I did my first Tough Mudder event in the Poconos this weekend with my buddies Derek and Mark. It was awesome. I have a lot of friends who seem interested so I thought it’d be useful to highlight things which I would have liked to know going into the event.
Training
Dude 12 miles!? – The average Tough Mudder is around 12 miles, but you don’t need to be able to run 12 miles straight to finish it. Between the rocky terrain, obstacles and bottlenecks, it was next to impossible to run the entire thing. If you’re goal is to finish completing all the obstacles doing light jog the entire time, you should be able to pull this off if you can …
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Fact: Any decision that requires self-control drains your energy.
Not buying ice cream I just saw in the deli = -1 energy
Writing this post instead of cruising facebook = -2 energy
Going to the gym instead of drinks = -3 energy | +5 energy tomorrow
Regardless of the choice I make, so long as I’m struggling with temptation, I’m exerting energy.
As our energy diminishes, so does our willpower because it requires energy to exercise self-control. Think it’s coincidental that people eat sweets, skip the gym, or overindulge in alcohol at night vs. the morning? It’s partially because a day of decision making causes the tides to fall in our energy reservoir. And when we lack energy, we opt for the path of least …
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This post is part of My Weeklongs Project.
People always say its cheaper to pack your lunch. I’ve never doubted this, just always been hesitant because of the perceived time it takes to pack a healthy lunch each day.
This week I wanted to put this theory to the test. I wanted to measure how much time it really takes as well as how much money I’d save. This framework would help me determine whether consistently packing my lunch is a significantly better move.
So last Sunday I went grocery shopping and prepared 5 lunches for the week. They were all grilled chicken salads with walnuts and balsamic vinegar. The monotony was fine with me because my paleoesque diet is pretty limiting.
Total …
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To Do Lists are great for making you feel productive, but they’re not always an effective way to accomplish your goals or lead your best life…at least the way that I was approaching them.
Until about 2 weeks ago, I always approached to do lists in a linear fashion. I’d prioritize my list by putting the most important and difficult tasks at the top. Few things gave me more satisfaction than drop-kicking tasks off my list one by one until I’d accomplished every single thing I set out to do. Three cheers for feeling productive!
But what I realized is that although this method is very good at helping me to get things done, it doesn’t always lend itself to getting the …
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This is post is part of my Weeklongs Project.
For the past week I ate a vegetarian diet.
Typically I stick to a paleo/4 hr body hybrid regimen, so the departure from meat wasn’t easy. Pretty much every day looked like the following:
Breakfast: 3 eggs
Lunch/Dinner: Mixed greens salad with veggies and tofu or hummus with a whole wheat pita.
I didn’t notice any significant difference in how I felt. Even if I had, I’m not sure if the sample size of 5 days is long enough to substantiate any conclusions.
The most interesting observation surrounded my discipline allocation. During my normal regimen, I have no problem stiff-arming unhealthy garnishes: cheese, fatty dressing, crackers, those awesome little chips you can put in salads. Saying no …
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I have a new personal project over the next few months I’m calling Weeklongs. It’s more a less an exercise in Lifestyle Design. The gist is that I’m going to engage in a different experimental activity/practice every week for at least 5 days in a given week. Activities will range from playing a sport to talking to strangers to calling people I haven’t spoke to in a long time…the list goes on. At the end of each week I’m going to share my observations here.
Dude, Why Are You Doing This?
I’m a firm believer that our experiences shape our perceptions. Nothing effects the lens through which we view the world more. Why then, do we often take a haphazard approach …
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Apps make our lives easier…but they aren’t going to actually do the heavy lifting for us.
One of the attendees of my last skillshare class expressed some disappointment after I described how I manage my network. My personal CRM methodology is built on Google Docs. Specifically, I use a spreadsheet to keep track of the last time I connected with select people amongst other notes).
“I was really hoping that you had some type of app that you used for managing your network. Spreadsheets don’t work for me” he said.
Like anyone who takes pride in their work, I took some time to chew on this comment during my subway ride home…
The reason the spreadsheet “didn’t work for him” is because he wasn’t willing to …
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For a long time I was told I need to get 7-8 hours of sleep without a compelling explanation why. “You need to be well rested” doesn’t exactly make me want to drop whatever I’m doing to uphold some seemingly arbitrary mandate.
Lately I’ve noticed a correlation that does make me strive for 7-8 hours: rest facilitates discipline. When I’m well rested, my willpower to maintain discipline is much higher. I’m less likely to cheat on my diet, skip the gym, and undertake new activities instead of finishing difficult ones.
Inadequate rest provokes me to settle for the path of least resistance. This manifests itself through inferior discipline. My hands dip into the cookie jar and eyes linger longer in my …
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