battles, because the war has already been won.
In his book Atomic Habits, James Clear states that “Process oriented thinking is long-term thinking”. That is the point that I am trying to make. If you are unhappy with your appearance, do not compare yourself to what you wish to be, but actually consider what processes you may have to begin and develop so that you can reap certain rewards later on. If you are not committed to the process of losing weight and staying skinny, then your work will inevitably fall off, and you will regain the pounds. You have to imbed the notion of what you want so deeply into your lifestyle that it becomes a piece of your identity, a process of being. Once you have committed to the process, and actually identified with being skinny, you will then look in the mirror and not recognize yourself. You will be the same overweight you on the outside, but on the inside you cannot recognize yourself because you have committed to health and the process. Once you cannot recognize the self of you that you want change, then you have begun the process. Say to yourself “I am a fit person, that goes to the gym three times per week, I track all of my calories daily (burned and consumed) so that I know that I am in a caloric deficit and burning fat, I am also a runner and I only eat junk food on the weekends”. Once you have identified with this, you will be surprised at how much easier it is for you to actually live like this.
It is absolutely crucial, though, that you asses your surroundings as they are now and identify sources of comfort and habit. These are going to be your enemies as you build new habits because they will be a vestige of your old self that you want to improve, your old habits, calling on you waiting for you to fail and return. DO NOT DO THAT, because this is the stage of building yourself where you have to embrace the suck. (I have a whole article about why it is important to embrace the suck, and how to do it, in the ‘Writing’ tab) If you get past the suck, you will be a new person. Guaranteed. No doubt in my mind.
I have done this myself, and I cannot even begin to describe the level of freedom, power, agency, and pride that one feels as they look in the mirror and recognize the version of themselves that they have always wanted to be!
Think long-term. Like…very long-term. I am talking 30, 40, 50, years in advanced. This is the kind of thinking that puts your current situation into perspective and makes you realize that your entire reality as it exits is only one of many that you will encounter in your life time, and that you have the agency to write a chapter in your story.
In order to write your own story though, you must be willing to accept the process. Trust the process. Trust the Progress.
PS: (I will write another blog post about how to manipulate your surroundings to actually create an entirely new set of habits, basically allowing you to build your own life, from the ground up!!)
Luv,
Neo
