Want to know the sure-fire, number-one fastest way to derail your progress, get frustrated, and burn out? Forget about the journey and focus only on your goals.
Look, I know goal setting is important. But I’m so fucking sick of hearing lifters talk only about their next meet, or the huge PR they’re going for next year, or the physique show they’re going to win. At the end of the day, no one fucking cares. Ultimately, you won’t even care about them. I can promise you: achieving goals isn’t going to make you truly happy — at least, not for more than a day or two. After that, it’s on to the next goal, always thinking ahead, always striving for more.
So if no one cares, what’s the point? Well, hopefully you actually enjoy training. You like to get in the gym, you like to load up the bar — whether it’s for a warmup or a PR attempt — and you like to push yourself hard. But when you’re only thinking about your goals, or only thinking about where all this hard work hopefully takes you, then it becomes really hard or impossible to enjoy training at all. You’re just too wrapped up in your own head to fully experience the right-fucking-now.
And that’s a damned shame.
So next time you train, mentally put the goals aside, and resolve to wholly dedicate yourself to really living it, making the most out of every set and every rep. And I don’t just mean from a performance standpoint — I mean being aware and being grateful for the fact that you’re alive, you’re healthy, and you get to smash some fucking weights. It’ll make you a better lifter and a happier, more fulfilled person.