Life and Other Stuff

Got a message from a friend asking if I’d listened to the latest Huberman Lab podcast. I hadn’t, but quickly went to load it onto my “Up Next” list because I love Huberman and have recommended his episode on What Alcohol does to the Body about a bazillion times. (No lie, actual number.)

I’m halfway through the episode and I had to stop and share it and write about it because it’s just that good. Also, throughout my dog walk people were starting to stare at me because I keep screaming, “YES!!” I had to come home and get it out of my brain. Lord, I feel like I’ve just been to church, if church was a sobriety meeting and a fitness meeting and a how to be an adult meeting all rolled up into one!

“Vulnerability is how you fix yourself,” came through my ear buds and no lie, I stopped my walk immediately and jotted an audio note to myself. We have to get real with ourselves. Being vulnerable is the only way to get to authenticity. They are 2 sides of the same coin. Goggins went on to discuss passion.

“Where’s the motivation when you can’t read? When you’re 300 lbs? There’s no passion there! But I just did it anyway. It was hard. But I did it anyway.”

That’s it. That is the key. Making a choice. Taking action.

That’s what fitness and nutrition and committing to quality sleep and hydration and – well, being a mature adult is at its core. It’s making the choice to do the hard thing regardless of how we feel. (And it’s honestly all hard. Life is hard.) Action breeds motivation. We can’t wait for motivation to act. Goggins’ discussion about passion and doing things despite having a lack of passion and motivation reminded me of an old friend. He used to say “Drinking is hard, sober is hard. Choose your hard.” I hated it because it wasn’t how I would phrase it to a person new to sobriety, but that friend was not wrong. It applies to EVERYTHING. Do I like flossing? No. It feels like a time suck and I can think of 784 things I’d rather do. Does it help me in the long run? You bet! Keeps me from getting cavities, bad breath and expensive trips to the dentist. Both are hard. Choose the hard.

Mind blown, I continued to listen through the episode. Goggins discusses his own life, difficult circumstances and his thoughts on being misunderstood. While he explains that he’s not a neuro-scientist like Huberman, what we need is all in us already. We know what to do. We can choose. We have agency to do hard things.

Later into the episode, Huberman and Goggins went on to discuss the anterior mid-cingulate cortex part of the human brain. Anterior, what now?! I know. It’s a mouthful. It’s a neural structure that has been shown to be involved with tenacity and will power. The oversimplified explanation: When we do things we don’t really want to do, this part of the brain grows. What does that look like in action? When we get up and workout, especially when we don’t want to, and even if we know we will feel better afterwards, this stimulates the anterior mid-cingulate cortex. The friction we feel in not wanting to do what we know is good for us – actually helps us and our willpower grow stronger! In my own experience, I feel this to be true. Ever get on a roll and be consistent in exercise and then wonder why in the heck you ever stopped?! Yep. Same. It’s a snowball effect. Our brain literally helps us to do thing things we don’t want to do! The body and brain are FREAKING AMAZING!

People laugh when I tell them I really hate working out. When I’m sipping my coffee in the morning and looking at my day – if left to the voice in my head, she’ll think of 5000 things to do OTHER than working out. Every. Day. It sucks. What doesn’t suck is the results of consistency in training. It’s damn hard to be overweight. It’s uncomfortable and painful. Clothes don’t fit, moving is difficult and strenuous, not to mention the social aspects of being overweight. It sucks not feeling good in your skin. It’s also hard to be consistent with diet and exercise. Meal planning and cooking from scratch and grocery shopping are not fun activities. Both options are HARD. One is not harder than the other – both SUCK. The results of these 2 paths though are very different. Both hard, both lead to sometimes drastically different outcomes.

If the key is to choose the hard thing, despite how we feel about it, and it’s already in us, where do we even start? Maybe the hard thing is to learn a little more. Maybe it’s starting with consistency, setting a goal and committing the time to achieve it. I LOVE this stuff. Overcoming ourselves (read= excuses) reaps so many benefits. It never gets old. The goals get reached and then new goals are set and attained. Rinse and Repeat.

What is your hard thing? Got some goals for the upcoming year? How do you overcome the part of you that really resists doing what you know you should?

(If you haven’t already – go listen to the episode!)