THUR: What Happens When We Stop Loving the Game?

At first, you love the game and how it’s played. You love the routine. You love the process and how it yields dramatic results. Then, over time, like any stimulus, the effect it produces gradually begins to slow and the routine that we once fell in love with begins to slowly shift to grueling work we resent.

Where Sunday meal prepping which was once your weekly guarantee for upcoming success is now a lengthy process that you dread. Where waking up at 5:20 to train transforms from exhilarating rush to tiresome grind. Where the thing you couldn’t wait to do after a long day of work changes from hitting the gym to hitting the couch.

It happens to absolutely everyone. What do we do when it happens to us?

Unfortunately, I have no real answer for that and it’s something that I personally struggle with now and again, as well. I think that it’s very rare that a person is so in love with the process that they have a never ending supply of personal motivation to always be on top of their shit.

For me, the solution for when I am no longer as in love with the process as I once was, is to be able to separate what I view as “motivational want” versus “indispensable need.”

A motivational want is typically tied to a quantifiable outcome. I want to lose five pounds around my midsection. I want to hit a ten pound clean PR. I want to add three pull-ups onto my total or shave eight seconds off of my 1000m row. These are wants that must be fueled by motivation, but but they are not what I call a need for the happiness of my life.

An indispensable need is something that by definition, I cannot do without. For starters, our and my fundamental need to combat modern work sitting with getting up and moving. Then, for me personally it’s the need to know that I am strong and capable for what needs my life might produce. Finally, it’s the feeling of being in shape. I operate at my highest level when I feel good, and when I feel that I look good. No shame in my saying that.

It’s very easy to fall out of love with the game when our behaviors are always driven by motivational wants. Our behavior tends to be very hot for a while, and then it cools off based on when tangible goals begin to slow. However, it’s very easy to establish a less volatile emotional connection and behavioral pattern with fitness when we become more driven by indispensable need.

Both are healthy to have, but I personally believe that only one nets lifelong fitness.

-Dave

Thursday, 2.22.18

First, for Structure.
8/s KB Bulgarian Split Squat
12 DB Floor Press
8 Paused Ring Rows
20 minutes to complete 4 rounds
—
Then, for Conditioning.
8 Squatting Waves
60 Mountain Climbers
3/s Heavy Goblet Curtsy Lunges
5/s KB Archer Rows
100m Run
(x14 Min)