Honestly, writing this blog post is the last thing I feel like doing right now. Just got home after a looong day at work. Loooong. Woke up at around 04.00, my brain started working. As I’ve talked about, a lot of high-level thoughts circling around this week. A necessary state for growth, but energy draining as heck.

“I know how this works, either I lay here thinking for another hour or I just go for a nice run to work and get this day started” – so I did.

My morning workout habit, as well as this newer blog post writing, have through experience taught me that it’s worth the hustle it sometimes is. My brain knows I will feel good and be rewarded. This habit loop I’ve been running for my blog post for the last 25 days is really starting to sink in. That is – coming home from work (the que), writing a blog post (the routine), and then getting to eat food (the reward). As these actions becomesdeeper rooted, the more distant they get from involving any kind of decision. It just happens. Making it almost irrelevant to what levels of willpower I hold. Like now, close to zero.

One of my work colleagues stopped by my desk this afternoon to ask how my daily workout had been. “Great – how was yours?” This guy has since the new year started been doing a 20-minute run on the treadmill every morning. I can’t help but to be excited and proud for him trying to implement this habit – and he’s sticking to it. Because I know how much it can do for you. And I also know the willpower it requires! So I praised him for it. He however down talked and massively devalued his efforts.

“it’s only 10 km/h – it’s like walking”

“Yeah, but your fu** doing it every day. You’ll find yourself raising the challenge, I promise you. And I started my running routine by increasingly walking longer and longer to work, in the beginning it was like  500 meters to the next buss stopp”.

Another guy at work just came out of a long relationship and have been feeling like shit for a while. I made him promise me to just show up at the gym once a week for a minimum of 15 minutes. That’s all he have to do. But he must do that, and he needs report to me. This week he went to the gym three times, and I can literally see the proudness evaporate from him, like the heat on a asphalt road a sunny day.

I know I keep nagging on about this, but it’s worth repeating. The incredible power of getting started, big or small, is just..   It’s fucking great! I’m not much for cursing, but today I guess I’m making an exception. We shouldn’t be afraid of setting low goals – the key is high volume and repetition. We’ll find ourselves go beyond – if it was the right how that is. Reaching a goal can be done in many ways, we have to look at what best suits us. Everybody isn’t made for running, and I’m not only talking about training. But it makes for a good example.

Taking it to a personal self-praising level – with the risk of being called a self-loving narcist – if it’s one thing I’m proud of it’s the habits and routines I’ve implemented in my life. They carry me when I don’t have the energy to carry myself. I know that if I get some workout in there, if I empty out my thoughts in my journal, if I do my gratefulness- & meditation practices, all those things I’ve intentionally implemented in my life, It will be worth it. But knowing can be worth shit sometimes, that’s why it’s convenient to have an autopilot stepping in when your drunk driving. My parachutes, insurance, call it what ever, but it works. But also remember that one fail, or even two, isn’t the end of the world. Tomorrow is a new day, and you decide what to make of it.

The last point I want to make is a reminder I want to put out there – celebrate your wins, big ones & small ones. Look at the day you’ve lived and experienced, what can you be proud of? Did you help someone, did you help yourself? I’m sure – most positive – that you can find something worth tapping yourself on the shoulder for. Do that, and feel proud.

Thanks for stopping by, and thanks for contributing to make this world a better place (because I chose to naively assume you are!) ?

/Alexander

“Repetition is the mother of learning, the father of action, which makes it the architect of accomplishment.”