All Things Considered
To recap: we recognise fitness is not an optional extra but a must. As such, it is more than deserving of a practice mindset. And, unless we happen to have a long history of fitness wins on the board— and even then— we’re best to approach this with humility.
But, we start from where we’re at. With fitness as an afterthought we’re bashing away at as long as we have to. Or as long as we can. Because most of the time we can’t. So we push it to the back burner in favour of more important things.
Sacrificing first, that which improves everything else. And feeling justified, comfortable, rational in doing so.
And that, as ever, is some distance from reality.
Consider what we might come to include under the heading ‘fitness practice’
Short answer:
Every. Thing.
As detailed last week, the dojo, studio or other dedicated space marks the threshold for the more narrowly defined practice. Even then, the idea of any practice is for the underpinning qualities (the virtues) to transcend these boundaries and bleed into your broader life.
A fitness practice is the acknowledgement that these divisions are not there. Everything adds to or detracts from what you’re trying to achieve. Uprooting, introducing or cementing behaviours that wholly determine your life. As Scott Sonnon of TACFIT describes:
Training happens every second, and every moment of life, each decision is an act of conditioning.
You don’t enjoy the relative luxury of the athlete and the narrow constraints of a sport or other goal, you’re training for life. Look at the Leftfield Substack logo below, each of those dots represents decision points, arriving and leaving, that, in turn, create: YOU.
You’re forever creating the conditions for adaptation, positive or negative. You're doing it right now. You were doing it an hour ago and you'll be doing so this time tomorrow. And so we arrive to a jarring but useful conclusion: you don’t need a result. You are a result. And you always will be.
We are in life—living it. And training for it—whether we want to or not. And everything we do has a bearing on it. Our ‘fitness’ then, can be described as the sum total of all inputs and outputs, but to say this is a holistic perspective, while true, doesn’t quite capture it.
There is nowhere else to stand.
It then follows our not recognising or accepting this will have a corresponding bearing on things. And not a good one.
I give you:
modern fitness culture and— of more relevance where you’re concerned;
you failing to see fitness as priority number one in your life.
And yes, dear reader, I mean you. And yes, I mean, one.
So let’s deal with the obvious: because it can’t possibly be more important than my kids, or family or love or…
I’m with you. Could not agree more. All those things are super important. But remember we’re not talking about mere physical capacity, or indeed any individual quality but the sum total here.
The you who:
Loves
Cares
Parents
Pick whatever verb you like. Because, as previously established, it’s all of them. I would argue, they are verbs deserving of you being fit.
I don’t suggest fitness should be anything other than a benefit to all those things we agree are important, and everything else. So nothing is coming at the expense of these other important considerations— as not being fit surely does.
What you’re looking for is a Goldilocks sweet spot that I can’t define because it will be unique to you.
If you’re 18 years old with all the time in the world to get fit but you choose to play video games and eat pizza all day, go for your life. You’d enjoy it all a lot more if you were fit but, please yourself.
If you’re working 70-hour weeks and every spare minute is spent chauffeuring kids to and from sports practice and violin lessons and every other bloody thing… well, best you get and stay fit, then, right?
Yeah? Well how the hell am I meant to do that, Mr Wizard !?
I know it doesn’t yet mesh with that reality either and we’re going to reconcile that too, but here, again, there’s no singular recipe and can only ultimately be determined by you. For now, I’ll tell you there’s going to be a bit of give and take. Everything is going to give a little bit. And everything is going to take a little bit. But all at different times.
But it’s also different to what you imagine. Fitness for most has been something tacked onto your life. An ill-considered, ill-fitting addition, making little sense in the broader scheme of things, typically adding little and, as likely, making things difficult. Even if you did strike something that ‘worked’ this piecemeal, fragmented approach could only ever be just that.
To make a sartorial analogy, think silly hat or a pair of clown shoes. Maybe some oven gloves.
What you’re going for now is more in keeping with Coco Chanel’s advice, look in the mirror and remove one thing before leaving the house.
You’re going to consider everything. And despite the all-encompassing nature of the task, you’ll soon find things are easier. This is not at all paradoxical, because it’s closer to the reality of the situation.
You only ever made things more complicated by denying it. And your recognition of which now pares everything back to simplicity. Elegance. In fact, here it’s more accurate to say it’s out of your hands, and your life determines what you’ll do:
Sleep
Family
Stress
Work
Injury
Age
Illness
Preferences
Everything
You then apply the practice approach with the requisite discipline, dedication —and all those good things. And what do you think will happen?
Something will, I’ll tell you that. It always does when you’re dealing with reality. It’s up to you to make it good. With every effort directed towards the right place at the right time to the right degree, everything is as easy as it gets, as effective as it gets and as specific to you as it gets.
If you’re freaking out about what right is, don’t worry. You never know. It’s all course correction and trial and error. And we’ll get to that. For today let’s agree on what’s wrong — not in a moral, but in a denying reality sense: to keep kicking the fitness can down the road.
So that’s the chasm to cross: to shift our getting and staying fit from one of our last considerations to our first.
But it’s also true that the only hurdle you need overcome to make fitness the priority, should you care to do so, is simply to see it as such. To be suitably motivated. After all, those unfortunate enough to have a fitness-related health scare figure it out on the spot.
There are changes to be made, obviously. It should be further obvious that unless you truly come to see fitness as a priority you’ll never make them.
Equally, if you do truly see it as the priority, there’s nothing I or anyone can say or do that could prevent you from making them.
Enjoy your weekend.
- OLI