Newsletter

Happy Monday,

There’s no getting around it: plateaus suck.

I know, because I’ve been in one for the past couple of months in my jiu-jitsu training — and I can’t wait to get out of it. I’ll be honest, there have been plenty of moments during that time where the voice in my head tells me that I’ll never get better, — and I might as well just give up (I refuse to listen to it!).

When he was alive, George Leonard, one of my favorite authors (he authored Mastery among many other books about human potential), wrote a lot about plateaus, noting that for most people, “plateaus are a form of purgatory.”

But here’s the thing: we need plateaus.

While they’re undoubtedly frustrating, plateaus have a purpose.: They give us a chance to practice what we’ve learned. It takes time and repetition to learn something new and cement it into our long-term memory. The bigger the challenge, the more time we’ll likely need to internalize our new knowledge.

So next time you hit a plateau, don’t freak out — recognize that it’s just part of the process.

(Still, plateaus shouldn’t last forever. If you’ve been stuck in one for a while, here are some ways to get out of it.)

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Happy Monday,

Do you keep track of your workout progress? If not, you should. Here are a few key reasons why:

• Tracking helps you pay more attention to that area of your life (this is called the Scoreboard Principle in psychology)
• It helps you make our goals a priority — and allocate time and resources toward them
• Seeing proof of your progress also helps keep you motivated on the long road to mastery

I’ve kept a training journal since I started my fitness journey over ten years ago. Doing so has helped me see that I have made progress even when it feels like I’m going nowhere.

And celebrating that progress — no matter how small — is also key. If you focus only on your long-term goal, you might get overwhelmed by the long road ahead and give up before you get very far.

Small wins act as a checklist of progress points on the way to our larger goals. They remind our brains that no matter how futile our efforts may seem at times, we are making progress.

Keep track of those wins. And keep going.

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Happy Monday,

I “found” fitness when I was twenty-two years old.

At the time, I was struggling — a lot. I was lost, hopeless, and disillusioned with life. At that point, I had tried and failed at so many life paths that didn’t fit, I felt like I had failed as a human being.

I started with a single push-up. That push-up changed everything for me.

Before fitness, I believed that everything about myself was fixed, from my physical abilities to my personality. Fitness showed me that I could have a say in the person I was becoming and some control over the direction my life was taking.

Remaking myself from a person who had no obvious athletic abilities into someone who identifies as an athlete made me wonder what else I could do to shape myself — and my journey.

Fitness helped me learn to believe in myself. It taught me how to set and achieve impossible-seeming goals. More than anything, it taught me to take risks, to give something my all — and to try.

Has fitness changed your life in a profound or meaningful way? I’d love to hear your story! You can reply directly to this email to get in touch.

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Happy Monday,

You know those days when you end your workout feeling like you crushed it? Maybe you got a new PR, a skill you’ve been working on finally clicked, or you felt super strong or in great conditioning shape.

Well, those days are awesome — but they’re not going to happen every time. Progress isn’t linear, and not every workout will be great.

More realistically, you can expect about 30% of your training days to feel great, 30% to feel mediocre, and 30% to feel pretty bad.

Those numbers will vary based on the challenge level of your workout — the more you push yourself, the more you can expect some bad days.

The key is not to let them get to you. Bad days don’t mean you’re going backward — they’re just part of the process. Accept them, don’t dwell on them, and move on.

Since progress compounds, what matters most is that you keep showing up.

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