Basic truths for the gym, life and work
Over the holiday break, I was in the pub speaking with a friend’s visiting brother-in-law who asked me about his gym routine after sharing I was a trained exercise physiologist with 30 years’ experience in the gym. He asked me about keeping a routine when others had suggested he needed to vary it. We talked for a few minutes, starting with me asking some questions about what he wanted to achieve before I gave some advice. As I worked out in my gym this morning, the conversation and what I shared came back to me, and I realised there are some basic truths for the gym, life and work that were worth sharing here.
Post workout in my gym this morning - a bit chilly in Southwest Wales!
Listen with prejudice. Plenty of people will give you advice about what you need to do in the gym (and in life and at work) and how you need to do it. While generally good intentioned, the advice often comes from someone who doesn’t know you, your intentions, your goals or your motivation. If what’s coming to you is simply a projection of what someone else thinks or believes without inquiry, even when they appear to have years of experience, it’s always okay to listen, keep whatever resonates and let the rest go.
Always start with you. No one knows your body, mind and spirit better than you. While the gym is the place we often focus on our body, there is more at play. What is your motivation? How do you relate to your physical presence, and how did that impact on your choice to show up at the gym? How do you feel before, during and after working out? What sort of inner talk goes on? These things matter when deciding when, where, why and how we move our bodies. This is the same in life and work. What was your motivation to do what you do for work? How do you show up physically and emotionally? What are your personal ambitions? What matters and does not matter to you? Get to know yourself well as a foundation and the rest will follow. What’s great is when we lose our way, we can always come back to ourselves and start again.
Change if you want to grow. I’ve had plenty of conversations over the years about the gym (and life and work) that focused on the concept of growth. Our bodies, just like our minds and spirits, respond to challenge if the aim is to grow – get faster, become stronger, change our body shape and so on. However, this isn’t always the goal in the gym nor is it always necessary in life or at work. Staying where we are for a time is just as valid as deciding it’s time to grow. Decide for yourself what you want, and if you’re ready for growth of some kind, then changing your routine or doing something completely different, is great advice.
Find your joy. This is my favourite piece of advice, and it extends to life and work. So many people I have spoken with over the years talk about the gym, life or work as tedious, stressful and even drudgery. Usually this comes from not doing the first two things above – when someone looks to others to define the path and success without really inquiring about what they really want, need and hold as their purpose. For example, plenty of people have shared with me their desire to connect with their bodies, but they ‘hate’ the gym. Then don’t go! Get creative and find a way to move and get to know your body in a way that feels good and right for you. Take a walk in the woods. Dance in the kitchen. Join a tango class. Run in circles under the moon. So it is in life and work. Maybe you can’t easily change the system or environment in which you work, and you certainly can’t change others, but you can get creative and inquire into your deepest self to discover how to find joy in what you do and how you do it wherever you happen to be right now.
