My Guide to Happiness, Productivity, and Improvement
In my experience the turn of the calendar year has always brought with it a sense of shame and guilt. Truth told, in my 31 years of life I have never had a year I looked back on with pride and accomplishment. That’s not to say I didn’t accomplish anything. My past is riddled with accomplishments here and there- college, publication, new jobs, and the greatest gift in the world my now 6 year-old son.
Accomplishment came, but it was not paired with pride. The accomplishments I did achieve were paired with shame, until now. As I sit back today and look over the past year I’m filled to the brim with gratitude, confidence and ownership. Thinking about the New Year is not making me tired, nor depressed as it used to. I feel a new sense that is foreign to me- that of eagerness and energy and thrill.
The past couple of months I have been working hard on balance, strength training and technique in both triathlon and recovery. This has given me valuable time to dial in and focus on points where I proved weak in races and spiritually exhausted in recovery. I have used the information to make changes in form and behavior and doing so has brought along exponential improvement in my performance.
These improvements have taken a lot of work. And I wouldn’t be able to achieve them if some behaviors had not changed. As many of my readers know when I first started training for triathlon I developed a number of injuries. I also had a few relapses with drugs and alcohol. I’m not proud of some of this, but it’s real and so are the things that got me through. To get around these, keep training, and stay alive I had to make adjustments to my behaviors (nutrition, planning, muscle recovery, mindfulness, sleep etc). These small adjustments led to behavior patterns that seem to be an essential component to my sense of pride and confidence over the past year.
Ironman University trainer and 2017 Triathlon Ireland Coach of the year, Steven Moody wrote an incredible article a few weeks ago. The article was highlighted in training peaks; a community-like training software platform that I use to structure workouts and find inspiration. Most articles in training peaks relate strictly to the athletic component of my story and development, but this one played additional cords that echoed deep through my spirit of recovery. Therefore, I asked Mr. Moody if I could extrapolate on the articles content to set the holiday and New Year tone of my blog. Thankfully he agreed.
In “Five Habits of Successful Athletes,” Steven Moody eloquently summarized the patterns I have slowly began developing that have allowed me to gain mastery in recovery and experience gains in athletic performance I did not think possible at the age of 31. Because there have been so many areas of my life that have recently changed I was having a tough time narrowing the focus for a palatable blog article. When I stumbled across Mr. Moody’s article my Christmas lights came on and the tune started ringing.
The five habits he believes successful athletes live by are being prepared, staying focused, maintaining a neutral ego, good time management, and self-awareness. Over the past year I have failed at each of these a number of times and in doing so have felt the effects smash down like a freight train. Not being prepared led to an Achilles injury that almost caused me to quit. Loosing focus led me to a six-pack of beer that snowballed into who knows what and resulted in a suicide attempt and a few days in jail. Not keeping my ego in check resulted in a backstroke mile swim to keep from drowning in my first triathlon. Lack of good time management gave me anxiety about nearly everything and a deficiency of self-awareness and muscle recovery caused a swimming shoulder injury that took weeks to heal.
When any of these are deficient my goals get lost in a miasmic plume of the negatives in the human condition. Alternatively, when each area is dialed in I feel I am sitting among the kings of the stars. Now, since I wrote on how I’ve failed in these areas allow me to quickly sum up with an example of how each of these has led to improvements.
Being prepared in advance
Today I sat down with my wife and made a list of the things we needed for the upcoming birth of our son. In doing so I shed a tear of joy and felt excitement that produced energy I did not think I had. Most importantly doing this simple thing replaced a sense of fear with great confidence.
Staying Focused
I now live in a place where not only alcohol, but my sweet crown jewel I thought I’d never sleep without-marijuana is also legal. However, staying in meetings daily and helping others has created an environment where I have not even thought about a pot brownie.
Maintaining a Neutral Ego
Over the past month while in real estate school I began to feel down on myself. I would never know as much as the best real estate agents in town. I also started comparing my swim times with a few professional triathletes and nearly lost hope in competing again. My wife helped me to dial back my thinking and compare myself with no one but my own self. This is what I love most about endurance racing- it is a race from within. The man who can beat his own self may not get a gold medal but he sure wins every race.
Good Time Management
Somehow in one month I made it through full-time real estate school, passed my licensure exam and got one house fully under contract and four others in the process of signing contracts while training three+ hours a day, attended daily meetings, got involved with a church, maintained a social life and still ate dinner and breakfast every night and morning with my wife.
Self-awareness
I’ve noticed myself listening to those older and more experienced. In doing so I can see the places I need to learn and grow while not feeling frustrated. Listening to those older and wiser gives me peace for I have time on my hands to get to where they are. I do not need to be the best real estate agent nor the best triathlete tomorrow. Out of self-awareness anxiety is replaced by peace and contentment.
In closing I just want to say that I see one central component that binds all of the five tenants of a successful athlete together. There is one characteristic the men like my father, Steven Moody, my old sponsor/triathlon coach with decades of sobriety and countless ironman finishes Jim P have in common. This is the component I have kept at the forefront of my mind throughout this year marked with struggle but defined by improvement. It is the characteristic I want most in my life, for the rest of my life. It is integrity. Integrity endurance. If I can define a life worth living in two words it is both integrity and endurance, for no man that I look up to does not extol and embrace both from ear to ear, head to toe and limb to limb.
May this year be marked by integrity expressed through endurance in triathlon, recovery and love of my fellow man.