It’s All About Stress

Stress is not created equal. Some is good, some is bad. Yet, in the end it is all just stimulus, which we respond to. Some of us respond to it consciously, some of us just go with the flow. It is very important to understand how you react to stress if you want to learn how to better manage it. Like everything in life, change and progress begins with awareness.

There is no better way to learn how you respond to stress than by engaging in physical exercise. If you observe how you react to stress (weight) in physical exercise, you will be able to become more aware of how you handle stress in other situations. There are plenty other parallels between life and lifting that I would like to discuss. You will observe the following lessons yourself if you just take the time to go to the gym.

There. Now you have another reason to go workout instead of just getting in shape.

Lifting For Life

Stress is necessary for growth. When you lift, you place your body under stress – a stimulus that your body is not used to. Your body responds with pain. It will tell you that it hurts, that it is heavy, sweaty and uncomfortable. Yet, that pain is necessary for muscle growth. That is the ONLY way, that our bodies will become stronger. The phrase, use it or lose it, is as true as ever. Same thing is true for life. If there is no stress in our life, then there is no new stimulus being introduced and we began to stagnate and digress. Only through exposing ourselves to new and unique situations you will be able to lead a progressive life.

Not all stress is created equal. If you life, then you know that there is good pain and bad pain. Same way there is good stress and bad stress in life. The good pain in lifting is the one that stimulates growth. It is by no means comfortable, yet it is very motivating because you know are achieving your goals. The bad pain is the one that causes injury, fatigue, and unhappiness when you lift. It is important to learn how to interpret those two signals. Good pain or stress should motivate you to keep pushing yourself to achieve your goals. Bad pain should be a signal to slow down, rest and recover and figure out what you are doing wrong. Life works in the same way. We need to understand when to push ourselves and when to pull back.

Strong get stronger. Weak get weaker. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Rich get richer? Poor get poorer? And it is true as always. Once you start lifting and becoming stronger, you will only be able to do more and more, push yourself further and further. Those that chose to never start lifting, will increasingly get weaker as they will fail to expose themselves to the stress required to build strength. The difference between the strong and the weak is the ability and desire to get through the temporary growing pains. I am talking about that time when you are trying to get back in gym after a year of no lifting. At first, it will feel as if you have destroyed every single muscle tissue in your body. Yet, if you are able to push on, you will soon start reaping the reward of progress and growth. The only question is this: “Are you able to push yourself through the growing pains?”

Variety is key for progress. If you have lifted for a while, then at some point you will hit a plateau. It is a point at which your positive gains seems to have stopped. No matter what you seem to be doing, it almost seems like you are stuck. However, before you give up, consider a couple of things. Sometimes, all that is needed to move beyond that “stuck point” is some variety. It might in the from of lighter weight, more repetitions, different exercises all together or maybe some help from a friend. Stagnation comes from exposure to the exact sames stress over long periods of time. After a while our bodies simply adapt to it and that same stimulus just does not have the same effect as it did before. Similarly in life, we sometimes feel stuck because we have been doing the same routine over and over again. Just a little bit of variety might be needed to brighten things up.

Don’t do it alone. Weight lifting is a stress inducing activity on its own. Doing it all by yourself can be very discouraging as you might not have anybody to share your joys and your downfalls with. Finding a partner who will be there to spot you, to motivate you, to encourage you is crucial to success and progress. Another added benefit of a partner is that you will have somebody to compete with, which will further advance your growth. Find a proper partner is not that easy as many people are flaky, not committed, negative or just not focused. It is a great lesson to carry forward with you on to any other activity in life. When starting a new activity, be sure to look for the right person to come along, otherwise you might take a step back instead of a step forward. Moreover, be prepared to start alone and find somebody else along the way.

Build proper foundation. Nothing will set you back more than an injury. Injury can take you out for days, weeks, months or ever years. I have experienced it myself. Most of the injuries come from improper technique or form. It is crucial to do things that right way. You might be inclined to add more and more weight as soon as possible without understand the fundamentals. In that case, you would be just cheating yourself and heading towards a serious injury. It is better to take things slow and learn how to do the exercises properly than to rush into things only to suffer a major set back later. I am sure many of you, have experienced this in other areas of life. Sometimes you are so eager to get things started that you forget to set up a proper foundation.

Attitude matters. Some might describe lifting and exercising as boring, repetitive, sweaty, hard, painful and so on. And they would be right. It is all of those things. But at the same time, it is challenging, rewarding, fun, energizing, empowering and confidence creating activity. It is only a matter of which side you choose. All of these different words can describe the same exact activity. The ones that you will choose to describe your exercises will make you either love it or hate it. Likewise, we all are living the same life, how do you choose to look at it?

Consistency results in lasting gains. Many people lift for short periods of time and then quit. Then they start over. By doing that, they never move beyond the starting point. It might be even more discouraging that doing nothing. Only those that stick with the activity for extended periods of time without major breaks will be able to enjoy the fruits of their labor. After a while, your body will require you to exercise and stay active. Eventually, you might be able to change the way you feel about being active and you will not have to think twice about going to the gym. Same is true for any other area in life. Lasting results will come from persistent purposeful actions.

The truth is that the list could go on and on. I could easily twenty other things that I have learned about life from just exercising. But then you all would have no reason to exercise! Just kidding. Indeed, working out is a rewarding activity that will teach you not only about your body, but about how you handle stress and life all together. Look for clues in your own behavior and you might learn valuable insights in other areas of your life.

So what are you waiting for? The secrets of life are waiting to reveal themselves at your local gym!

______________

Image: jontunn

Nature of life is change. We experience mental, physical, emotional, spiritual changes as we go through our lives. That is all there is to life – managing the changes that occur in our lives. Some of us are conscious of that change, while others are completely blind to it.

Think about it.

It is my understanding that those who are able to manage the change in their lives lead truly fulfilling lives. There are three simply components to in order to lead a rich life:

• Know where you are now
• Know where you want to go
• Know how to get there

That’s it. The above formula is universal to everybody walking this earth. Now you know. There is no mystery.

In order for the above formula to work, all of the three elements must be present.

• Knowing where you are now, will help you figure out where you want to go.
• Knowing where you want to go, requires for you to know where you are now in order to figure out how to get there.

The relationship between knowing where you are knowing where you are going is similar to the one of the chicken and the egg. Which one should happen first?

The solution is pretty simple.

• If you know where you want to go, then you also must figure out where you are now.
• If you don’t know where you want to go, then figure out where you are now.
• If you know where you are now, then use that information to figure out where you want to go.

Once you have figured out your current situation in life and your desired situation in life, just compare the two. The comparison of those two different states of being will reveal to you the change that needs to happen in order to get from now (point A) to then (point B). Once you know what the differences are, then all you have to do is figure out how and what you will have to do to catalyze those changes in your life.

To make things just a little less vague, let us look at personal example.

Were I am now. I am unemployed, looking for a job. I have tons of education, but no experience. I like organizing things, and helping people on an individual basis. I like learning about money and finance. I like planning things. I like working out and basketball. I like philosophy. I love comedy. I like helping people succeed. I live with my parents.

Where I want to be. I want to become a personal coach with a focus on financial planning. I want to travel. I want to continue working out and playing basketball. I want to have my own place. I want to be debt free. I want to do extreme activities: go skydiving, bungee jumping, scuba diving, learn a martial art, learn how to play piano. I want start investing money. I want to be able to help my family with financial matters.

How to get there. I need to get a job where I can gain relevant experience in financial planning. I need to learn how to sell, negotiate, network, give amazing presentations, lead others, become great at verbal and oral communication. I need to continue building my blog to improve my communication and selling skills. I need to structure my life in such a way that I can fit in all of the activities that I want. I need to become more confident and aggressive.

Of course, all of the above are just the bare bones of what needs to happen, but it should make things a little bit more clear.Life is really simple if you are able to understand the above concepts!

NOTE: I am going to discuss how to figure out where you are now, how to know where you want to go, and how to get there in the upcoming articles.

Do It Now!

____________

Image: United Nations Development Programme

“A framework is a basic conceptual structure used to solve or address complex issues.” according to Wikipedia.

There are a variety of existing frameworks for life that have been developed over thousands of years. Some of the more notable ones would be world-wide spread religions such as Christianity, Islam, Buddhism; various martial arts, clans, gangs, sects and son on. Although many of them appealed to me, I still found too confusing to start and it always seemed that they contained too many rules, to many regulations and too many concepts to understand. I lacked peace of mind.

I needed a way to find some stability in my life while still making progress. I tried reading various self-development authors and their ideas about life. What I found was usually too extreme for me adopt right away. I found bits and pieces of things that resonated with me and many more things that I just did not feel comfortable with. That is why I kept thinking of a way to solidify and stabilize my thought process while still leaving room for growth and improvement.

That is why I came up with the framework for life for myself. It allowed to me look at my life in much more simpler terms, which got rid of a lot on confusion and mess in my head. It allowed me of a simpler and constructive way of thinking about life and of its challenges.

Building a Pyramid

We are going to pretend like each and every one of our lives can be represented by a pyramid. When we are born we start of from scratch. As we go through our life, we first lay the foundation, then layer by layer, we start building our pyramid. If we are determined and hard-working enough, we will be able to complete our it before our passing. Let us look at the components closer.

Laying Down The Foundation

There are four main building blocks upon which the pyramid of your life is going to be built. They are emotional, physical, mental and spiritual states of being. To have a strong foundation, we must develop and strengthen those four parts of individuality. Each of them supports each other and feeds of each other. For example, if you are not feeling well emotionally, then the rest of the parts are most likely going to suffer.  However, you can prevent that by strengthening the four parts so much that even one of them starts suffering, the other are going to be strong enough to pick you back up and not let you go in a downward spiral.

Creating and Maintaining The Foundation

In my experience, to establish and maintain a strong foundation one has only to do focus on four things: proper diet, proper physical fitness, proper meditation, and proper rest. Once again, these concepts are interrelated to each other just like the four foundation blocks I just mentioned. Those four activities will directly feed and nourish your mental, physical, emotional and spiritual sates of being allowing you to become a wholesome human being.

Diet will have a direct effect on physical sate of being. Meditation will have more of a direct effect on an emotional and spiritual states of being. Proper rest will affect all four parts of your being: mental, emotional, physical and spiritual. Physical training will affect physical and mental aspects of your being more than anything else.  However, it is important to remember that all the parts are interrelated and it is important not to neglect any of them. However, sometimes it might be appropriate to focus more on one part than the other depending on the circumstances.

Building on The Foundation

It is my experience that following the above suggestion should lead you to have a more stable and less easy shakable life.  Once we carry out that, we can start building the pyramid of our lives. The building blocks of the pyramid are going to be accomplished goals in our lives. Naturally, once you have enough of certain goals accomplished, you are going to be able to start to build another level of the pyramid. Naturally, it will need less blocks, but more effort to get those blocks to the next level. Each level completed will bring you closer to your ultimate life purpose until you reach the top point of the pyramid and that is where you will find your life purpose to have been completed.

In order to lay down each additional level, one would have acquire more strength by continuously drawing from your mental, physical, emotional and spiritual resources that support the whole pyramid. To ensure that the foundation can sustain the increasing weight of the pyramid, you will have to improve your rest, physical, meditative and dietary practices in addition to acquiring additional knowledge and experience to continue adding building blocks (goals) to the pyramid.

Implications of The Framework

The above explained model has many implications that makes it plausible. It automatically assumes that each person has a goal or a purpose in life  which they are trying to achieve. It also assumes that each person is able to plan and set up goals to accomplish for oneself to move from one level to another. Those are actually some of the things that many of struggle in life with: some of us don’t know what we want to do with our lives, some of us don’t even plan our lives and just live it as it comes. All of the above things just imply that some people are building never-ending pyramids, some of us stuck at the first level of the pyramid not able to move on. Is that you?

The  model  highlights  some of the more important features of life – collaboration. Let’s imagine we have this grand life vision. How are we going to build this huge pyramid? The simple answer is collaboration with others. It would make the most sense to find other who would help you out in your struggles and share their resources with yours to help you accomplish your goals. And it is only one way, in which this framework can help you answer the questions of life. Just explore!

Benefits of the Framework

I have to admit that this model might be a little bit oversimplified and I am sure that it has some flaws. Yet, I believe that it captures the essence of the human life and the best to lead a satisfying life. One of the major benefits of this framework that it enables you to easily visualize your own progress is life, it let’s you see if you are accomplishing your goals in life. This framework gives you the tools to instill stability and at the same time promote progress in your lives. Have you started building your pyramid of life?

Basic Premise

It has been drilled into the people’s mind in America that capitalism is the way of life. That money is the answer to all of the lives problems. The main reason why it happened is  because people are so easily programmable and they seldom test the “truths” presented by others. And that is very unfortunate.

Wealth and Happiness

Acquisition of wealth as A PURPOSE OF LIFE is a terrible terrible thing to believe in. Acquisition of wealth as a means to and end to achieve something bigger than yourself in life is more understandable. At least to me. Money is just one of many resources in your life. Just one, and concentrating on acquisition of one resource and neglecting other areas of your life is ignorant at the very least. And that ignorance is costing us lives, lost hope, health and self-respect.

The System

With the risk of sounds like a conspiracy believe, I am going to say the following - America is run by very few smart individuals who don’t buy into the things that they they sell to the public. Those individuals  can see the bigger picture, while everybody else carries their load by working a 9-5 fulfilling other people’s dreams in life. Those few smart individuals/groups of individuals have been able to set up this amazing network of businesses that feed of each other and generate wealth for each other while abusing people in the process.

The  Network

That network is huge and expansive, it is so big that sometimes it is difficult to step far away enough to recognize it. The chase of profits has turned people away from themselves and made them slaves to everybody else in the system.

Where does this network exist? It exists in almost every industry you could possibly imagine: Education, Health, Food, Pharmacy, Lawyers, Accountants, Military. But let us not forget the obvious ones such as Pornography, Illegal Drugs, Guns and Human Trafficking.

How Does the System Function?

How does the system work? It is quite clever. FIRST, you start with brainwashing people by telling them that by pursuing YOUR OWN interests, you will maximize the society’s interests. THEN, you convince people that money is equivalent to happiness. After that is accomplished, most of the work is done. People go off chasing money, chasing an illusion, which leads them to ignore basic needs as family, love, health, exercise, good nutrition, rest and spirituality. You are so busy making money and pursuing an illusion that will eventually destroy you, there is no way you can have to really relax, there is no way there is time for you to take of your body, there is no way you can have normal relationships, there is no way you have to run away and spend time with yourself, there is no way you have to for any of those things – simply because you are too busy making money for everybody else.

Then, you have fashion and modeling industry and the rest of the society telling you that you are not good enough and that money leads to happiness. That makes you have a reduced sense of self worth, your confidence drops, but since you have no time for anything else, but making money, here are couple of things for you to satisfy those basic needs of self-love.

The Quick Fix

Here are the solutions for most today’s problems:

• If you feel sad or depressed – go eat some junk food, see a doctor and get and some pills.
• If you feel not pretty – we have make up/ plastic surgery to cover your “defects”
• If you feel lonely and you can’t seem to find a long lasting romantic relationship – here is porn for you.
• If you feel sick – take a pill.
• Etc.

Take A Pill

And once you finally develop some sort of mental disease because of your reduced self worth, but yet, since you don’t have time to take care of it on your own, go see a doctor, who will give your pills. And eventually after developing some disease from eating that fast food because you are busy chasing money, you go see a doctor who can charge you even more money and give you more pills. If you are overly obese, just take a pill, don’t worry about exercising, just take a pill!

That’s that cancer of America – easy quick fix, because making money for others is more important than ever and there is just not enough time for taking care of yourself.

The Epidemic

And there you have it. Since young age people are bombarded with with crappy food, self-worth reducing magazines until you eventually develop mental and health issues for which America never really provides any real solution. They always treat the symptoms not the disease. Food industry feeds pharmaceutical industry, alienation feeds the porn and alcohol industry as well as internet and so on and so forth until you start to realize that nobody really cares to help others since they are so concerned about their own issues and getting the money to solve those problems.

The Solution

How do you get out of this cycle? I do not know the exact answer, but I do know that it starts with self-awareness and recognizing things for what they are. The next step is to education yourself about making the right choices and looking past advertisement, past illusions to find the real solutions for the problems that you might be facing.

Yet, one thing a person must understand is that taking care of yourself in the long term will not be easy. It will require a lot of effort, self discipline and hard work.