I decided to spend this week blogging my favorite phrases that have inspired me to keep going. Phrases that have helped me maintain my commitments. The first honor goes to the phrase that I picked up from David Goggins, called Embrace the Suck.
I am not sure that he coined this phrase, but he put the right attitude behind it. I had a new commitment to improve my health, and I wanted to do good this time. I came up with some ideas and was in the mindset to do better. Then I heard one of his YouTube videos where he said this phrase.
That is when I landed on the idea, that to improve my health, I needed to do what sucked the most. Then embrace it. After some thought, this did not take long. I came up with 1. Running. 2. Pushups. 3. Situps. and 4. Squats. I did not add 5. Pullups because I could not even do one.
I was at a business conference that morning. I made the commitment right then and there. I was going to do these 4 things every morning for 365 days in a year. My thought was as long as I do these things for a whole year, my life will change. The next time I am at this conference and look in the mirror, I will have changed.
So that morning, I ran in dress shoes for about 100 yards down a golf cart path. I did 1 pushup, 1 situp and 1 squat. Then every morning thereafter, I did at least 1 more pushup, situp and squat. I ran as far as I felt comfortable. There were many mornings that I had to repeat this phrase, embrace the suck. I was a travelling road warrior, going all over the country.
I ran in the heat, I did situps in the rain. I did pushups on ice. I squats in an airplane isle way at 11:55pm. Everday, I kept this commitment no matter what happend. I embraced “the suck.” The transformation was not immediate, but after 90 days or so, things started to change.
After 90 days, I was running at least 2 miles. I was doing 90 pushups, situps and squats. They sucked, but I could do it without melting down. I started to lose weight. I started to feel better and I started to dream big.
Within that year, I ran a half marathon then a full marathon. The day of my marathon I was somewhere in the 300s for Pushups, Situps and Squats. I remember a day that I had to go to this military training event for my company at Westpoint. They wanted to do a bootcamp style early morning training. It was raining that day, everyone was miserable. Not I.
Not only did I breeze through the situps, pushups, burpees and whatever else they could throw at us. I was also elected by my group to do pullups for the team. I have never attempted a pull up this entire year. So there I was starting at that bar with trepidation. I jumped up, grabbed the bar, and did 20 of them clean with no hesitation. My friends gawked and I stood there stunned.
365 days later, I was at the same sales conference. I remember going to the gym that morning and peeling off 365 pushups, situps and squats. I remember my CEO and company President were in there as well that morning. They asked me about what I was doing and we talked about my commitment. So much had changed in one year, it was miraculous. That morning I ran about 15 miles with a good friend, and ultra distance runner. He took it easy on me, but the fact that I could hang with him at a 7 minutes per mile pace was a significant contrast. The tired, overweight, discouraged sales executive that ran the 100 yards was gone.
So the first of my recommended phrases to cement in your brain. Is “embrace the suck.” Make a commitment and do it anyway. Do it everyday.
