Ah, the gym…
The House of Gains, the Temple of Iron, the Sanctum of Swole…
Okay, okay, I’ll stop.
Whatever you choose to call it, the gym is a sacred place.
It is a place of progress and contemplation, a place to push yourself and hone your ability to focus, to grow, and to achieve self-improvement.
I love the gym, and consider the choice to make it a habitual part of my life to be one of the greatest decisions I’ve ever made.
The self-control, discipline, and work ethic I have cultivated within its walls has carried over to every other aspect of my life and has, without a doubt, led me to become a more confident, self-assured, and more complete individual.
Through the years, I’ve come to see the gym as a sanctuary, a place of meditation and reflection.. and I am certainly not the first to think this way.
The Greeks understood that the mind and body are not separate entities,
After all, it was Socrates that said:
“No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable”
The bottom line?
You should take your physical health seriously.
Exercise has been shown time and time again to drastically reduce the odds of contracting a multitude of health conditions and diseases, improve your mental health, and increase the overall quality and longevity of your life.
It is absolutely one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, you will feel better, look better, and learn core lessons that will serve you well as you navigate your journey up this mountain we call life.
Here are seven of them to get you started.
1. Just Do It
I swear, this post is non-sponsored, but Nike has a good point.
So many of us are held back by our own limiting beliefs, especially when we are just starting out.
Typically, it is our fear of failure that stops us from getting started in the first place.
The gym teaches you that you must suck at something before you can be any good at it, and deliberately practicing and repeating the process will be your key in doing just that.
The first time that you set foot in a gym, you are going to suck. You will feel weak, you will feel intimidated, and you will feel completely and utterly out of your depth.
But as the days and weeks progress, you will quickly find yourself improving, setting new personal records, and achieving feats of strength and stamina that you once believed to be impossible.
And the same is true in life.
If you want to get good at anything, whether it’s talking to women, building a business, or, yes, lifting weights, then you need to punch fear in the face and just freaking do it!
And the more frequently that you force yourself to go to the gym and “Just do it” the more this attitude will permeate every area of your life.
2. There Are No Failures, Only Lessons
In the gym, failure is usually a good thing.
When you “fail” in the gym, let’s say to hit your last rep, it’s only because you felt and acknowledged your limits and decided you had the capability to push beyond them, and you tried to do just that.
This is exactly what “failure” is in life.
Every person who has ever done anything worth doing will attest to the important role failure has played in their journey.
It teaches you resilience, it teaches you patience, and it teaches you that each and every time you are knocked down, you have a choice whether or not you will stay down.
If you believe that failure is final, that failure can keep you down, then you have lost.
But if you accept that failure is a natural part of the success and use it to aid you in the future, than it will transcend its aforementioned meaning and become one of your most valuable teachers.
Keep this mindset about you and you can never truly fail, you will only ever learn.
3. Life Has a Compounding Effect
Success in the gym is very gradual.
Your body will not change overnight, it takes time.
But the change does come, little by little, bit by bit, until all of a sudden it’s a year or two later, you’re packing 10+ more pounds of muscle, and there’s a stark difference between the person you started as and the person you are now.
While they are happening, you don’t perceive the changes that are happening to be drastic ones.
They happen so slowly that you become accustomed to them while you are on your journey.
But none the less, the changes come, and you continue to evolve until one day, you wake up, look at yourself in the mirror and think “Woah! Who the hell is that guy?”
There is power in this compounding effect, the build-up of little actions over time to create significant and noticeable results.
Just think about a roaring tidal wave, which starts as nothing but a small ripple within the middle of the ocean.
That little ripple moves forward and slowly gains momentum and more speed, which results in more size, which results in gaining even more momentum and more speed, which results in even more size, and on and on until the tiny little ripple has become a powerful and unstoppable force.
Do not be ashamed of being that ripple, because you possess all of the potential needed to become the wave.
4. Dedication Beats Motivation
I love the gym, it’s easily one of my favorite places to be and without a doubt one of my favorite things to do.
That being said, sometimes I don’t feel like going.
In fact, while I was writing this article, I didn’t really feel like doing much of anything other than watching reruns of The Office and awkwardly pretending to have a personality along with the characters.
And yet, despite this desire to be complacent, I write, and after I’m finished writing, I will go to the gym.
I will do these things because I know the value of my dedication to them, and I know the value of doing them even when I don’t want to or feel motivated to.
And once you develop this mentality at the gym or at-home workout, it begins to infect every area of your life in a positive way.
You realize the value of doing things because they’re the right thing to do, not because you want to do them or feel like doing them at the time.
You understand that movement creates motivation not the other way around and that dedication is the most important factor in building a successful life.
Comments