Test Yourself

Test Yourself

As I've gotten older I've realized I get bored easily which leads me try new things. I've always enjoyed trying new things, once I've tried them. Trust me I am just as reluctant to try new things as the next person so I've found the best way to get myself to do new and uncomfortable things is to force myself to do them. I do this by putting it out there, by telling someone my goal or what I want to do. Verbalizing it makes it real. If I verbalize that new thing and then I didn't go through with it I would feel like a failure and a liar.

Living with out regrets is some thing that drives me, I'm always afraid I will wake up one day and I'm 80 years old and I will kick myself for not doing the things I always talked about. I don't think you can live a life without some regrets, I know I haven't. But I want to eliminate as many as possible. I'm not special nor do I think I'm holy than thou. I'm just as flawed as the next person and maybe I've had many more regrets then the next person. I've come to hate that feeling of regret more then the fear. What stops you from doing that thing we've always wanted to do? Fear or Time? 

Well, if you can't guess what I'm going to say about the excuse of not having enough time you haven't read my past blogs. If it's important to you, you'll make time. Fear, fear has often stopped me from trying new things. What is fear? Fear can be a rational response to a dangerous situation or it can be internally fabricated out of something that really isn't that scary. This is how I mitigate fear and being scared. I think what's the worse thing that could possibly happen or go wrong trying something new?

Take for example buying a gym/small business. That's a scary thought, right? There's no guaranteed check every two weeks. You only get paid until you make money. There's also factors that can affect your business that you have no control over. Well what's the worse that could really happen? I suck, nobody wants to work out at my gym and I have to close the gym down and I fail. So what would I do if that happen? I would sell off all the equipment at the gym to cover my family until I got another job and I would move on with my life. My family and friends would still love me and I have my health. So it's really not bad in the end all be all of life. On top of that I'm sure I would of learned a lot of valuable lessons that could help me later in life. It's really not that scary is it?

Now here's the other side of the coin, regrets. I've had a couple regerts. Coming out of High School and while in College I had a couple opportunities to tryout for college baseball teams but I never did. Would I have made the teams I don't know but I'll never find out because I never tried. What was the worse thing that could of happen had I tried out and not made the team? I would been embarrassed and would have failed, right? No, the worst thing that could of happen did happen. I never tried out out of fear of embarrassing myself and now I have to live with that regret. Embarrassment fades, regrets are regrets forever. But guess what I learned a valuable lesson from that feeling of regret. The lesson is not to feel like that again.

 Going back to what I said about testing yourself, I also mean experiment with different things, test your limits of what you can do. Try new sports, get outside what you normally do. I really enjoy trying new squat cycles and I'm constantly messing around with different amounts of Squat volume and intensity to see what kind of responses I get from my body. I could write a whole blog post on what I've learned from that alone.

I've been doing experiments with other accepts of my life, you might have noticed my long dis-disheveled hair I had going on until Brandy fixed(If you want a great hair cut go see Brandy). Along with a couple reasons I started growing my hair as an exercise in patience and discipline. I've tried to grow out my hair in College but I always cut it after a couple months. I think any person that can grow their hair out must have some a lot of patience and discipline. Because while growing your hair out you spend most of your time with awkward looking hair in the expectation that later down the line you get the finished product you desired. To me that's the essence of discipline and paitnece. Doing something that you don't like at the time so in the end you get the reward. I don't know if I'll make it but I'm trying.

The other thing I have started doing is writing this Blog once a week. I'm perhaps the worlds worst at spelling and grammar. I'm sure you've noticed. So to get better at those I decided to write this blog and proof read them myself. One to shame myself and secondly to force myself to become better at spelling and grammar. I'm not sure if it is working.

I firmly believe that you should do something once a day that makes you uncomfortable otherwise you're not living, you're just existing. We don't grow and get better when we're comfortable we grow and get better from doing the tough things that push us. Try it, get outside what you always do, push yourself and experiment.   Rock n roll.

P.S.

It also helps to have a great wife that supports you and is cool with you doing these new things.

P.S.

She'd be even cooler if she let me go bull riding, just saying.