Quarantine Blog - Day 12

“The beginning is the most important part of the work” Plato

I’ve always considered myself to be a particularly lazy individual, not lazy in a sense that I don’t do anything, but lazy in a sense of consistency. I know how things can be done and how you go achieving it most the time, but I just get lazy in actually achieving them. I suppose I never learnt to truly be accountable to the most important person in my life, myself. So i’ve decided to get absolutely shredded. Moreover, because I’m terrible at being 100% accountable to myself, I’ve teamed up with an online personal coach. I’ve never been fat/obese, but i’ve also never been the model for perfect healthy living, cue Deliveroo on speed-dial. For those who have read recent blogs, will have noticed my behavioural patterns in ordering KFC. I’ve got quite a slender body type, but I’ve always carried some flab, man tiddies to paraphrase. I’m not insecure about my body at all, in fact self-deprecation is a favoured source of humour for me. But I, like many before me, would just like to look and feel better in a physical sense, and the only person I really want to impress is myself. Test my capabilities and see how much my body can do, and we all know of the benefits in physical health connecting with mental health. 

I had a bit of mindset change in 2020, not because of the pandemic, but because I was just floating through life not really achieving anything. I lost inspiration to achieve stuff, maybe because I was insecure of my relationship with failure, maybe because I’m lazy, maybe because I never sat down and thought “what do I want to do”. At 16 we’re given career guidance to what we want to do in our lives, which affected what A Levels we should ideally take. This would pretty much set us on our path for life….at 16! A time where hormones are going in every direction, a time you only just really started to discover your individuality and what you actually like, certainly a time when you haven’t got any idea what the fuck to do. I’m 27 and I’ve barely realised what I want to do now. 

Some people are able to set their path at that age and have worked very well with it, kudos to you. Big shout out to my friend who was told by the career councillor at that age, that he couldn’t be what he really wanted to be, a Physiotherapist. He was told that he didn’t have the right grades previously, he was doing the wrong A levels at the time and would essentially need to start from scratch to achieve his dream. He was told to forget about it. But said friend is now working as a Physio after years of hard graft, a degree, a masters, various placements and now assisting in a global pandemic on the frontline. That’s one hell of a mindset, one most can only envy of having. He had a dream and he pulled up his sleeves and worked hard, jumping over obstacles and pole-vaulting into that dream like a hippo ready to give advice on mechanical injuries. But enough about him, this is my blog. A Physio is just a glorified masseuse anyways, no better than a Chiropractor…he’s fuming now. Anyways, I know I’m not the only one who is still sat here like…huh. Just remember Colonel Sanders was 61 when he started KFC, the guy should have been winding down to retirement, not starting a fried chicken franchise. But he had a dream, that one day I would be sat at home ordering fried chicken from the comfort of my sofa, and he made that dream a reality.

The catalyst for my change in mindset was when I read the book, “The subtle art of not giving a f*ck” by Mark Manson. In particular a section he wrote about ’The Do Something Principle’. He notes that the key to achieving is a 3 step process, which invariably most people have got the wrong way. Most people’s mindsets are set up as ‘Emotional Inspiration-Motivation-Desirable Action’. The idea that you need the inspiration to get to get off the couch, which in turn gives you motivation to get off the couch, to then actually getting off the coach. Even reading that, it sounds tough. You may have a dream that you feel is past you now or that you don’t think you can achieve. Essentially you’ve had the inspiration but it kind of stopped there. The actual mindset to doing something is as follows:

“Action-Motivation-Inspiration”

Cue sunset motivational picture!

Oh, he just turned that on its head. Yes he did. Get off the couch, now you’re up might as well hoover the rug, hey that looks pretty good why don’t you do the whole house. Now take this process and apply to anything you’ve half-heartedly wanted to do. It’s the very reason I now have an Institute in Brewing and Distilling - General Certificate in Brewing, it’s the reason I am now brewing beer, it’s the reason that in but a few months I’m going to have a 12 pack thanks to Online Coaching that I would never have done if I didn’t take the action of getting in touch. Just start doing. It’s a bit like the concept to the film “Yes Man”, where Jim Carey goes around saying yes to everything, don’t do that, don’t say yes to things you don’t want to do, don’t say yes to every loan application, that goes downhill fast and before you know it Zooey Deschanel doesn’t like you anymore. 

It is a tough mindset to concur, and I am still trying to concur it. Why? Because it’s uncomfortable, it means you have to do things first, but believe me when I say this, from my experience, boy does it work. The true inspiration to continue is the effect of the action not the cause of it. 

So now I’ve decided to get shredded just before I needed to come to Guernsey, so I was not expecting to be starting while on the island. Which leads me to a very prominent issue…pubs. I have come to one of the only places in the world where there are open pubs. I’m a lover of the golden nectar and as a qualified brewer I know how much sugar content there is in a measly pint, newsflash…it’s a lot. So my other personal boundary to overcome is that of self-limitation. Something I definitely struggle with after a beer. And not just with limiting drink and food, but I get lairy after a few. So much so that my Friends used to have a name for when I had one too many, Jarth. Jarth used to appear a lot in youth, he is my obnoxious and overconfident alter-ego. I’m happy to say he hasn’t appeared for a few years, but he’s still in there waiting for a slip up, he comes out in brief moments. My brother felt the force of a newspaper in his eye on Saturday night, that was a smidge of Jarth. I’m by no ways disassociating his behaviour from mine, it’s still me, but I like speaking in 3rd person about myself sometimes too. It helps me understand me better.

“A disciplined mind leads to happiness, and an undisciplined mind leads to suffering.” Dalai Lama

Self-limitation is what we mostly call discipline. To tell your brain that, “I know there is a distraction there that will be very pleasurable for you, but you aren’t getting it”. Thats hard. It can be an urge to constantly check your instagram, to sit and watch just one more episode on Netflix, it can even be a teeny tiny 6 pints in the boozer. But self-limitation is where you’ll find true freedom. If you can train yourself not to give into distractions then you’ve achieved freedom from things like: company marketing, social media influence and your own insecurities. Well done you! Give yourself a high five. I keep telling myself that I’ll delete my social media one day, as it is one of my biggest distractions. I’m constantly just touching my screen to see if I’ve had any notifications, to see if people still recognise my existence. Maybe I just need to take the action. But how else would I get my fill of high quality political memes and be able to bring you blogs of the highest quality.

Anyhow, what did I actually do with my day? The only thing of note was we played Monopoly, but a version where you are rewarded for cheating. Finally I could channel my inner Richard Branson and be rewarded for it. It’s surprisingly difficult to cheat when everybody else is now aware of you cheating. I wonder if the Panama Papers and Wikileaks had a similar effect? Oh wait Chartwells, a subsidiary of Compass Group, who’s CEO is a large Conservative donor, won the children’s food parcel contract without the contract going to tender for any other companies to compete for…well haven’t we learnt a thing or two since those leaks. Also I didn’t get to sleep til 3am. Winner Winner Chicken Dinner.