HABITS, INTENTIONAL ACTION & YOU
If you look in the mirror and see someone you don’t recognize, welcome to the first day of the rest of your life. The person you thought you would see, or at least remember, might be the high school wild child, the college partier, the whitty intern who always had something funny to say, the intelligent friend who kept everyone out of trouble, the jock, the cheerleader, the leader. When you think about what you look like you see that person, not the one in the mirror. For whatever reason, you are doing some self evaluation now. Now matter what brought you here, we are here. This is where the questions start…
How did I get here?
How did I let myself go?
Why does it hurt to walk up the stairs?
Why does it hurt to swing a golf club?
Why am I so tired all the time?
Why can’t I lose the weight like I used to?
This point might seem like a “low” one. Lots of emotions go along with realizing you have messed up, or not lived to your full potential. Trust me when I say I know what it feels like to look in the mirror and be disappointed. I know the overwhelming weight on your shoulders as you look yourself up and down and say “Damn man, what happened?” The pit in your stomach when you realize you have been looking like this for some time. The self criticism can run wild. This sounds crazy, but this is an exceptional point in life. This is where the most phenomenal changes happen in people's lives. They look at themselves and say, “Nope, not anymore”. This is where I get all excited and it's hard to sit still, even when typing this out. This is the start of your new fucking life. Well done! We have arrived at the beginning of the greatest challenge you will ever face.
YOU vs. YOU
This point is so profound for one, solid, life changing reason. We take ultimate responsibility at that moment. The guilt, the heavy feeling on our chest, the slump of the shoulders and the sigh from deep within. We are feeling what it is like to actually look at ourselves. To take control and responsibility of this life, when we look at ourselves for answers. Not bosses, kids, siblings, family, lovers, or anyone else. We take a long hard look in the mirror and know that we have let the one person who depends on us the most down. At the end of the day, no matter who you are and what you have accomplished, the only person who can save you is you. We are the only ones who can change our trajectory through this wild, crazy, difficult, scary, and abundantly beautiful life. We get to find the potential in ourselves. We get to see how much we can handle, what our body, mind and soul is capable of. We get to live a full, happy, abundant life. I want to avoid self pity and jump straight into action.
I would like to break down this into steps. If you are anything like me I love to plan and organize things. It makes me feel way more comfortable with change. We are staring down the barrel of a lot of change so we need to be as prepared as possible. I have been blessed to work with several phenomenal individuals that have taught me invaluable things throughout my career. I am going to break them down into pieces and explain each one thoroughly so you can actually use them in your life. First, I want to make a clear distinction between two words we tend to confuse. I want you to know exactly what you are getting when reading this or choosing to work with us. I/we are coaches, NOT consultants. A consultant tells you want to do, in specific situations and for a specific outcome. That outcome is usually a specific point in time, specific career focused sale/wage or contract. Consultant work tends to rarely establish any substantial lifestyle change or carry with it a lot of implementable items one can do without the consultant. The consultant is doing all the thinking for you so you can focus on action. I am a coach for one reason. I want you to realize you hold the keys to this kingdom. Not only are you capable of completing new actions, you are capable of coming up with what those actions should be and where they are going to take you. I want you to succeed after I leave. Not only you but I want you to be so inspired by your natural ability that you motivate and push those around you. I believe that humans are exceptional. All we have to do is be allowed to be ourselves and become confident in our ability to change our own outcomes. We have that power in us. I see it all the time. The best way to start unleashing this powerful potential within is to start small. We need to learn about ourselves.
Intentional action equals habitual action. IA=HA.
What do you do in the morning? What is your routine? If someone asked your spouse or kid what would they say? Would you be embarrassed? A lot of us slowly slide out of bed at the last minute possible to rush through the shower, grab some pre-packaged food from the fridge or cupboard and run out the door. We are late and honking at traffic, sipping some sugar filled nonsense from the candy store (most coffee shops are just adult candy stores). Our stress level rockets out of control and we start to sweat while making it through traffic, panicking that we are going to be late, yet again. Mad at ourselves because we know it’s our fault, but hey, we can blame it on the dog, kids or wife. It will all be ok. Work goes as usual, higher stress because you forgot a meeting that morning or you have a slammed day all back to back which means you miss lunch… again. You will be working late, and the “boys” want you to go out for drinks after. Which you are more then willing to oblige because “fuck this day, its already wild, I desereve to let loose and be happy.” I know this is not all of us, it is a vast majority of us but not all. Some of us are more regulated and just need to refine some smaller processes. However, I want you to see how this all correlates. We are all only a few small decisions away from disaster. The harsh reality of life is that we are not followed around by someone with a safety net. We have to pay for what we break, so to say. The choices we make each day compound and there are hundreds of choices to make each day, one right after the other. These decisions are all compounding to equal your future. You are literally building your dream or nightmare right now.
Since we are constantly inundated with decisions we tend to drop into autopilot quickly. Especially when it comes to processes we perform each day. How many times have you made it to work and not remember the drive there? Next time you drive in stop before you get out and try to remember if you saw anyone walking on the sidewalk when you left your house. Try and remember if you saw a homeless person at the intersection begging for change. It is harder than you think. I mean you were there, you drove the car, it would be silly to think you drove the whole thing essentially blacked out. You didn’t, you just didn’t need any of the information to be stored away because it didn’t stand out. If you would have seen someone weird or strange like a zebra on the side of the road you would have probably remembered it. Since it was status quo on the way you performed on autopilot. Here is where I love to dig in. Since we all operate on autopilot alot, we need to ask ourselves this question.
How often are we operating on autopilot?
The answer is a lot. Have you ever got in your car, headed out and realized halfway there you were headed in the wrong direction? I know I’m not the only knucklehead out there who has done this. This was very inefficient, detrimental actually if you were needing to be on time. Our autopilot is kicked on to help us process all of the things around us at the fast and furious pace we live life at. If we tried to actually take in every piece of information around us all at once we would never move. It would be totally exhausting. Since we have a built in autopilot we have to understand we are in charge of it. We have to be able to stand in our own way and disrupt this system, to essentially turn it off. Holidays used to be a wild time for me where I would demolish obscene amounts of sweets. I personally killed an entire pumpkin pie on more than one occasion. This was just part of the holiday festivities. We ate heavily then washed it down with sweets. This was done so many years in a row that it became second nature. It was what we did. I remember one year I stood up from the table, got a piece of pie, a scoop of icecream and sat back down. I ate it all, shuffled some cards for the game we were about to play and couldn’t for the life of me remember getting the pie or the ice cream. I knew there was an empty plate in front of me and even though I know I got up and put the pie on my plate, I couldn’t remember any details of actually accomplishing the task. I knew I had created a really shitty pattern. A habit from years of doing the same things over and over again. In order to change this I needed to establish a different pattern, I needed to get in my own way and shake my own shoulders and say “wake up brother!”. I needed to change the intentional action.
Our habits are the soft version of our intentional actions.
This one is going to light some fires. I know that we do a lot of things unintentionally. I also know that we are not always privy to the knowledge we need to make the most educated decision at specific times so we head in, what we hope, is the best direction. I want to make sure I am clear with this so it might get a little long winded. (I can see my wife laughing and agreeing with me being long winded) Our habits started from an intentional action. We created the things we do now based on making a decision to do them earlier in life. Intentional action isn’t something that is only associated with hard things or difficult tasks. Intentional action can be pressing the snooze button three times, putting the milk back in the fridge with less than a mouthful of milk left in it, throwing laundry on the ground next to the hamper, not making your bed and so on. All actions have to start with an intentional process. Let's think way back into our childhood. Do you remember learning how to walk? Of course not. Who would, it's too far back. But, have you ever watched a baby learn to walk? It is probably one of the greatest examples of intentional action and focus you can find. That kiddo has his little fat arms up in the air, mouth open, staring at the ground in front of him or her. They wobble around using everything they can muster to barely pick up one foot and put it in front of the other. They are slow, clunky, awkward movements. But, after doing it over and over they start to learn where their body is in space in time. What has to happen with their hands, torso, head, neck and hips in order to stand firmly before leaning to one side and stepping out. They learn this at a magnificent rate. They learn how to pilot their entire body in just a matter of days. They spend their time intentionally finding things to pull their body up into a standing position. They then repeat and repeat and repeat. This creates habits out of each movement. Out of each positive and negative outcome. They learn how to process information faster and faster in order to develop an understanding of what could happen when attempting this new activity. Most of the stuff we learn doesn't inspire much deep appreciation or afterthought. It gets so deeply ingrained in our system that we do it without thinking at all. We created a habit out of all those intentional actions. Like the intentional movements with our body when we were little. Now we lean on that habit to get us to where we are going. We compounded on those patterns to teach us how to weight lift, ski, snowboard, jump, dance, run, etc. The product of our intentional action is our ability to walk and whatever is compounded on top of that.
I want to lean into this in a different way. Instead of walking, let’s use our nutrition habits. What was it like when you were a kiddo? I was born in the 1980’s so I was a product of boxed food, frozen TV dinners and the usual red blooded American way of life. Pizza Fridays and a movie from Blockbuster. I thought for a long time that all food came in a cardboard box. I had to learn/teach myself that there is a better way. I had to intentionally break the pattern my current habits created. Think way back, as far as you can and think about how food was presented to you. Were you told to wait until each meal with no snack in between? Were you raised where meals were scarce and food was in short supply? Were you allowed to get whatever whenever from the pantry or fridge when you wanted it? No matter your scenario growing up you had to learn what was available, when it was available and the acceptable time to partake. You learned the patterns of food consumption, the process in which to prepare the food and when to consume it. You look back at your childhood and think about the times you went to a friend’s house who operated differently. Whew! What a shock, maybe you were not allowed to have more than one popsicle at a time and your friend Steve could smash five in a row with no questions asked. Even these outliers make up your current understanding of how things should operate and are a contributor to your current habits. Your friend Steve was given a different set of circumstances (patterns) shown to him so he just picked up where his parents or guardians left off. Now that we went down memory lane let’s think about our current food intake. Are we making decisions on food based on logic, reason and desired outcomes? Do we grab the same poptart on the way out of the house each morning like we did as a kid? Do we NEED variety in our food because we view food as something that should bring us joy? How do we look at food? The same way we did as a kid? Do we compensate for the lack of food as a kid and horde or over consume because we are scared we won't have enough? Do we look at it as fuel or fun? Are large meals part of family tradition so you keep up large meals multiple times a day? All of these questions are purposefully unpacking current habits. Once we break down our current habits we can start to understand why they are there. Once we understand why they exist we can start to change them. We can see ourselves as powerful creators of our fate, not weak blobs of meat subject to the harsh world around them. We have to learn how to be real with ourselves and open about our flaws. Open with ourselves about why we do what we do and not blame anyone for it. If we grew up thinking food was scarce and you had to devore it or hoard it, we understand why it might be hard to loosen up your grip on food. We can also see why it's hard to look at food as fuel and not as pleasure. I know cereal is wildly satisfying. It is built to be. However, we know it is about as nutritious as sawdust. The problem is that we have a few compounding thought processes competing for rights over your brain and body. We have the old habit of hoarding food at all costs because we don’t know when we might get fed again, the joy of being full with good tasting food and the understanding that consuming sawdust each morning is probably not the best way to fuel our system. So you, without even knowing it, are fighting against yourself. One part is the kid looking for something to eat, hungry and possessive and the other is the more health conscious adult looking to make the best decision. Who is gonna win? You get to decide. This is part of the reason I say “No one is going to save you but yourself” ten plus times a day. The habit system of hoarding food was built out of intentional action to reduce hunger pain as a kiddo. This system is powerful and profound, it carries lots of trauma and reason with it. This is why I get a lot of heat when talking about habits being intentional actions. Is it intentional to hoard food as a kid? Yes. It’s a fear based response but you had to intentionally do it. So the habit was birthed out of intentional action.
We have habits, we aren’t our habits.
The way we view food and how we consume it is changeable. We can learn to break down those habits and relearn how to consume in a manner that serves us and our desired outcomes better. Just like learning how to walk, we figured out what movements served that purpose and what didn’t. We threw away the ones that didn’t and kept the ones that did. We are not hardwired to screw ourselves over and lose. We are actually hardwired to avoid potential injury or pain. We built habits in order to avoid pain, like when we found out the kitchen floor was way slicker than the carpet in the living room when we were learning to walk. The problem is that we tend to focus on the current pain level, or current discomfort. Not the long term. We have to understand that there might not be any “pain” in the bowl of cereal or processed food, but the pain in the future when the body shuts down, the clothes don’t fit and the body starts to fall apart is real.
Pain vs Pressure
Now here is where I get fired up. When changing habits we will, without a doubt, be put through pressure. Most likely, if we are being honest with ourselves, there is little to no actual pain. There is a BIG difference between pressure and pain. Pressure is like a deadline at work, or an upcoming test. It forces us to take action and dig deep. It allows us to see what we are made of and reevaluate what is important. We learn to evaluate possible actions with a different filter. The filter of desired outcome. If we never experienced pressure of any kind we would be pretty damn useless. Now pain is different. Pain is real. Pain is usually pinpointed and passes the level of discomfort. It will be uncomfortable to start eating the same thing every day. However, if it’s nutrient filled foods you won’t be in pain. Probably experiencing some serious displeasure, or pressure, but no pain. If you didn’t eat at all you would find pain. Your body will start to systematically shut down and fall apart. That’s real pain. I think the biggest misunderstanding or lie we have been told as humans is that we should be able to reach a point where pressure/pain is non existent. This is a lie! You literally can’t avoid it. You can put off watching your diet and working out to avoid the mild discomfort it brings if you want. I guarantee you will find pain through mistreatment of the system you live in. Or, you can also experience some pressure and workout while watching your food intake and experience far less pain within the system you live in. Either one you choose, both pain and pressure exists. You get to choose to what level and at what capacity. Avoiding pain or pressure all together can’t be a goal. That place doesn’t exist. It would be like saying I am working towards never having to use oxygen while I breathe. Pressure and pain are as much a necessity as oxygen.
There is a disease called CIP, (Cognitive Insensitivity to Pain) in which the individual has no or very limited ability to feel pain. On the surface this sounds exceptional. Like some super hero spider bite scenario. Unfortunately, the life span of individuals with CIP is severely shortened. The average lifespan is a mere twenty five years. This is for one specific reason. If there is no pain there is no way to tell what is wrong. If we have no ability to understand what is misfiring, what is out of alignment or what is causing us issues, how can we fix it? We have this beautiful, magnificent system that is built to avoid potential pain and injury without us even trying. You move your hand off a hot stove without trying. When you drop a book in a quiet classroom everyone jumps and turns to the noise. Why? Because we know pain exists, but we also know that it is avoidable. Our system does all it can to avoid it. The issue arises when we confuse discomfort or pressure with pain. Discomfort is just that, uncomfortable. Is it uncomfortable to have a cast on a broken arm? Yes, is it painful? Possibly, at a miniscule volume compared to the broken arm. However, we can all understand the necessity for it. The discomfort and small amount of pain the cast causes pales in comparison to the broken arm. We have to have discomfort to repair correctly. Just like our diet, training, learning, development personally and professionally. We have to deal with the discomfort that changes or guidance causes in order to heal or become better. We have to find out where we are broken, misguided or less efficient and find out how to correct it. That is our job, personally. We are the only ones who can save us. We have to understand that the level of discomfort we are able to put up with dictates the amount of growth we are going to find. If you can’t handle anything more than a mild setback with your normal food patterns, good luck trying to change much. Most people need a complete overhaul. You have to be willing to take one to the chin, accept you were the one who made decisions that equal this outcome and then be open minded enough to accept guidance on how to change. Like Rocky said, “You have to be willing to take the hits”. It sucks but it's also a huge relief. You can get hit, knocked down even, and learn. You don’t have to repeat the same thing over and over again. You can choose to wake up earlier and make a healthy breakfast. You can decide to workout during the week. You can decide to start reading and learning instead of wasting away in front of the tv each night. This life is up to you. Each person's level of acceptable pressure is different so don’t worry about others' journeys. You are here to work on you. To be the best version of yourself in all aspects.
I challenge you to see what you can do. What pressure you can withhold, what storm you can weather. I challenge you stick with a new workout program or new diet protocol, to see what you can do. What is this life other than a group of experiences that help you feel alive, challenged and grow? Don’t waste it, you only have this one shot.
-Stay consistent my friends
