Personal training isn't hard work

Today I am beat.  Dog tired, aching, warm all over and drowsy.  It's the second day of doing some 'real work' and I am officially reminded of why I love personal training.  Here's the story.

Every once in a blue moon I do something I hate doing for a few days - call it 'calibration work'.  This time it's painting my bathroom at home (yawn - shoot me!).  I know I don't like painting, it's slow, hard, disciplined work and any time you drop your guard and mess up it is there looking you in the face and mocking you for years to come.  I'm a bit of a perfectionist generally so painting is not only laborious, but intense.  Tonight, I'm done with day two.  One more day of painting tomorrow and I'll have a brand spanking looking bathroom - and I will be proud.

So, why do I do this type of thing once and a while.  Why do I do something I'm not very good at, don't like, and could easily pay someone else to do?  Because it makes me work harder at things I like doing - like this Personal Training stuff!

What I've found is that there is something inherently sweet about unpleasant labour.  It leaves you with a sense of accomplishment no matter how mundane the task or trivial the achievement.  It peaks your ability to discipline yourself when the going gets tough and to follow through.  Painting walls and doors and window frames is bang on the money for boring me to tears and pushing me to get through.

This week at my real work I'll be writing a business plan for a planned expansion in one of my companies.  It will go extremely well.  I will write vigorously, focused and unwavering.  Is it because I have read a lot about the market, researched the competitors, written many business plans before, created a skeleton of the document already?  No, it's because writing a business plan is 1000x more interesting and stimulating to me than painting - so it will be a total contrast and enjoyable by comparison.

This approach to doing something unpleasant once and a while to re-calibrate works wonders for me.  Even the thought of it usually gives me another 3 months motivation before I have to bite the bullet and actually commit to the mundane.  The first time it usually happens to you is when you are growing up and have chores or a part-time job (like a milk run or delivering pamphlets or some such punishment).  You don't like any of it but do it for the money to go on the trip, or buy something or just to have some freedom from mums purse!  The second time it happens is when you are a student and you do summer work - stocking shelves at the store, digging fence post holes or labouring (yes, I've had the joy of all of these).

The most distinct and powerful time I had to really work was when I was studying in the USA.  I called home to Dad trying to explain I was a bit broke, I was having to work a factory job from 4pm until midnight to get by and study during the day.  His exact words were 'it'll do you good'.  I was a little shell-shocked at the time because my job was incredibly boring - stuffing paper into machines and collating envelopes that got spat out the other end - but Dad did me a massive favour (as usual).  He removed the safety net that had always been there and it was, in my opinion, the day I finally became an adult (I was 23).  Weirdest thing happened.  I got straight 'A's in all my courses and saved a bit of money to boot and eventually found a dream job that I could fit in working as an orderly at a hospital.

Now, as I ache and think on these lessons, I realise that often we forget what work really can be like.  It can be 'unpleasant, tedious, repetitive, melancholy'.  But, if you are doing something you love it is anything but.  It is in fact 'engrossing, rewarding, enriched with learning, and happiness building'.  That's what I wish for everyone.

Last two things. 

My grandad Dodds (god rest his soul) passed on when I was about 16 or so.  He, like all my grandparents, fell to cancer.  He was a peaceful, kind, and strong person.  My mother told me he was a painter and paper hanger almost all his later life - particularly while the 5 kids in his family grew up.  He absolutely hated it but did it because he had a family to support.  I feel very solemn when I think of grandad going out to work at something he despised each day.  A lot of cold and wet days where he was - hard work up and down ladders, on your knees, glue and paint on every appendage.  My understanding is he was very good at it, a perfectionist.  But, his work was his toil.  When mum first told me this I remember dwelling on it for days.  I soon became resolute that I would never do 40+ hours a week of work that I hated - not continuously anyway.  That I would be good at what I loved and that I would get whatever extrensic rewards that bought with it but I sure as hell would be enjoying the intrinsic day to day regardless.  Thank you Grandad, and thank you mum.

When I turned 28 I returned from overseas to New Zealand.  Things had changed.  My father had lost his job (at the time there were massive corporate redundancies across our country) and applied for 106 jobs all of which he missed out on due to 'under qualification' or 'over experience'.  It seemed an incredibly capable operations manager with years of success was no longer wanted anywhere.  Truth be told, there were probably a few on the market but regardless overnight Dad became 'obsolete'.  It was heart breaking for him and to watch was excrutiating.  It's all behind us now and Dad is happy again but it is only testament to his courage and my mothers love that the ship was slowly righted.  This changed me, just as my Grandfathers story did.  My Dad told me that I should rely on myself, master my own destiny and not rely on corporations or hope.  Hope is not a strategy.  Dependence is not a tactic.  At 28 I became a lifelong entrepeneur in fitness.  I didn't quite know how or what I would do to exercise my skills but I knew what the principles were going to be - I knew the jist of the story.

There are a lot of other stories I'd like to share with you over time but for now that is enough of my luggage on line.  My message for you in 2013 is this;

1. Pursue what you are passionate about or at the very least - like doing the most right now
2. Get as good as you can at what you love - keep learning
3. Look for and enjoy progress, not success - the becoming is more rewarding than the being
4. Fortify yourself with good people, family, professionals, kind judges and confidants

Thanks for reading the ptdirect.com blog - I like doing it much more than painting!

Steven G