Cam

The sensation of will power If I feel this, I know it will eventually lead to quitting, perpetual stop/starting, or a fundamentally negative association with whatever I'm doing The way I now think instead is: - How can I do this so I truly could enjoy doing it forever - How can I put myself in a position to do the exact same or more tomorrow - How can I teach my mind and nervous system that this is relaxing, joyous, effortless Running has been talked about a lot lately, so take it as an example. The average person who attempts to get into running, or even those who have been running for a while, share characteristics in a majority of cases Typically, they focus on (1) pushing themselves and (2) beating their best time This leads to consistently running at high heart rates, with a subjective sense of efforting or tryharding during all runs, physiological stress, and fleeting feelings of accomplishment as records are occasionally beaten In fact, most runners have not even considered that they could run slower with much more ease and relaxation. There's simply an unquedtioned assumption in their mind that believes running is about running hard and pushing yourself The effect of this is that the more someone pushes and focuses on metrics, the more the interior subjective feelings of the body are ignored and also, the more running is progressively associated with stress and suffering This habitual ignoring of body signals inevitably leads to injury and burnout, then long quit phases with eventual restarts where usually, nothing is learned about the dysfunctional pattern The result is then that you have large groups of people who "hate running" based on their experiences. You have something over 50% of recreational runners injured and unable to run at any given time. You have people perpetually pushing themselves and ignoring their bodies, feeling depleted the rest of the day, and in the worst cases, becoming ugly 100 mile a week skinnyfat running dorks obsessed with numbers to the detriment of their health for absolutely no reason This entire cascade begins by ignoring the fundamental sense of will power, of efforting, of tryharding. And this comes from believing metrics and expectations in your mind are more important than the ancient wisdom in your body A wiser way to see running looks more like: - How could you run so it's genuinely enjoyable the entire time - How much relaxation can you achieve in motion? How much unnecessary muscular tension and inefficient movement can you let go of - How could you run so you use <50% of your available energy, and have a surplus left for the rest of the day - How can you run so you're truly in pleasurable contact with your senses and your environment - How can you run so you can effortlessly do exactly the same and more tomorrow - How can you run so it would truly be no problem to run this way daily forever, if you wanted to The answer to these questions is how you should run if you want running to be something you teach your mind to love and do for decades But this isn't about running. It's a model that applies to absolutely everything physical and mental Finding this balance point is how you truly sustain something long term. It's how it becomes a source of joy and a solace in your life. And how, on a mid/long timeline, overall performance always exceeds the person who went to war with themselves and ended up completely burned out or injured This same person forever talks about the activity sucking, when all their experience really reflected was their glamorization of will power and consequent total lack of attunement to their own body Finding effortlessness and balance gets you way further in all things