Ep. #502: Self-Care Tips for People Who Hate Self-Care Tips

Hey, Mike here. And if you like what I’m doing on the podcast and elsewhere, and if you want to help me help more people get into the best shape of their lives, please do consider picking up one of my bestselling health and fitness books, including bigger, leaner, stronger for men. Thinner, leaner, stronger for women, my flexible dieting cookbook, the shredded chef, and my 100 percent practical and hands on blueprint for personal transformation inside and outside of the gym.

The Little Black Book of Workout Motivation. Now, these books have sold well over 1 million copies and have helped thousands of people build their best bodies ever. And you can find them on all major online retailers like Audible, Amazon, iTunes, Kobo, and Google Play, as well as in select Barnes Noble stores.

Again, that’s bigger leaner stronger for men, thinner leaner stronger for women, The shredded chef and the little black book of workout motivation. Oh, and I should also mention that you can get any of the audio books, 100 percent free when you sign up for an audible account, which is the perfect way to make those pockets of downtime, like commuting.

Meal prepping and cleaning more interesting, entertaining, and productive. So if you want to take audible up on that offer, and if you want to get one of my audio books for free, go to www. legionathletics. com slash audible that’s L E G I O N athletics slash a U D I B L E. And sign up for your account. We all know the difficulties of working out.

We know what it’s like to climb the peaks and suffer the valleys. We know that progress never gets easier and returns diminish. Some people respond to this with pure piss and vinegar. No holds barred, no days off, no excuses, no explanations, no regrets. Buckle up, butterball. They say if you wanna level up, you gotta train insane, earn every inch, fuck sleep, drink pre workout, release the kraken, shriek, flail.

And then there are those who coo in ASMR tones about the need for kindness and care, for embracing your wholeness and radiance, for dropping into your heart space and feeling into your sensations and, oh, don’t forget to exfoliate and it’s okay if you didn’t work out today. Here’s a baby Yoda. Too many people lean too heavily toward one of these extremes and neglect the other.

They have long weaned themselves on either a diet of nothing but oppressively tough love or cloying self care. And in the fitness racket, there’s a lot more of the former than the latter. Everywhere you turn, there’s another hard faced Hard body growling about embracing the suck and doing it anyway so you can earn the aftermath one brick at a time.

The ball ache is both of these approaches ultimately hold you back. Both are unkind. Stir the agita too much and it reaches critical mass and then you spiral into burnout. Calder yourself too much and your spirit cools and congeals and you slide into blackout. The key then is balance in knowing when to flow and when to float, when to brace up and bear down, and when to back off and breathe.

Go versus float. Slow, but how do you find that balance? That is one of life’s great mysteries. I wish I had a pat answer. My guess though, is there isn’t, I think it’s a matter of learning about ourselves and our capabilities and our limits. And the only way to. do that is to spend a lot of time at the coalface and then reflect on our experiences.

How hard can we push before the wheels start to fall off? How much rest do we need to recover? This will be heavily informed by what we value most in life. Do we want purpose, intensity, and achievement, or do we want latitude, relaxation, and enjoyment? Neither path is inherently better than the other, but we do have to choose one.

One, we can either strive or we can savor, but not both. A simple illustration of this is the four burners theory of life. Imagine your life as a stove with four burners that symbolize the most immediate compartments of life. Of your life your health your family your friends and your work So the theory states that to be a high achiever You need to virtually cut off one of your burners and to be truly exceptional.

You need to snuff out Two, so in other words if you want to have a great career You must sacrifice much of either your health your social life or your family And if you want to join the ranks of the elite, you must knock out another You Now this analogy highlights an important axiom of life, and that is it’s a game of trade offs.

If you want to have a vibrant and fulfilling career in marriage, you are not going to have much time or energy. To give to your health or your social life. And if you want to be a model parent with exceptional health, it’s going to be hard, if not impossible to excel in your work. And if you want to divide your efforts equally among the four elements, you can achieve much in the way of balance, but little self-actualization.

So the key here. What trade offs you accept, but simply that you consciously accept and embrace them. Otherwise, you’re not going to find very much satisfaction in living because you’ll always be painfully aware of whatever is or isn’t. Missing without the counterbalancing constellation of what’s not.

Hey, before we continue, if you like what I’m doing here on the podcast and elsewhere, and if you want to help me help more people get into the best shape of their lives, then please subscribe. Please do consider picking up one of my best selling health and fitness books. My most popular ones are Bigger Leaner Stronger for Men, Thinner Leaner Stronger for Women, my flexible dieting cookbook, The Shredded Chef, and my 100 percent practical hands on blueprint for personal transformation, The Little Black Book of Workout Motivation.

Now, 1 million copies and have helped Thousands of people build their best body ever, and you can find them anywhere online where you can buy books like Amazon, Audible, iTunes, Kobo, and Google Play, as well as in select Barnes Noble stores. So again, that is Bigger Leaner Stronger for Men, Thinner Leaner Stronger for Women, The Shredded Chef, and The Little Black Book of Workout Motivation.

Oh, and one other thing is, you can get any one of those audiobooks 100 percent free when you sign up. for an audible account. And that’s a great way to make those pockets of downtime, like commuting, meal prepping, and cleaning more interesting, entertaining, and productive. Now, if you want to take audible up on that offer and get one of my audio books for free, just go to legionathletics.

com slash audible and sign up for your account. I’ve chosen to more or less extinguish the friends burner and to dial back the family one as well so I can maximize my work and health, which are intertwined for me, of course. Now, practically speaking, what that means is I spend about 80 percent of my waking hours studying, working, and working out.

And then most of the remaining 20 percent of my time goes to my family. Now, at some point. In a later season in my life, I probably will want to trim work and turn up family and friends and maybe I’ll even want to add a fifth burner civic or social responsibilities. But as for now, this is the life that makes the most sense for me given my goals and temperament and circumstances.

That said, such an imbalanced lifestyle that revolves mostly around work may not suit you at all and there’s really nothing wrong with that. While you won’t have as much of an impact in the world, and you won’t make as much money as you could, you will have the opportunity to enjoy something that frustratingly eludes so many overachievers.

And that is simply enough. No matter how much money, prestige, victories, trinkets, beauty, or sex some people have, they seem to be hardwired to simply want more. What for? They couldn’t tell you. All they know is they don’t have money. Enough. If you could sum up their life in a bumper sticker, it would read, whoever dies with the most toys wins.

So regardless of where you fall on the strive to savor spectrum, know this, self care is meant to be a sojourn, not hearth and home. It’s a pit stop. in the race. If you linger there for too long, it is procrastination. If you leave it out for too long, it is punishment. So the trick is knowing how to thread this needle, how to get the work done without ravaging the world.

The worker and knowing when to screw up your courage and gut it out and when to strike your flag and regroup. Hey, Mike here. And if you like what I’m doing on the podcast and elsewhere, and if you want to help me help more people get into the best shape of their lives, please do consider picking up one of my bestselling health and fitness books, including bigger, leaner, stronger for men.

Thinner, leaner, stronger for women. My flexible dieting cookbook, The Shredded Chef, and my 100 percent practical and hands on blueprint for personal transformation inside and outside of the gym, The Little Black Book of Workout Motivation. Now, these books have sold well over 1 million copies. And have helped thousands of people build their best bodies ever.

And you can find them on all major online retailers like Audible, Amazon, iTunes, Kobo, and Google play, as well as in select Barnes and Noble stores. Again, that’s Bigger Leaner Stronger for Men, Thinner Leaner Stronger for Women, The Shredded Chef, and The Little Black Book of Workout Motivation. Oh, and I should also mention that you can get any of the audiobooks 100 percent free when you sign up for an Audible account, which is the perfect way to make those pockets of downtime, like commuting, meal prepping, and cleaning.

More interesting, entertaining, and productive. So if you want to take Audible up on that offer, and if you want to get one of my audiobooks for free, go to www. LegionAthletics. com slash Audible. That’s L E G I O N Athletics slash A U D I B L E and sign up for your account. All right. That’s it for today’s episode.

I hope you found it interesting and helpful. And if you did, and you don’t mind doing me a favor, could you please leave a quick review for the podcast on iTunes or wherever you are listening from? Because those reviews not only convince people that they should check out the show, they also increase the search visibility.

and help more people find their way to me and to the podcast and learn how to build their best body ever as well. And of course, if you want to be notified when the next episode goes live, then simply subscribe to the podcast and whatever app you’re using. To listen, and you will not miss out on any of the new stuff that I have coming.

And last, if you didn’t like something about the show, then definitely shoot me an email at Mike at muscle for life. com and share your thoughts. Let me know how you think I could do this better. I read every email myself and I’m always looking for constructive feedback. All right. Thanks again for listening to this episode and I hope to hear from you soon.