About a year ago, I decided to make a big change to this very newsletter you’re reading.
You see, from 2020-2023 I was pretty unmotivated to do my job.
Which is kind of amazing, when you realize that I have complete autonomy, created Nerd Fitness, and essentially built my own job.
I had spent years trying to be the person that I thought Nerd Fitness and the community needed me to be, instead of doing what I’m actually good at (writing interesting things in fun ways and helping people level up).
How did I find myself in that unwanted place?
One small decision after another, slowly over many years.
I kept picking projects I didn’t like and forcing myself to do them, but justified it to myself by saying, “I just have to do this until [arbitrary goal or date], and then I can be done.”
The problem of course, was that I never reached my arbitrary goal. Or I changed what the goal was, or the world changed, or the business changed.
I ended up spending every day doing something I didn’t like, for a payoff that never came.
I did this for years, and burned myself out.
After lots of therapy, long walks, soul searching and failing repeatedly, I finally asked the important question: If I NEVER “get there,” what would I do differently?
I realized I had to change how I spent my time and how I set goals.
Instead of doing stuff I didn’t like and hoping for an eventual payoff, I restructured my day around why I started Nerd Fitness in the first place:
Reading widely about random topics that pique my interest, and then sharing my excited thoughts on those topics with a bunch of nerds (hey, that’s you!).
Since then, I’ve written dozens of newsletters about weird topics, hobbies, life, philosophy, and everything in between:
- The Japanese philosophy I can’t stop thinking about.
- Why we should STOP believing in ourselves.
- We’re all grapes on a vine.
- Why you shouldn’t be like me.
- The art of Swedish Death Cleaning.
130,000+ people now get this newsletter every week, and it’s only reinforced my decision to stop focusing on the destination and get back to finding ways to enjoy the journey.
I plan on writing this newsletter for decades to come, and I am excited about this opportunity to email you weird stuff weekly.
I now ask you the same question.
What if you never “get there”?
Years ago, I stumbled across somebody on Reddit asking what the worst part was about being overweight.
One answer broke my heart:
“The fact that you put your whole life on hold, telling yourself that you will resume living when you lose the weight. Then, not being consistent with said weight loss journey and basically…never getting to truly live.”
Every day, I see people doing exercise they hate, or trying to follow a diet they don’t enjoy, to reach an arbitrary number on the scale that they think will make them happy.
Most can’t stick with the diet or workout for more than a few weeks, get demoralized, and give up.
Others manage to lose the weight, only to realize seeing a smaller number on their scale didn’t magically solve all of their problems. They decide the daily misery isn’t worth it.
It’s time to flip the script and give up!
We’ll never “get there,” because “there” isn’t an actual place we can get. It’s a state of mind.
This should change how we think about the workout or diet we choose, the goal we design our life around, or the expectation we set for ourselves.
My goal with this newsletter, and for our coaching clients, is helping people reach the following realization:
Finding ways to enjoy exercise, and making dietary changes that don’t feel overwhelming, is the only path forward. Even better, this often results in reaching our goals faster than when we chased fads or strategies we hated!
I’m reminded of this quote from philosopher Sam Harris:
“Most of your life is the process of solving problems.
It is not, and never will be, a condition of basking in the absence of all problems. There will always be something to do.”
Author Mark Manson put it more succinctly:
“Don’t hope for a life with no problems. Hope for a life with better problems.”
What are you going to do differently?
As Albert Camus explains about Sisyphus pushing the boulder up the hill, there’s a beautiful freedom that comes with acceptance of never “getting there”:
Sisyphus is “free” from the hope he would ever succeed. He accepts his fate he would never win, and thus can just get to work on finding meaning in pushing that rock, watching it roll back down, and starting over again.
None of us are getting out of here alive, and today is the only guarantee.
I want to hear about what you would do differently if you knew you would never “get there.”
What would you change?
Would you:
- Pick a type of exercise you actually like?
- Go on that trip, even if you haven’t lost the weight yet?
- Find a way to be “pretty good, most of the time” with your diet?
- Shift your focus from weight loss to improving your relationship with food?
I want to hear what you’ll change on your daily journey.
Hit reply and let me know. I’ll be over here pushing this boulder up a hill.
-Steve
