goals for 2024

I'm going for it!

Clarity In Climbing

How do we know we are climbing the right hill?

Me

There are countless articles, ads, videos, blogs / social media posts about doing all this cool stuff in the world; running a marathon, earning a million dollars, getting a six-pack, writing a book, owning your own business, earning passive income in ‘x’ amount of days. I've clicked on enough click-bait articles to know this first hand, they are so easy to find and they’re everywhere!

If you've been down these rabbit holes before (like I have), you'll know it takes some filtering to find reputable content, but once you find them, you'll now know all the information you'll ever need, but no matter what you pick, you'll soon find out: knowing what to do is the easy part. Doing the work is hard, doing the work and being patient while you see no results for years is super hard. No matter what hill you’re climbing, they all seem incredibly steep, with no end in sight, and the path won't be recognizable until it's under your feet. So, how do we know we’re climbing the right hill? What if all of our time is wasted in our pursuit? Will we just have to start again from scratch?

Don't worry, I've been here many times before. I know from experience if we keep changing hills everytime we feel uncertain, we'll never reach any great height, nevermind reaching the top, but you will get really good at quiting when things get hard!

Let me ask you this: What do people do when they feel like they are playing a zero sum game? … they complain. Have you ever noticed how often people complain? A lot right? This might open your eyes to the kind of people you spend your time with.

So what's the solution here? Well, in my humble opinion, the only thing that makes sense to me which inspires me to keep climbing is:

  • Read the articles which interest you, and if you hear a seemingly good idea, test it yourself.
  • Treat information from ‘experts’ with some skeptism.
  • Track your progress to remind yourself of your progress (you'll forget and get discouraged otherwise).
  • Share your process out loud on social media (to find like-minded friends to lean on)
  • Don't quit, there are too many people in the world quitting on their dreams.
More on this last point. And this is just me here but I'd rather be known as someone who managed to reach their dream at age 60, than give up at age 30, and never have a chance because I'm a “realist.” Consider this: Think about having a problem for 30 years, do you think you have enough time to solve it!?

Patience is the game here, you don't have to solve your problem straight away, you have time, just keep climbing. As you go through different seasons in your life, you'll be able to move quicker in some seasons compared to others. Your environment plays a huge factor in operating at your best. A good friend of mine once explained this idea in a metaphor which has stuck with me for years, he said, “It's as if you want to fly a kite all the time because it makes you feel amazing, you're also very good at it. There's nothing wrong with doing what you love and you shouldn't feel bad for wanting to fly your kite all the time. But please be careful, sometimes you don't realize you're standing under powerlines.”


Shame

The memorable teacher

Me

The process of getting my head out of the clouds was something my mother was always interested in, but it was clear to me I was in no rush. Throughout my 20’s I was able to build strong friendships in different groups; surfing groups, skateboards friends, bar buddies, band mates, roommates, video gamers, work colleagues. But despite having groups of friends I could always hangout with, I was always more comfortable hanging out with my bad self, alone.

The events shaping me in my 20’s were usually birthed from particularly negative experiences, being in new situations, not knowing what I was doing, and definitely not being comfortable. For instance: I learned partying on my credit card until I couldn't afford rent anymore, was a bad idea. Yep, I actually did that, it’s amazing what loneliness can do to someone. Needless to say, this resulted in moving back home in with my mum and cost me two close friendships with my roommates.

In this scenario, it wasn't the friendship pulling me out of my head and into reality. It was a painful feeling of regret, stupidity, and 6 months at my mum's house paying back my debt, teaching me the consequences of my actions. The sooner I learned lessons like these, it forces my head out of the clouds (or my ass) and back into reality the sooner.

I wanted to make the distinction who's responsibilty it is to learn a lessons like these. It isn't your friend group, partner, or family. You learn these lessons in the low points in your life, there's nothing sexy about it. Through experiences like this I have been able move forward and not make this mistake again.

The dream world I once gravitated towards to make life more palatable with my head in the clouds did not serve me in the long run. I had to learn this the hard way but hopefully you don't have to.


More To Say

100 posts on twitter has got me going

Me

I'm a 37 Aussie living in NYC. I have many interests which leaves me always in a steady flow of trying to push forward and move the needle in some aspect of my life.

The feeling of being endlessly fascinated with the many pursuits I have can leave me feeling overwhelmed, but never bored. This disposition of balancing of plates between music, cooking, coding, learning Russian, and fitness keeps my attention. I still have another obsession that is keeping focused on managing my passions in a somewhat OCD manner. Yep, If you haven't noticed the graphs at the top of the pages, I am now logging a simple spreadsheet of all my passions to understand in more detail where my focus is for now, how do I feel about it, where would I prefer to manage my time in the effort to help me keep track of my position and help me course correct.

I'm aware there are arguments for a lack of focus in this approach which is fair to make. I'm actually stress testing this very thought out for myself. My aim is to collect the data for myself, to find out what suits me best. Why?
Many reasons:

  • More enjoyable
  • To satisfy my curious nature
  • Accountability to myself
  • Know by doing, rather than do by someone else telling me to
  • Life is long, we have plenty of time to work on everything we want to.
And remember, I'm a nobody, I could be totally wrong here, but either way, I'm curious to find out, and I'll enjoy the process regardless. I'll let you know how I go 👍😊 Sending my love to all the people like me who are finding their passions and wanting to be better than yesterday, making their mark in the world.


Would a course help you?

Let me know and I'll send one your way!

Wanting And Needing Reality

When my own world crumbles and I crave a real one

Me

When I was young; the world was scary, there was so much I didn't know. It made me want to live in my own little world where it was safer and made more sense to me. I remember being so unhappy in my early 20’s and feeling unsure of what my path ‘should be’.

This feeling of overwhelm left me feeling helpless, it was awful. I knew this was strange for others to see, my mum gently reminded me I was living in the clouds; to which I said, “What's so good about the reality?”

Now I'm older; the world is still scary, but I’ve now been living 15 years longer. Life has taught me I can look at problems and try and to solve them, but there is no expectation on me to have it “all figured out”. As humans we grow, change, and adapt. Certain things we are once fixated on can simply fall away like sand through finger tips. That's reality.

We can live and learn, chosing the problems we want to solve and living our best life with the hands we were dealt. So the question remains: “what’s so good about reality?

Well, we share that same place with the people who chose to live in it. We have reality in common. We can only learn how to navigate it better if we can admit we are here in the first place. Better still: if I solve a problem I’ve been working on for years and show it to the three people who live in my little world, I've helped three people. But if I solve a problem in the real world, I've not only helped a lot more people, I've made ‘reality’ a little easier to bare for the rest of us.


Serenity

Can we find it from within?

Me

A sunset on the horizon, a large body of water, a view from a height. Seeing something beautiful like this allows our body to relax and all of a sudden, we are in no rush to be anywhere. My question is: can we experience this same feeling without travelling to these beautiful locations? Can we simply close our eyes and try to imagine these views while receiving all the benefits?

Apparently, after a little research, this is considered a very common meditation practice called ‘guided imagery’ or ‘visualization’ Who knew!?

I've been reading though a few methods to practice and I’ve summarised a practice which may help you if you would like to try it. I've never actually meditated before so it will be new to both of us. We can try it together.

Follow these 7 steps below:

  1. Choose a time, find a quiet space, and set a timer for 5-10 minutes. After you're comfortable, gradually increase the duration.
  2. Relax your body, by sitting or lying down in a comfortable position. Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths to relax.
  3. Create your scene, picture a peaceful, beautiful scene in your mind; a sunset, a mountaintop view, any place which brings you to a calm state.
  4. Engage your senses. Try to involve all your senses in the visualization. Imagine the colors, sounds, smells, and even the feeling of the breeze or the warmth of the sun. Pay attention to the details of the scene. The more vivid and detailed your imagination, the more immersive and relaxing the experience.
  5. Stay Present. If your mind wanders, gently bring your focus back to your imagined scene.
  6. End Gently. When your timer goes off, take a few moments to slowly transition back. Open your eyes, take a deep breath, and stretch if needed.
  7. Making this a daily habit will result in a more effective practice.
It’s mportant to know how this benefits us. But please don't think you can try a handful of 15 minute sessions and experience all the benefits listed below. This is a daily practice and needs to be given a proper run at it to see some real benefits. I would love to know what benefits you experience out of the list below.

Benefits include:
  • Reduced stress and anxiety
  • Improved mood
  • Enhanced relaxation
  • Increased focus and concentration
  • Better emotional regulation
  • Enhanced creativity
  • Improved physical health such as a stronger immune system and reduced symptoms of chronic conditions
  • Greater self-awareness. This practice can increase mindfulness and self-awareness, helping you to better understand your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors
  • Improved sleep. Regular relaxation practices can lead to better sleep patterns and overall sleep quality
  • Increased resilience


How do you recharge?

5 ideas to helpl you find the energy you need

Me

My Colleagues said, “Have a great weekend and be sure to come back recharged.” While this is a sweet idea, coming from the best of intentions, it poses a somewhat faulty expectation that I know how to recharge. This unfair expectation leads me to the chasm between the idea and the execution; simple to understand, but hard to do.

So, with my best efforts, I have some ideas to help recharge:

  1. Low energy activity; a walk, watching a show you enjoy, talking to a friend.
    2. Usually, if something zaps me of energy, I immediately think of something ‘low energy’ where I can be do something simple to recover, giving my brain ‘a break’; going for a walk, watching a show, giving me some space and a mild distraction from what I am doing, allowing some time to process.

  2. Do something you're passionate about: hobby/activity.
    3. This is counterintuitive to my last point. This approach should provide some new found energy, amping you up to launch back into what you need to get back to. Rather than being static, this approach may still require mental or physical energy from you. The act of doing something you enjoy, filling you with satisfaction, spending time with your passions in life, should boost your mood in more ways than you may not even be aware of.

    An added bonus will be finding out which of your passions boost your mood more than others. Testing this regularly will tell you what kind of season you will be looking at. You'll find some passions will fuel you more than others, but just go with it. You’ll want to find the energy wherever you can get it.

  3. Write out what's bothering you.
    4. The act of putting your feelings on paper can be therapeutic. I heard a friend once say, “Write out your problems so you can get on top of your problems.” It's a simple idea but very useful.

    I also find that writing down something I remember can bring clarity on how I ‘actually feel’. For example; I used to play music professionally and I got to the point where is was bitter at the music industry and the way it sets musicians up to fail. After writing about it for a bit, I realised, instead of being bitter, I was greatful for all the amazing experiences I had. Writing about it totally changed my perspective on my own life.

  4. Go to the gym.
    5. The best way to get out of your head is focus on your body. Thinking about things and roominating about your day or your week is really hard to do when you're trying to lift your chin above a bar with your whole body weight.

    Looking after that ‘meat bag’ of yours is not an option for you, it's a requirement. You only get one body, and if you don't look after it, it's really hard to focus on helping anyone else, when you're not looking after yourself.

  5. Remind yourself of a time you were totally relaxed.
    6. This helps me get perspective when I'm stressed. If I look at myself in a picture when I'm in shorts, on a beach, sipping a cocktail, without a worry in the world. It tells me; it's only a matter of time before I can enjoy a relaxing holiday again, the stressful feeling I have now will pass, without a stressful job, I won't be able to go on holidays in the first place.
Hopefully this helps you recharge on your next long weekend. Look after yourself as best you can, no one else will.


Self-help

Woo woo' or a genuine drive to be better

Me

Being into 'self-help' is tricky. It's hard to tell your friends or family without them rolling their eyes or giving you that side-eyed look. I've found the best way to tell people you're into self-help is not use words. Use action. Tweek your habits and lifestyle to serve you better, look at the details and make 1% adjustments each week. Soon you'll be showing your love ones an improved version of you without mentioning who you're influenced by. For anyone who is struggling to dive in and give self-help a shot. I've listed 5 reasons why I've followed this content for close to a decade now, and I'm not slowing down any time soon.

  1. Awareness.
    2. I like keeping an eye on any seed of an idea I can implement in my own life and asking can I use this? More often than I'd like, I feel like I know less and less about living the good life, and quickly turn to others to hear they have to say.
  2. Perspective.
    3. I love hearing the interesting lives people live throughout the world. It broadens my view of what is possible. I'm fascinated in how high-performers think differently; reframing ideas to guide them down a better path.
  3. Common traits.
    4. The common through-line for most high performers I've noticed so far are:
    • A morning workout to start the day
    • The daily practice of writing
    • The ability to communicate clearly and think critically.
    • Executing at a large scale when others can't or won't.
    • The thirst for knowledge never stops. Always reading, and always learning.
  4. The craft.
    5. Repetition doesn't mean you'll always get better. Practice doesn't make perfect; you can repeat bad habits and never get better. It's possible to drive a car for a living and be the worst driver in the country. So, if I'm able to be aware of better practices, it puts me in a better place to tweek my habits along the way.
  5. Accountability.
    6. Any high performer has a coach. If they think they are going to be in the game a long time. They invest in coaches to help them. Asking for help is a strength not a weakness. I found this discovery particularly enlightening and helpful in my life. Considering all these factors I find it such a shame there is such a barrier to entry for so many, and for anyone who finds this interesting, remember; you can start straight away, don't tell your friends about it, just show them a better you.


9 to 5

Are we demonizing this?

Me

Running away from your 9-5 job is exciting right? Just think of the moment you can tell your boss, “Thanks for everything, but my business earns double what you pay me.” Ahhh the sweet relief of learning how to never having to answer to anyone else.

This scenario is so easy to imagine. Why? Because it's unblemished by the reality awaiting you. Nevermind the pressure to keep earning enough revenue for expenses; rent, insurance, overheads, staff/wages, business tax, risk of being sued, lawyers, HR, hiring, and then there's that little thing called profit. Just keep imagining the day you can tell your boss you're better at business than they are, you deserve better, you can manage yourself, yeah! YEAH!

Ok so back to the real world.

All these things will play on our mind eventually as your own business scales, but what if you were just planning on doing things on your own? Like I am, I mean, it's sexy right?!

Surely it will cut out many of these problems like HR, hiring, staff/wages, and overheads, so that means, YOU are everything in your business. If that doesn't scare you a little, I don't think you’re taking this seriously enough. Try to imagine a day where you feel a little flat, maybe a bit emotional, you know you have 3 meetings with potential clients booked, you didn't sleep well last night, and you still need 3 good ideas for new marketing campaigns… oh yeah, and you are behind in rent. Are you still excited about being in it by yourself?

Now imagine there’s a world where you have a contract where you get paid by a trusted client which covers living expenses, holidays, sick days, contributes to your health cover and retirement fund but it only eats up, let's say: 40hours a week. You see where I'm going with this?

I'm in the school of showing yourself, you can blitz through work while building a brand for yourself without all the unnecessary pressure of trying to learn those hard lessons, the hard way.

Just think, If you can enjoy your life doing a 9-5 job, imagine how good your holidays will feel, and, if your holidays are paid for, why not do something for yourself in your holidays like, build your brand. It's a win win!!

I'm not sure why having a 9-5 is so demonized. It's should the training ground, sharpening your skills until your so effective, it's obvious to you, and others, you should do your own thing.


Are you ready for new gym goals?

Consistency over novelty

Me

In the beginning; you get your ass into the gym, count those reps, and get the hell out. 

We all get excited when we're setting any new goal and we're determind to get shit done. But after a while of being able to crush our goals, week in and week out, we set our sights on the next goal. During this time our imagination runs wild for all kinds of lofty goals. We start to imagine ourselves running Full marathons; without ever running a 5km. Triathlons; without owning a bike. We even start looking at a few local Crossfit gyms because we have proven to ourselves we can do something hard and good for us without someone telling us to do it. 

So before we go crazy and book our first marathon date, setting our sights on conquering the world. How about we optimize what we already have. What's that you might ask?! A solid gym routine. That's it! This IS the recipe for success. It sets you up for the biggest advantage in the future, mentally, physically, spiritually.

Consistency.

It’s the one thing everyone talks about and I'm glad they do. You'll notice, if you can be consistent in the gym, watch how few other people are consistent.  Forget about changing the world with your next goal and just make sure you hit the gym today, and if this isn't constructive enough for you, and you need something new to implement in your daily routine. Try this: Feel every rep. You want to feel like you've worked. You want to feel the struggle. Well, you asked for it. 

Try slowing down your tempo; pause in the hardest part of your rep, feel the control you gain from slowing down your movements, que that halftime bad-ass dupstep track and enjoy feeling like a superhero. Your body will thank you.

"You struggle; only to condition yourself to want to struggle." - Me


The Time Is Now

Getting out of your own way to fix what you need

Me

Had you put up with a problem for years, while taking 5 minutes to fix, AND it improves your quality of life?

Of course you have, we all have. It's human nature to act on priority rather than activity. We have 50 things we could do, sifting through the top 5 things, only to weigh up the consequence of what would happen if we didn't do them. If we know we can get away with something, I guess it looks like a cruisey day ahead, right?

Surely there’s a better way to operate. I've experienced this process to a point where my primal Aussie slang is screaming, “I've had a gut full!” for instance:

Door hinges. Yep, you read it right. Those tiny metal things holding up the door have been torturing my wife and I for over a year. It turns out; a squeaky bedroom door, coupled with the need to pee in the middle of the night had woken us both up consistently for over a year. You can guess this never made it to the top of our priority list.

Well, one day I woke up from my usual broken sleep and had the bright idea to grab some olive oil from the kitchen, wipe the hinges down, and wouldn't you believe it.. problem fixed!!

Why didn't we fix this earlier?

So from hinges to unhinged, it got me thinking. What if we spent one week every month, doing the things on the list whether they’re a priority or not. What would it look like?

Justing writing a list reading like verbal diarrhea, without priority, and getting to work:

  • Text a mate a poop emoji just for fun
  • Shave my face
  • Go to the gym
  • Do my taxes
  • Write my speech for work
  • Buy some oven cleaner
  • Plan a date night
Something like that, do you think it would help you? Or maybe we even make a to-do list of unimportant activities. What would that look like?
Anyway, may your hinges be silent, and your to-do lists be unimportant.


Reality

What's so good about it

Me

When I was young; the world was scary, there was so much I didn't know. It made me want to live in my own little world where it was safer and made more sense to me. I remember being so unhappy in my early 20’s and feeling unsure of what my path ‘should be’.

This feeling of overwhelm left me feeling helpless, it was awful. I knew this was strange for others to see, my mum gently reminded me I was living in the clouds; to which I said, “What's so good about the reality?”

Now I'm older; the world is still scary, but I’ve now been living 15+ years longer. Life has taught me I can look at problems and try and to solve them, but there is no expectation on me to have it “all figured out”. As humans we grow, change, and adapt. Certain things we are once fixated on can simply fall away like sand through finger tips. That's reality.

We can live and learn, chosing the problems we want to solve and living our best life with the hands we were dealt. So the question remains: “what’s so good about reality?

Well, we share that same place with the people who chose to live in it. We have reality in common. We can only learn how to navigate it better if we can admit we are here in the first place. Better still: if I solve a problem I’ve been working on for years and show it to the three people who live in my little world, I've helped three people. But if I solve a problem in the real world, I've not only helped a lot more people, I've made ‘reality’ a little easier to bare for the rest of us.


Pasta Tower

A tribute to Alex Hormozi's analogy

Me

This is attributes to an analogy one of my favorite entrepreneur explains which really made an impression on me recently.

It speaks to a strategy of building anything that matters to you in your life (Yes, it's a juicy one). The goal is whoever builds the pasta tower the highest, wins. Pretty simple right? Now, let's think about your life-span, it covers multiple decades. Most people struggle to plan for anything longer than a year. Imagine for a moment you were able to plan for the next 40 years of your life. Let's take it a step further and imagine you were able to stick to everything you had plannned. What does that look like for you in your life? does it serve your ideas of success and quality of life? are you able to adapt easily when plans don't make sense and break into a new subset of possibility which is just as rewarding. 

So how do I do that? I hear you ask: no idea. Also, did you expect you would get an answer from someone like me on a page such as this? hehe, anyway, let's try and unpack this.

The pasta analogy was explained as a parallel you can draw from to illustrate for many people who want to build something to a certain size. Making something a lot of people are able to make results in a crowded market and extremely competitive. Just look at most websites, many people have one of those now, but it doesn't mean anyone who has a website is a millionaire.

Alternatively, what if you were able to build something - not a pasta tower - 3-10 times as big?! Not only would you have less competition, the profits are much larger and you're ultimately playing a game you know you can win. BOOM! you are set up for life. It's as if your playing the lottery but you're in control. Who wouldn't want to play that game?? This train of thought leaves me with a question I will now pose to you. What can you build better than a lot of people you know? do that! Then, build it 10 times as big. This will be how you can build the highest pasta tower. It's time to win.


From Annoyance To Highlight

How you day can change in seconds

Me

Waking up to get to the gym is hard enough. Suffice to say. I didn't feel great about going to the gym; I felt gross, not well rested, my wife was cuddling me as if to say, "stay here with me." A previous version of me would have stayed in bed for sure. But not this me! 2024 Luke got out of bed, slipped into my gym clothes, plugged my ears with a fresh podcast with a bottle of water in hand, and got my lethargic bag of meat to the gym. There we have it, the battle for the day was won! at least that's what I thought.

I was met with what most people see on a Monday morning at the gym. Everyone had their dose of ‘Monday optimism,’ freshly washed and matching gym attire on, with their new found (but fleeting) motivation to crush the week and go to the gym. I know, what a nightmare. There was people in the gym.

I don't know about you, but I don't like a gym with tonnes of people, blaring club music, reminding me of my adolescent days of puking up my KFC dinner because I wanted to keep up my drinking prowess with my degenerate mates. No, I like a gym with no one in it so I can use whatever I want, and listen to whatever I want through my headphones. Imagine my disappointment when I found the gym in our building brimming with people. As I looked around the room and noticed everyone using the machines and equipment I would normally go to. I did what any self repecting gym novice would do. I left.

As I walked back to the elevator to head back to the apartment, I looked at the weather for the day on phone. I waited for the elevator to get to me and thought, “maybe I could go for a run, people do that all the time,” sometimes I do too. By the time the elevator opened it's doors, it was enough time to push the button to the ground floor to start running in beautiful 25°C weather. I was Immediately happy with my decision. As I was running around, I then found a pull-up bar started working on my personal best (10 pull ups in a row at the moment). In between each set I kept thinking, "wow, this is so great to be outside, why haven't I been doing this every week?!"

It goes to show: we are so good at creating our own prisons. We don't need to suffer unnecessarily when trying to do something good for ourselves. We have options to win the day. How are you going to win yours?


Learning the system

Understanding the business, not the job

Me

Know your role.' I'm sure you've heard this in a working environment. We know this concept places importance on getting good at one thing in the efforts to work as a team towards the common goal; you're not exactly going to see a soccer player playing a striker position, and suddenly start putting on some gloves becasue he feels like being a goal keeper. Similarly, you won't see a receptionist casually take a client out for a networking lunch. We can agree that in order to have structure in anything involving people working together, we need to know our role.

In the spirit of this idea, a business (or team) will operate the best when members are working in the same role for a decade so the machine to 'run like clock-work.' Everyone will stay out of everyone elses way, whilst executing in there role at break-neck speed. This is surely the answer to an efficent system.

In your experience, how often have you come across people who stay in the same job for 10 years and don't want to move anywhere else within a company?... not often huh. Yeah, I thought so.

I know for myself, if I owned a busniess, I would want it to run like clock-work, but I’d also want my employees to be happy with what they are doing, I would want to offer better positions for them to grow into and see them grow over the years professionally.

I know what your asking: can you have both? Well, what would entice you to stay at the same level in a job for a decade?

Maybe good money (100K a year), paid time off (5 weeks a year), a high level of job satisfaction, a fancy christmas party, flexibility to work remotely.. Anything else? How would you tackle training? Particularly, if you had the same role for 10 years, surely you wouldn't need to do much training. You'd know everything back-to-front and inside out. What if you learned about how to run a business? You're title might not change, but your training and learning would never stop. You'd learn how to operate a business from the ground up, growing, and scaling to suit your business. You'd have the security of attaining the skills to run your own business if you were ever fced with this opportunity and wanted to do it for yourself.

I argue there's so much more value in understanding the machine rather than the cog. I haven't heard many people talk about this concept much, but I think this would help with staff retention, job satisfaction, clearer understanding of your current role, whilst operating in one, and it acts as a vehilcle to teach us so much more than any one role could. Yep, I think there's real value in learning the machine.


Struggle Is What You Want

Craving a challenge

Me

Whether you’re into fitness, music, coding, or cooking, and you want to get better at it and see some progress, you’ll likely experience the same thing as me. I’ve been consistently hitting the gym for almost a year now and I'm blown away by how different it feels to workout compared to where I started.

In the beginning; I woke up 30 minutes earlier than I needed to, I’d slide out of bed and into some daggy clothes, zombie-walk down to the basement, lift some weights, count the reps, and get the hell out of there. Some would call this going through the motions, but I was using whatever I had in me to start the habit. What I wasn’t counting on was what happened next.

I’d continue to get up each morning for months to hit the gym, only to feel this lack of satisfaction. I would get to the end of my workout, and be ready to fall back asleep. It was such a strange feeling. On the plus side, all these positive things were happening; the excitement for the gym session the night before, seeing the weight go up each week, and seeing the body weight and waistline come down as I tracked my progress in what I affectionately call my ‘serial killer spreadsheet.’ For some reason, it wasn’t enough. Yep, I said it. Everything I wanted to accomplish was happening. I was seeing progress, and yet: I wanted to feel more of a struggle.

This realization scares me, as it leads itself down some dark roads. Why do I want to make things harder when they don’t need to be? Just because I wasn’t feeling a certain way, I wasn’t happy with the result, even though, the result was progress. So where do we go from here? Is this something baked into my psychology? Am I doomed forever? Or does going to the gym specifically strengthen this particular ‘mental muscle’ to want to make things harder, finding more challenges as we exercise for longer periods?

I struggled in the beginning to get to a point where it became automatic, only to find myself conditioned to the stage now where I want to struggle again.

Where does this lead me if I keep going down this track? Is it inevitable I will end up a jacked dude who won’t ever feel jacked enough? Is it possible to feel like I’ve done enough in the gym? does this translate to other things in my life? when will it end?!

*sigh*

Welcome to my brain.


Create More

The power of an artist

Me

I don't think we celebrate the idea of those inbetween stages enough. I would love to live in a world where an aspiring artist signals you are infact heading in a noble direction and it was celebrated. We are more likely to imagine a disheveled person ‘pedalling their wears’ next to a homeless guy. I may also want to live in this ideal world from a bias view as this is where I am at the moment. An aspiring artist, aspiring writer/thinker, aspiring performer, aspiring lifestyle entreprenuer, aspiring fitness guy and working IT professional. Yeah, I may want to rethink how to word that, but the direction feels right. Anyway. Artists!

Most of my friends are musicians. I seem to collect people who are creative in some way and work professionally in their field in some capacity to keep their love alive, as do I. As I think about this group of friends, I wouldn't say they are artists. In my mind, musicians can be technicians; performers, teachers, practicioners, clinicians, scholars, artists, and a mix of all of the above.

Being an artist is interesting to me. It holds two extremes of the intrinsically gifted, to the more well known struggling lifestyle choice. For the most part, it's not exactly glamorous to be an artist. It's easier to imagine someone unkempt, disheveled, and slightly detached from reality, than a genius who can capture a life altering feeling or idea in a truely unique way. Until an artist creates something which captures the world and importalizes them forever, they can just keep selling artwork on the street next to the homeless guy.

Painfully, there are a lot of parallels between this idea and what I experienced working as a musician for years, and beyond that, there aren't a lot of sexy examples of artists in the world today. I guess musicians are more commonally referred to as artists than in other fields - depending on your circle of friends and if you're living in a western culture like myself - Let’s face it, hyperthetically, if you were a parent and your child said they wanted to be an artist, tell me you wouldn't try to talk them out of it, because most of us flash forward in a practical sense and think of how they will pay their bills. It's a negative outlook, but also realistic right?

What I'm more interested in exploring is the power an artist can weild. If an actor has a performance in a movie which is celebrated by the world, the actor would be described as ‘an artist.’ If an athlete displays a feet of mastery, they are considered ‘an artist.’ Artists can be celebrated for centuries in musuems around the world. If a musician writes a song which is their own, they are considered ‘an artists.’ If an artist creates something beautiful and no one else finds it, they are still an artist, they just have a poor marketing plan. But if they are exceptional at something and the masses know about them, artisits can start movements, change cultures, and inspire artistry for others.

In saying all this, I hope to take another thoughtful look at the ‘aspiring artist’ camp to posit the idea: positioning oneself to be more likely to change culture, start movements, etc, surely has to be worth more than never trying. I vote there is value in creating more of what love to do, getting good at it, seeing what you're made of, actually going for it, and even if you fall short and you're not a artist, you're in a better position than looking at the world of have's and have-nots. I’d rather be an aspiring artist than never trying, even with all the negative connotations I've mentioned. Shoot for the moon and stuff you know! Anyway, you get the gist. I'm going to stop talking now.


Useful Complaining

Is this a thing?

Me

My mother always used to say, “if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all.” It also made sense why my mother was always so quiet around family occasions, but that's a story for another time.

I recently caught up with some old friends who would tell us all these stories about why something was shit, or it didn't work out for them. They would then nervously laugh after their story to signal they were forcing this experience into something they now find funny, as if to say they have perspective on the situation. I began to think they were having a bad time lately and wanted to be a good friend and hear them out. Over the next few days, no matter what experience we had, there was always something crappy they wanted to point out and then forcefully laugh about it, as if it was helpful or some version of an undercooked comedic bit. This wore thin with me pretty quickly. I kept trying to understand what was so fascinating with calling things out which aren't as they should be. Were they surprised things weren't perfect? Were they trying to display to us they were observant? Were they intrinsically negative people and it was just oozing out of their mouth? It almost fascinated me, but ya know, didn't (for obvious reasons).

Who knows, maybe I'm missing the point. Maybe they were just being real; we were on holiday, and they weren't having a great time. They were sharing what they were experiencing expecting us to agree, only: we were having a great time. Being reminded of every little thing which didn't measure up to their standards wasn’t ruining our day, but it wasn't making it better.

I understand the need to vent with the people you trust, but if all of your stories end with a criticizism of what you've experienced, no one benefits.

While I try to learn something from our friends behaviour. I don't yet see the benefit in them acting the way they did. The question still remains: is complaining useful?


Good Not Known

All steak, no sizzle

Me

I've never understood the fascination with wanting to be famous. If you’re not good at something useful to begin with, why would you want to be famous? Sure, there's the assumption you will be rich and have endless opportunity at every waking second. But that's not what I'm talking about here. Let me explain.

I think if you ask most people, they want their 5 minutes of fame. Being famous is alikened to winning the lottery. I guess there is the assumption being famous allows you to be invited to the parties of the top 1%, entries to the VVIP rooms, names on lists, and offers to opportunites which very few people get. Sure, there is that. That souns kinda great. But there is something else to consider here, like; walking into a cafe, ordering a coffee and enjoying not being interrupted by anything (other than the waiter). What about that?? are you sold yet?? ok, one more thing.

Imagine a scenario where everyone knows your name, you are often stopped to take photos with strangers, they assume you are rich in cash and opportunity. But the truth is: you're rich in stardom, but not in cash. Yes, that exists too. Imagine you can't get a ‘real job’ as your celebrity persona over shadows anything you try to do, there's an expectation for you to attend the parties, donate to charities, but you know you can't. Does that sound like fun to you?

For some reason, this picture of a ‘D grade celebrity' scenario is what I think of when it comes to ‘fame'. I'm sure this is not what comes to mind for most, but I find it useful. It forces me to make sure I prove to myself I have something to offer the world in a tangable sense. Meaning: I want to make sure I'm uselful to myself and others; skills, talents. Afterall, we live in a world where Gold medal olympians are forced to find ‘normal jobs’ to pay the bills, and entertaining the thought of selling their gold medal to help set up their life a little. The sad thing is, this is more common than you might think. One story comes to mind of a gold medalist in Greco-Roman wrestling ended up working as a ‘greeter’ at a sporting goods store. Yeeesh!

My preference is to try to move towards being good rather than being known. Which poses the question, what do you we need to be good at to be useful? In the case of the olympian, if you spend 10 years learning how to jump the highest in the world, you may not be suited to be a managing partner at a law firm.

Now, I’m not going to pretend like I have all the answers here, rattle off a list of skills I think everyone needs to be good at, making sure they are heading down the path with the most options. At this point I'd rather point back to the school days. What were the classics? Reading, writing, arithmetic? That sounds fair right? Now think about the average adult. Are they doing these things often? and If they are, are they any good at it? Remember; you can drive for a living, but still be the worst driver in the country. So it just might be time to sharpen up that pencil of yours and try to get good. What are you reading? What are you writing? How's your simple math skills?

Are you getting good?


The Data Is There

Are ypu paying attention?

Me

It's very easy for us to react to things happening in our lives. We save some money to travel. We find some food because we are hungry. We go to the doctor when we don't feel well. There is a reason for doing what we are doing and it requires no brain power to find a solution to the problem.

Now if we look at a similar prolem like: feeling tired. Usually we end up crashing on the couch to solve the problem. The idea being: we are needing to take a mental and physical break in order to feel refreshed. Perfrectly logical so far right? My next question is, how long do we do normally park our ass on the couch for?

I grew up in a household where my parents would work their 8 hours, they come home, make dinner, then sit infront of the T.V. for the rest of the night. That's an average of 2 hours per night, 5 days a week. Then we have the weekend. Surely after working 40 hours a week buys us some time to watch some T.V. on the weekend, so let's double it on the weekends. That's a total of 18 hours of T.V. at a minimum! That’s a lot of rest!

This little snapshot is common. It indicates something which seems logical, but our reaction is illogical. Surely we don't need to waste a whole day (nearly) every week to recover from something so mundane like work. There are many ways to recover from work, but for some reason, it's so easy to go back to what we know, assume the position, and let the binge begin! If you're looking for ways to recover without wasting so much time. Here’s some simple ideas you can try, all of which I've tried and tested:

  • Limit your T.V./YouTube time
  • Something active: Hit the gym, a walk, kick a soccer ball around.
  • 15 minutes minimum of doing a hobby of yours
  • Journal
If you manage to try just limiting your T.V. time to one show or an hour, try to pay attention to how you feel after that hour. Ask yourself, “do you feel rested?” if you don’t feel rested, it's not working, and trying another hour will not work either. Trust me. The concept of doing less to feel rested makes sense. But doing things can give you energy. It comes back to a logical reasoning with what seems like an illogical answer. Try something for me; next time you find yourself crashing on the couch, give yourself a time limit. Once that time limit is up, pay attention to how you feel, the data is helpful, take note of what ‘resting’ did for you, because no one can afford to waste so much time resting.


What Does The Data Say?

Facts over feelings

Me

If you're anything like me, you're into self-help content and you are constantly looking for ways improve your quality of life. With any progress being made in any field of discipline, tracking your progress is vital, and with tracking progress, we need to remember your memory is the enemy. Your memory will often sour any progress you make by injecting you with feelings of self doubt, making it harder to show up again the next day to do the good work, ah the human condition strikes again.

Let's say you're trying to do better at fitness. You go to the gym, lift heavy things, track your progress, and leave. You do this every day for 30 days and after the two weeks you realize your routine isn't challenging you like it did the first week, so you add and extra rep to each exercise. You've now reached the end of the 30 days, you don't feel like your routine has challenged you in the way you had hoped, and you don't feel any different. That! It's that right there! The data is telling us you've made progress in your fitness, yet because you don't ‘feel’ challenged enough, you may even stop working on your fitness. The data however is telling you, you've made progress, you can see it because you're tracking it, you know you've done it, and yet, you're going to quit?!

The data is much more important than your feelings.

This is not to say you should dismiss your feelings entirely. It just means there might be something else in your life which may be contributing to this feeling of limp motivation, and you may want to dig deeper to see what that could be. In my experience, we can never solve this problem forever, but learning to be friends with it is helpful for the next time it comes around.

Do me a favor, if you are trending up and to the right in your pursuit, take a minute to celebrate, buy yourself a coffee, reflect on what is going well for you, and try to exercise that gratitude muscle. You've managed to do the hard part: creating the momentum. Remember your feelings are based in memory, not fact, what you feel is valid but not gospel, look at the data again and get back to work.


An Ocean Of Calm

It's not just you who gains perspective from the ocean

Me

In my 20's I regularly drove down to the beach to take in the view of the ocean and marvel at it. I'd walk along the esplanade and instantly feel better, gaining perspective and realizing many things about life like:

  • The ocean doesn't give a fuck about me
  • There many things bigger than me and my tiny problems
  • My inability to truely understand how vast the ocean is
  • The permanents of the ocean and the impermanants of me
I used to think I was a special little snowflake when I found out walking by the beach made me feel good. As it turns out, it's the same for most people. In fact, there is a scientific reason why people gravitate towards the water. Apparently, exposure to large bodies of water are rich in what is called: negative ions. These little ions (unable to be seen by the naked eye) are believed to have mood-enhancing and stress-reducing effects, increasing our levels of serotonin (a ‘feel-good’ neurotransmitter).

So how do these ions work? do we get the same effect from a fish tank or a glass of water on the table? studies at this stage don't prove this effectively. It's more likely to effect humans who are exposed to large, moving bodies of water, like a waterfall or a beach. This isn't to say a large pond doesn't contain negative ions, it's just less than a moving body of water. So what do these little ions do for us? check this out:
  • Reduces inflammation, anxiety, airbourne allergens, pollutants, and stress
  • Boosts a production of white blood cells, ammune system and antibodies
  • Regulates your mood and emotions
  • Boosts sleep quality and levels of calm
Yeah, I know right!? Ions, what don't they do!! But if you're landlocked and are wanting some of that feel-good energy to add to your lifestyle, I've got you covered. Here are more ways to boost your serotonin levels: Broadly
  • Exercise
  • Meditation
  • Clean Diet
  • Natural sunlight
More specifically
  • Fish oils
  • Vitamin B, C, and magnesium
  • Spend time with loved ones (or any positive social interation)
  • Milk, fish, whole grains, seeds, and nuts
  • Caffeinated drinks
So there ya go, Even if we all can't walk by the beach when we want to, we can use these tools to get the same effect, boosting those feel good vibes in our life.


Impatience To Problems

Are we upgrading or swapping here?

Me

If you're always going to have problems whether you've 'made it' or not, what's the rush?

“There are no solutions, only trade-offs.”
- Thomas Sowell

While I agree this idea lends itself to a somewhat bleek philosophy where our problems are inescapable, I tend to find it refreshing each time I hear it. Let me explain.

As I say this, I picture a 40 year old man buying kids toys, still living at home, taking note of every superhero movie, and venting about the discrepancies the filmmaker made to their unknown friends on Reddit. Point made right!? Lateral moves. It's possible to get older but not grow up.

It's why we see men cheat on their girlfriends and wives, they haven't learned the lesson about relationships. It's why you see people in their 40’s working entry level positions, they didn't learn the lesson about careers. It’s why you see overweight people, literally everywhere, they didn't learn the lesson on diet and exercise.

Now for the refreshing part: Those successful CEO types with six-pack’s, married with 7 kids, in their fully paid off mansion with the fancy sports car also have problems they are swapping without learning the lessons. No one is exempt here. Impatience is a huge force to be aware of. We all have our problems and it's easy to rearrange them rather than taking them off the table.

Just because we do things for a long time, it doesn't make us good at them. We can just as easily practice bad habits as opposed to good ones. Look at taxi drivers, look at parents giving their kids Oreos and chips for lunch everyday. If we are not learning the lessons, the problems will find us again.

So how do we know if we've learned the lesson? This is not complicated. You know if you're doing something good for your body, career, and/or relationships. The chances are you're either doing well on all fronts and the lessons are more nuanced, or you have no idea what fresh hell you're in. Do us all a favor, take a moment and think about these three sizeable aspects about your life, and before you trade your problem for another one, take a moment, and explore the problem at hand to see if you can learn something from it. An old teacher I had always used to say, “if we're not learning something, we’re dead.” It's dramatic but effective.

So next time you find yourself annoyed at having a problem, ask yourself if you’ve learned the lesson enough to take it off the table. Feeling accomplished is very different to feeling impatient.