The other morning I rocked up to the gym and saw my favorite rack was free and clear.
No sooner did I set down my gear than I hear behind me:
“I was about to use that.”
I turned around and saw the older guy who likes to claim that rack for an hour or two in the mornings.
When I walked up, he’d been deep in a chat halfway across the room with no sign he was “using” the rack.
I told him as much.
Gym etiquette is a real thing. We all pay the same fees to use the gym, but when your use involves taking up a key piece of equipment while you wander around the gym getting into deep conversations, that’s not on.
What I wonder about these folks that like to camp is how they get their heads into their workouts.
(I know this is a rhetorical question. The average gym-goer is not even thinking about this.)
I can’t train worth a damn if my head isn’t in it.
I need the focus. Turning the gym into social hour is the opposite of focus.
Focus is a skill like anything you do with your body.
It gets weak if you don’t use it.
It improves if you train it.
One of the best ways to improve your focus is to deliberately say “No” to any random impulse that tries to steal your attention.
Resisting distractions strengthens your will.
Nobody is used to saying “no” to distractions. Is it any surprise they believe that will-power doesn’t work? Imagine lying in bed for 20 years and then, when you discovered you couldn’t stand under your own power, declaring that walking isn’t real.
You’re going to fail, you understand, since none of us has full control over our attention. Something will come along and distract you sooner or later, no matter how well-trained you are.
Like training your muscles or lungs, it’s the effort that matters.
Mental skills are an under-appreciated dimension of your exercise and diet habits. The better you are at focusing on what you want, and ignoring what you don’t want, the better the results you can win for yourself.
Sets and reps and meal plans and calorie counts are good and all, but lacking the ability to execute, they’re meaningless scribbles on paper.
Lots and lots of people will pay lots of money for workouts and diet plans.
Those same people run away screaming at the first sign of doing the work those plans require.
The ability to set the goal and stick to the process until completion is the missing key.
Control over your attention is one of the major high-leverage moves in my tool-kit.
Building up your inner being is at least as important as what you do with your body. That’s where so many opportunities stay hidden.
If you’d like help with that, you might want to join the group and get my regular email wisdom. Use this link:
Matt Perryman