Here is an idea I invite you to consider. And to consider application as and when you see fit. There are holes that can be poked in this, but that’s fine. It is my idea, not my woman. Poke away. I wont be offended.
Part of this comes off the back of my reading Matthew McConaughey’s 2020 book ‘Greenlights’ where he touches upon this.
Primarily speaking it is more productive to be involved with your journey (focused and working), rather than impressed (distracted and observing) during it. I shall emphasise these two words in bold throughout the piece here.
A lot of times when we fall at a main hurdle (let’s use this as a metaphor here for a moment), no matter how prepared we are, we have lost sight of doing the deed, i.e. our involvement in the performance of the jump. This happens when we have given too much focus and become overwhelmed and impressed by the size and scope of the hurdle, the challenge of it and the end result of actually jumping it.
A simplified way of putting this whole thing would be “don’t get ahead of yourself”… but that doesn’t quite get to the point I am making about involvement versus impression.
This process happens a lot of times when you ‘lose your nerve’, abandon your grounding and maybe overthink things, impressed by the situation rather than involving yourself in it and doing the deed. As a man especially, there is a burden of performance which needs to be met with real pro-active resolve. Sometimes that burden gets the better of us when we give the situation and goal more credit than we actually give ourselves. Our impression defeats our involvement there.
See the 2002 film 8 Mile. The B. Rabbit character played by Eminem starts the film this way, consumed by anxiety and overwhelmed by the journey that he is on. So during a rap battle early in the film, he ‘chokes’ and loses his nerve. He fails…
A lot of achievements in life, take place over the long term. So, not by scooping some big win in one big score (such as inheriting a house), but building up to that result (such as saving up to buy a house). One step at a time.
I write this on 01st January 2021 and no doubt a lot of people will be impressed with their lofty goals and planning their fitness achievements in order to get there. But planning every day without involvement doesn’t directly help you lose body fat and build muscle. Neither does taking ‘before and after’ photos.
A lot of personal trainers and professionals in the fitness industry will tell you that when you are working out in the gym, one thing that you seriously need to not do is take a break to start taking photographs of yourself. We’ve all done it, we are all guilty of it. But it is not a good habit, because the people that are doing this are more impressed than involved. They are stepping back from what they are doing, to impress, rather than staying involved with it. So they are stepping away from the work that they need to do in order to do it. And that is not a productive thing.
Obviously this doesn’t mean that if you start taking selfies at the gym that your entire routine and goal is going to elude you, but you are certainly going to compromise the journey if this takes over your priorities and if you do it all the time.
One rather crude and obvious example would be be the difference between being impressed watching porn and being involved actually having sex with a woman. Enough said about that though.
If you can dream – and not make dreams your master,
Rudyard Kipling, ‘If’.
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim…
Know when to be involved with your journey, rather than impressed. Keep a healthy ratio of the two so that you can still visualise, take a step back and see what it is that you aim to achieve. Absolutely you do need to do that, i.e. to have an impression on what that goal is and the journey ahead. But that takes less of a role in the long term, than actually staying involved, being grounded and centred in where you are in the ‘now’, whilst maintaining and building up to that long term goal, a step at a time.
Picture it this way. If you’re driving a car on a road, you don’t spend the journey primarily focused on that spot is way down the road ahead. You need to focus on what is in front of you right now, because that is how you are going to get where you are going, that is how you are going to avoid any obstacles and turn corners where necessary (because the path is seldom linear, or in a perfectly straight line).
It doesn’t mean you can’t visualise where you are going and have that impression. Obviously you need to have a sense of direction in the long term, but first and foremost you must focus on and be involved with what you are doing right now and what is directly in front of you. Do this and the rest of the road will unfold in front of you.
It doesn’t matter on occasion if you have zero sight of vision for what is miles down the road, for example if you are driving through fog. Just trust that the road is going to continue to be in front of you as you as you continue your journey. If you get lost, just pull over and find out where you are.
It is better to have an occasional blind spot for that which is miles down the road, rather than a blind spot for that which is directly in your path. Because if the latter is the case, then the entire journey is in jeopardy.
Joseph, 01 January 2021