In 2017, Chris and I were in a weird spot with our training. Neither of us wanted to do it.

 

That’s right, two gym owners that spent the balance of their adult life as coaches struggled with training motivation. At the time, we filmed a segment every week called “Coaches in Chairs.” We’d sit in pleather chairs in the previous gym location and discuss all manner of training topics. The discussion sometimes meandered through tangents as we made our way to the point. But the discussion was always honest.

 

During one recording, we got really real about the fact that neither of us felt like training. We’d each hit our big, in-the-gym training goals. Some were strength related. Others were body composition focused. Now we were beyond them. What were we training for? Nothing, really.

 

I remember being in that head space. It felt like the foundation of my identity cracked. I’d lifted weights consistently, and with purpose, since I was 12 years old. At 31, I wasn’t sure why I was doing it anymore. Partly, I felt like a fraud. Here I was, a seasoned coach helping people to train and get their lifestyle in order, and I didn’t even enjoy it. But that was the beauty of it.

 

One monumental thing that came from that Coaches in Chairs conversation all those years ago. Despite low training motivation, despite not wanting to train, Chris and I made something clear: We still trained. 

 

Regardless of how we felt, we showed up at least four times per week and lifted or conditioned. It wasn’t about motivation, and that was beautiful. Maybe that sounds a little nutty to you, but I think it’s wonderful. In spite of not wanting to train, in spite of lacking direction, we showed up and did the damn thing. That did something invaluable for us. It gave our future selves a chance to fall in love with training again and to use it to pursue life outside of the gym.

 

 

Alaska and a Death Race

I got a phone call on Thursday; I was in Alaska on Monday.

 

It was mid-May and I’d been training for my first western hunting trip. But I wasn’t planning to leave until October. Out of the blue, a friend I’d only recently met invited me to join his black bear hunt in Cordova, Alaska–a beautiful town surrounded by mountains and located on Prince William Sound. I balked.

 

“We have this going on, and that going on. It’ll be expensive. It’s a nice thought, but I can’t go right now,” I said something like this to Chris when I told him about the call.

 

“Dude, go,” was his reply. So, I borrowed gear, booked a plane ticket, and got myself to Alaska. 

 

Snow-covered peaks surrounded Cordova’s tiny airport. Lush, green brush and evergreens climbed from the flat ground up to the tree line. I felt like I was stepping onto a movie set, some kind of fictional world. But it was real, and I was there. It was the deepest sense of awe I’d felt up to that point in my life. Before we even started hunting, before my friend even picked me up from the airport, I said to myself, “Okay, this is what I do now.”

 

 

Years later, Chris and I were recording a podcast when I dared him to do something a little crazy. I dared him to do the Georgia Death Race, a 74-ish mile ultramarathon through the mountains of Georgia. Chris had only been running, mostly doing run-walk intervals, for a short time. But I’ve known Chris since we were 23 years old. I could feel his restlessness; I could feel his need for a seemingly insurmountable, but ultimately conquerable, challenge. So, I laid one at his feet.

 

Chris went on to train for months, overcoming the physical and mental highs and lows of ultramarathon prep. He dealt with injuries and self-doubt. He spent hours alone running on the roads and woodlands around Loudoun County. He sacrificed other parts of his life to rise to the challenge. And rise he did.

 

 

He climbed and descended the Appalachians of Georgia, pushing his physical limits and using strategy to finish the Georgia Death Race in 19 hours 24 minutes, 6 hours before the cutoff and over 30 minutes ahead of his goal. He also finished in 36th place overall and 9th in his age group. Most importantly, he fell in love with ultrarunning, something a younger version of him wouldn’t have expected. Chris was now a different person.

 

 

Maintaining Momentum to Find Your Bliss

My life philosophy is partially influenced by two men that approached life problems from different ends of the spectrum–Jordan Peterson and Joseph Campbell. 

 

The funny thing is, they have similar influences, folks like Carl Jung, Friedrich Nietzsche, etc. But they took such different things from the thinkers that came before them. That’s been a huge benefit to me.

 

Jordan Peterson is like a stern, but loving, father that asks good questions but always makes clear the expectations and boundaries. Joseph Campbell was more like a grandfather or uncle that guides you to take a light-hearted, fun approach to life. I’ve found that we need both perspectives.

 

Rewind to the 2017 versions of Todd and Chris, two guys that were lost with their training but still showing up. This is where Jordan Peterson’s approach is impactful. He’d say something like, “It doesn’t matter how you feel, show up and do the right thing, the thing that is good for you, regardless. Think of the future, of future you, and make a sacrifice with the current version of yourself so that you may have a better future.” That’s what Chris and I did.

 

Rather than giving in to how we felt and deepening our existential burden, we acted in spite of how we felt. Now, having built years of training habits definitely helped. But what helped even more was not listening to every whim, to the voices in our heads that told us it was okay to not train, to let the lack of motivation guide us into the easy chair. And because we maintained momentum, we were able to find our bliss.

 

Joseph Campbell studied mythologies from all over the world, starting with Native American cultures and expanding outward. Building on Carl Jung’s work, Campbell described the monomyth or the hero’s journey. Every culture and religion from around the world has their own hero story that sets the foundation of their beliefs. But he extracted something from Indian culture that has had a similar impact to the idea of the hero’s journey. It’s a saying: Follow your bliss.

 

Campbell got the idea from the sanskrit word, ananda. It translates to mean rapture in English. It’s not the fire and brimstone rapture of the Bible. But the personal rapture, the thing that fills you with passion and life. It is your bliss. Campbell’s idea is that if you follow your personal bliss, you will live the fullest possible life. It’s a beautiful idea. And I think it’s correct. But you must give yourself the chance to find it. And that, homie, harkens back to Peterson’s philosophy on just doing the things you’re supposed to do so that you build the momentum and have the structure in your life necessary to follow your bliss.

 

Chris and I had the opportunity to fall in love with the physical tests we found for ourselves outside the gym because we maintained momentum inside the gym. Our discipline led us to our bliss and kept us ready for it should it appear.

 

Had we tanked our momentum, I would have never had the head space or the physicality to hop on a plane for Alaska and transform my life. Chris wouldn’t have had the gumption or the ability to run ultramarathons and fall in love with them.

 

Because we maintained our momentum, we could find and follow our bliss. And though we each still have a long way to go, I can tell you that it’s made a huge difference up to this point. 

 

All that’s left is to help you sort out what you need to do.

 

 

8 Steps for Finding Life Beyond Your Gym Goals

This list, and the advice included, was originally intended for folks in the “what now?” phase of their gym training.

 

But don’t ignore this list if that’s not you. 

 

Don’t say, “Oh, well I haven’t even hit my gym goals yet. This list doesn’t apply to me.” It sure as shootin’ does.

 

Finding goals outside of the gym helps fuel goals inside the gym. So, don’t think of this list as one directional and only applicable to people that have reached gym goals. The advice is applicable to everyone.

 

Let’s party.

 

 

Keep Training

No matter what, keep showing up and giving the appropriate amount of effort to your training. It might not feel like you’re kicking much ass, but you’re making a sacrifice that your future self will thank you for. You’re also giving yourself a chance to discover the next goal. It could be inside the gym; it could be outside the gym. But maintaining stability and momentum is the best way to capitalize on the opportunity when it arrives. 

Don’t trust motivation. Trust that if you keep showing up your future self will thank you for it.

 

 

Try Things: Stay Open to Discovery

When you’re stuck, start saying yes more often. That means inside and outside of the gym. Even if you end up hating something, it gives you experience for context. And staying open to discovery might just lead you to find your bliss in a way you never expected. I’m not saying that you need to set up a “try things” schedule–although it might help. What I am saying is say yes more than no to trying something new. Then once you try those new things, ask yourself if you’d miss them. If yes, keep doing them. If no, move on.

 

 

Balance Drudgery with Fun

In 2017, training felt like drudgery. Even deadlifting, something that I loved for years, took willpower. So, I’d add in things that I thought were fun, even if they weren’t prescribed in the program. I’d play on the gymnastics rings or do some biceps curls. I’d do more jumping than was prescribed or I’d just turn the jumps into a game. When I needed it, I did what I could to make training feel like play. Now, I’m all for showing up and doing what’s necessary. But we all have our limits. Adding in some fun helps maintain your momentum.

 

 

Revisit Your Childhood

I’m not about to go all New Age psychoanalyst on you, so lower your guard. There were things you loved doing as a kid that you stopped doing. My guess is, you’d still love to do those things. Hunting is my example. I grew up hunting from the time I was eight until I was in my twenties. Then I stopped for several reasons, one of which was hyperfocusing on my career. I’ll say now that the best thing I did for myself was to start hunting again. It’s enriched my life in so many ways and made my time in the gym more purposeful. It was my way of following my bliss, which led to new types of bliss I didn’t know I’d love, like photography. 

There’s something that you used to love doing that you’ve stopped doing. What is it?

 

 

Take Dares

Chris is a different person with a new level of purpose because he took my dare to run the Georgia Death Race.

 

 

Whether you dare yourself, or take a dare from someone else, you’re not going to know what you need to do to take it on successfully. That’s the beautiful thing about it; you’ve got to figure it out. And in the process of figuring it out, you become a new person with a new perspective and new skills and a new trajectory.

 

 

Stop with the “Must be Nice” Bullshit

Must be nice also sounds like, I could never do that.

Yes you could. You’re telling yourself a self-limiting story based on inaccurate information. You’re letting who you might have been in the past influence who you could become. And you don’t know who could potentially become if you start taking positive steps forward. 

You’re doing this to yourself because the change seems big. But big changes happen through the accumulation of small changes. If you act small while thinking, big, you can do most anything you’d like to do. 

So, instead of looking at other people that have accomplished things and saying, “must be nice” or “I could never…” instead use them as your inspiration to bring a better version of yourself into the world.

 

 

Pay Attention Then Step Back and Evaluate

As you go through all of these steps, periodically pause and check your trajectory. Ask yourself some questions.

Do I like my trajectory?

Is training feeling better?

Do I feel like I have direction?

These are just example questions. Find the ones that work for you. But the process of stopping to evaluate gives you perspective and context. You gain clarity on whether or not you should form a new goal or stick with one that you have. You gain clarity on whether or not you just need to keep building momentum until it finally launches you forward. This allows you to cleave what needs to leave, and keep on keeping on with what should stay.

 

 

Find Meaning

While Peterson and Campbell disagree slightly on priorities, they agreed on meaning. Meaningful actions, purposeful goals, and connection to each makes for a better life. You don’t always need some hairy, audacious gym goal to goad you forward. But you need something to aim at. We all do. Aiming is what makes life make sense. It helps us choose what to do and what to avoid. It defines our lives.

Joseph Campbell said the meaning of life is to give life meaning. There’s no one here to give your life meaning. You have to do it for yourself. Maintaining your momentum helps. It gives you the means to do enough to gain perspective. And as you gain that perspective, you realize that you ought to enjoy yourself. Then you can follow your bliss.

Where does training fit in all of this? Sometimes it is the meaning. The process is meaningful to you and so are the training goals. And sometimes training is simply the tool you need to give your mind and body what it needs to search the world and create a new sense of meaning. It gives you the resilience to take on any experience, to say yes to opportunities that otherwise would seem impossible. And it keeps you around long enough to find meaning in all seasons of life.

So, if you’re not sure what to do right now, act on this list. Keep showing up. The bliss will come.

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