Why Your Why Matters?

Once you understand the nuance, you can simplify the process.

Training and getting fitter are simple. So simple they can be reduced to no more than a few sentences:

Practise the sport. Go easy most of the time, go hard occasionally. Incrementally increase

load through intensity or volume. Repeat and you will improve.

What is difficult is doing it! What is difficult is doing it correctly...

Often, we live with nuance and nuance complicates things. It makes a simple process difficult. However, it is what makes things interesting so we should never dismiss nuance, just understand the importance of each aspect. I see two main brackets where nuance creeps in.

Firstly, we live in a society that seemingly rewards ‘the grind’, each year we get busier trying to cram that extra thing into our days and then wonder why we are exhausted all the time. Add on top of that a sport which is physically demanding and ‘should’ be good for your health and quite frankly it is a recipe for burnout. But more importantly it creates clutter and mess.

Secondly, we are emotional beings, and this is brought to the fore when we train. We are either tired and ‘can’t be arsed’ or we are super motivated and go way to hard. Both often unwanted when we zoom out and look at the overall picture.

These two points need addressing.But, in order to do this, you must find your Why?

A simple exercise I quite like is ‘the why game?’ Remember when you were a child and fancied annoying your parents… or maybe your child just did it to you the other day. Simply ask why to every answer.

When you do this with yourself, start with the statement: ‘I want to xxxxxxxx’. Then follow it up with why? Then with whatever answer you come up with, ask the question again. And again. And again.

Doing this will peel back the layers, get beyond the surface level and you’ll start getting into the deep-rooted reasons for that desire. Repeat this for all your desires.

A WORD OF WARNING: this might get emotional.

Once you have established your truest why for each you can start achieving your desires but not before. You can begin to prioritise your days and carve out time to do the required steps. You can also forgo listening to your emotions and have a reason to train when you lack motivation and likewise have the discipline to hold back when you are raring to go.

This way you can understand yourself and it will be much more straight forward to follow the path you want to follow without getting lost in the noise. Once you understand the nuance, you can simplify the process.