Success

I've been a fan of Seth Godin's work for some time. Check out one of his latest posts on the five pillars of success:

The Five Pillars of Success

What Is Fitness?

This is a great question and one that is not asked enough.

What is fitness? How do we define it?

If you have a personal trainer and you asked them this question, my guess is that you'd get a wishy-washy answer. Try it out. Ask one of the girls behind the desk at your local Globo Gym and see if you don't get a blank stare.

In the past 4 months or so, I've realised the importance of defining fitness. How can you achieve something (anything) if you don't really know what it is you're striving for? It means you are aimless in your pursuit. The wishy-washy definition will produce wishy-washy results.

If you've never heard of CrossFit, then you should look it up right now: CrossFit

CrossFit's success stems from the fact that they bothered to define what they were trying to achieve before setting out to achieve it. Makes sense, right? You wouldn't set out on a trip to Sydney without first knowing what the hell Sydney was!

I believe there are two other reasons to CrossFit's success. Firstly, the training rationale is based on evidence. They know the training works, because the proof is in the pudding. There are thousands of athletes that are finding their best fitness as a result of following CrossFit's training principles. The second reason for success, and possibly the most important of all, is the community that has sprung up around it to support those involved. There is a wealth of knowledge given freely in the archives and forums of the CrossFit website. What's more, there is probably a CrossFit affiliate in your area and I can bet you that the people there will be some of the most supportive fitness trainers you'll ever meet. If you live in Melbourne, check out CrossFit Victoria.

If you have a goal of improving your health and fitness this year (or anytime in your life), I highly recommend going back to the fundamentals. Figure out what it means to be fit and healthy. Then, and only then, can you create a plan and a path to move you forward. After that, you'll really start to see some results.

Personally, I think CrossFit has got it nailed. A broad and functional fitness that is useful in everything that you do. Its my choice and I've never felt better.

Making Those Choices

Its a brand new year and what better time than to make some life changing decisions.

Over the past few weeks, I've been setting the wheels in motion to steadily change my life. I've resigned from my job. I've started a business with a friend of mine. I've changed my diet and started a new exercise program. I've joined a band with my brother and a friend. I've booked in to become a strength and conditioning coach, with a view to becoming a CrossFit accredited trainer. I'm starting a discussion group called Penny University with my girlfriend.

To be honest, its been a little scary. I think that's a good thing. It means I'm on the right track. More often than not, the things we need to do most are the things we're most afraid of.

For example, I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to survive financially once I quit my job. But I have enough faith in myself to know that I'll figure it out. Its more important for me to quit the work that I find so unfulfilling every day. I'm reminded of a quote that I heard from Seth Godin, "Life is too short to be stuck in unfulfilling work." Its time to pursue the things that genuinely interest me, because then the work is effortless.

Mediocrity is crap; why bother striving to produce something average? I want excellence. To experience it and to produce it. Excellence speaks for itself and makes the world a better place. More importantly, its exciting and challenging to strive for excellence.

I'll be writing a lot more about how I'm going with these changes. These are exciting times.

Choice Is Your Power In This Life

Every so often I'm struck by the simplicity of choice - the one power you have in life.  The world of cause and effect.  Everything that we do boils down to choice.

The smoker who develops lung cancer made choices that led him or her to that consequence, just like the Olympic athlete who wins a gold medal made the choice to train twice a day for four consecutive years.  Extremes like this help make the point of choice obvious.  But the concept of having a choice and consciously making one sometimes gets lost in our daily routines.  Habits (or the continuous act of making the same choice) can be both empowering and insidious.  I definitely find this to be true in my own life where in the face of having made the same choice over and over, I forget that I can in fact make a different choice.

It is, more often that not, easier to identify this kind of behaviour in others than it is in ourselves.  The perfect irony exists when people who are adept at preaching are no good at heeding the lessons the teach.  Like the overweight personal trainer or the smoking doctor.  And therein lies the human challenge.  Though we often know the right choice to make, we go ahead and make a different one that doesn't support what we're about.  The question I ask is why?

We choose to drive to the shops when we could (and now that we're the fattest nation on earth) probably should walk.  In doing so, we stay fat and propagate climate change.  We choose to stay in the jobs we detest instead of taking the courage to quit and find something fulfilling.  In doing so, we waste years of our lives and tolerate a depressed level of existence.  We skip the gym and eat pizza instead to put value on our mouths instead of our hearts.  We walk past the beggar and sneer at him for being a slacker instead of showing compassion for those less fortunate.  We complain and we whinge instead spending that energy on affecting positive change.

Every choice we make produces a result.  If you keep doing what you've always done, you'll keep getting what you've always got.

The answer then - to all of your problems - is remarkably simple.  Make different choices.  The major hurdle is fear.  Very few of us practice flexing our fear-defeating muscles, meaning that we struggle to muster the courage to make the big choices that would set us free and help us correct our courses.  I am definitely guilty of this.  But courage, strangely enough, is a habit too.  Practice it and you will get better at it.  Practice making the choice that you believe is the right one and your life will undoubtedly change.

Choice is the power of your life.

Are We Becoming Allergic to Stillness?

Each morning I walk from my apartment building, through the backstreets of Windsor, to the train station on my way to work. I actually really enjoy this walk. The morning is quiet, still and calm. Noise is sparse - limited to only a few birds chirping away in the trees. I also enjoy the solitude. Ten minutes to just walk and be by myself. No need to talk. Just a chance to listen and connect with the waking world around me.

As I get closer to the station, the noise picks up. Cars scoot past, people are walking, talking, running, working, cleaning, etc. The stillness is disrupted. I'm more accutely aware of everything that is going on around me because of the stillness that has preceeded it. The quiet allows me to better appreciate the loud.

However, as I passed a number of people on my walk to the station this morning, a thought stayed with me. Are we assaulting our senses?

Many people that I pass on my way to work are trying to fill each moment they have with something to do. Take, for example, one man I stood next to on the platform this morning (well, I actually couldn't stand next to him because he was pacing up and down). He had headphones in his ears, coffeee in one hand and a cigarette in the other. He looked quite incapable of sitting still - even for just one minute. He could well have been allergic to stillness and quiet. His brain is being sent stimuli signals from his ears, mouth, hands and nose - something being registered with each sense, allowing him to be occupied for every second.

I looked around and I saw, in varying degrees, people doing exactly the same thing. People constantly fidgeting with their phones, lighting up one cigarette after another, listening to iPods, so on and so forth. Very few people were content to just be there, still, and enjoy the morning for what it was. They somehow needed to be distracted from the 'boredom' that would ensue from having to simply not be doing something.

I found this so strange and I wondered if it was a product of the type of culture that is developing all around us. Why are people behaving like this? Are we addicted to just doing "stuff"? Even when that stuff is relatively meaningless? Where did this need for fidgeting come from?