Sunshine and ketamine

Let’s get hypothetical for a second…

You are a fitness nut.

You work out 5x/week. At least. And each workout is tracked. Progressive overload, strategic rest days, the whole 9.

Your diet plan is a thing of rigidity, and beauty. No macro out of place. Heck, you even wear a CGP and pay attention to metabolic health, cutting out foods that spike your glucose response too much.

Sleep is a priority. 7 hours a night, at the MINIMUM.

In short, you are locked in, baby.

And have been for a while. Living that optimal life.

What could go wrong?

Well, a lot actually…

• A family member ends up in the hospital and your sleep schedule goes out the window.

• An injury in the gym throws wrench into your routine.

• Holidays. Diet. Gone.

This is not a hypothetical.

For me at least, it’s real life. And has happened many times.

The first couple of times it happened, I was riding the struggle bus.

Because, you see, when you have been locked in for a while, even small deviations have this unnerving ability to really mess with your head.

Maybe you’ve felt this too…

You feel like:

• All your progress was for nothing

• It’s impossible to get back to where you were

• Weeks, months or years of work was sabotaged

It’s a bad feeling.

And it can make you fall even further off the wagon. Basically a self-fulfilling prophecy. Increased stress will lead to anxiety and stress eating, Netflix-binging, etc.

So what to do?

The first step is to understand this is all a mindset game.

Everything.

For the fitness example, just reminding yourself of a few facts will help:

• It takes 2 full weeks of not working a muscle before it even BEGINS to start atrophying.

• A night of lower sleep quality, or day of overeating won’t make you die sooner or make you obese.

It’s all about the long game.

You have to adopt the mindset that there will be valleys on your journey.

It’s not all going to be sunshine and ketamine.

You’ll experience highs and lows on the journey to your dream life.

The low points feel like rock bottom, especially after success.

Just remember, these are LOCAL minima and maxima.

Your low points AND high points are on a higher plane than they were before.

If you just remember that there’s a bigger picture and get back on the horse, you’ll go further and higher than you ever thought possible.

Optimalism is not perfectionism.

Never stop optimizing and striving.

You’re heading toward the pinnacle.

Cheers,

Swanagan