I would tend to believe if my job was lifting weights I would be more likely to dread going to the gym than I did knowing the gym was my oasis.
Plus, there is no two ways about it. Lifting weights is hard work. You either love the hard work or you hate the hard work. Never forget lifting weights is a choice. Even if you could have it as a job, there are other much easier jobs available. Those who don’t lift weights would never consider lifting weights a good job choice.
If someone is for real about this, they would already be doing it on thier own even it’s just spinning their wheels.
I did that when I first started by following the routines in the muscle rags, I did that on my own because I wanted it. I tried a bunch of stuff on my own, was the correct way, maybe not, but as long as the person learns and discovers, it’s all good.
When anyone asks me for any advice I already know it’s BS and I actually tell them the best thing they can do is keep a small bar with some plates and some light bells under the couch and do 100reps of an exercise or 2-sets of 50 reps while watching TV. I don’t think any one has done it yet, but I might be wrong.
I love thinking and talking about it all, including the benefits as I perceive them, so really don’t care what people ultimately do. I’m happy to give a window into it, or any of the other things I’m passionate about.
But I give excellent advices that no one listens to* for a living and also have four children who’ve been gleefully ignoring my advice for the entirety of their lives, so.
*This is not actually true. People have made profound changes not only in communication and treatment of their mental health, which is what we’re there for, but also budgeting and physical health and other life-stuff. But nowhere near the rate at which I offer it!
I agree. That is actually the reason I decided to join up here. Surround yourself with the people you want to be like.
My neighbor I used to hang out with at the bus stop comes to mind. He has 2 growing kids, a regular full time job, all the things. But he asked me anyways what I did and “how I made it work".
I explained to him my watching TV plan. When a commercial break comes up, you hit 20 push ups. That’s approximately 3 minutes every 6 to do the push-ups, get a drink, and sit back down. Recover for about 6 minutes, and do it again. In the course of 1 hour you can do about 100 push-ups while watching TV. If you get bored, throw in air squats, jumping Jack’s, what ever.
He was kinda blown away by the whole idea. But the bus came, then summer, and I didn’t see him for a few months.
But when I did, wouldn’t ya know! He was in pretty decent shape! He had been doing the TV plan the whole time, and started a keto based diet.
It won’t get anybody jacked or anything, but it gets the seed planted and hopefully growing. And it’s literally the easiest way to bang out 100 (or more) push ups in the world.
This is seriously awesome
I like to say:
Can I give you any advice? I can! I don’t know whether it will be useful to you. But you can at least rest assured that I loved giving it.
This is honestly why I never give advice.
And people might think that’s interesting with how much I post on this forum and talk about training, but observant folks have noted that I’m VERY particular about my wording.
I almost always say “This is what I would do” or “I’ve had success doing X”. I almost never say “You should do this”.
It’s up to the person listening to determine if they want to do what I would do.
Yep. I was burned a few times by people saying they’d do anything to get in shape, so I gave them the “do anything” training and diet plans. Turns out, they won’t do anything… even the little bitty things.
My approach now is to meet them where they’re at. I can definitely give them life-changing fitness advice, but I have to first get a sense of what they’ll actually do and their knowledge level. Sometimes “meeting them where they’re at” means giving them one tiny little task explained simply. If they do it, we can move forward.
I genuinely want to help people. Getting fit changed my life. So it’s hard to not give advice when someone asks. But it’s also difficult to get burned (they wasted my time and sometimes my resources) and not get discouraged when helping normies. It’s like, “I really care for you and want to help, but stop being so f’ing retarded and weak-willed.”
I think this is the key to a happy life, honestly. I have a very high emotional investment in sharing things I think are important and life-enhancing. These range from efforts to shift perspectives I believe are unhealthy or unhelpful, e.g. mens negative assumptions about women, which are more likely to be, as you’ve noted in the past, “people things” than sex/gender things (that’s a TN-specific example, I have other fish to fry in RL), to efforts to educate people about the connection between physical health and mental, to Christmas book buying for kids. These sharings are absolutely foundational to my own happiness. However, I stop short of expecting that people will shift or change in response. If they do, I’m super pleased. But I view it more as scattering seeds that may or may not grow, or which may grow long after I’ve stopped monitoring them.
At work, I pride myself on having sent a lot of people to college/tech programs who probably otherwise would not have gone or remained through tough first semesters. The ones that don’t go, despite my urging that they would be surprised at how well equipped they actually are, don’t bother me at all. Maybe it’ll happen five years after our last session, when my assurances that they’re bright enough feel more valid to them for whatever reason, or maybe they never go, but they view their kids through my lens and generational poverty ends with the next generation. Doesn’t matter to me as much as having these conversations with people who are curious enough to listen.
Same with my sedentary friends. I have only very limited investment in their fitness outcomes, but I love describing the sexy feeling I get from doing it. (“Sexy” to mean confident, badass, strong, etc. rather than horny.) (Though there’s that, too.) No one in my sphere of influence ever has a breakup without me recommending the gym.
I happen to have information and experience that not everyone has. My lane is the sharing of it. Their lane is the utilization of that info.
Wonderful post! It coincides with something I’ve written recently regarding “sharing stories around the communal fire”. These days, people are in such a rush to just tear apart someone else’s story by asking for “the study” or “the proof”, when, really, we shouldn’t let a little something like the the truth get in the way of a good story. We all grow when we get a chance to share our story and listen to others.
The scattering of seeds is a great allegory there. Also cautionary as well. I’ve learned to be careful about what I say, because I’ve had people come back to me years after I made some off-hand comment only to find out it was life changing for that one particular individual. Just imagine if I was being sarcastic when I said it! Haha.
What amazed me most is how few “horses” actually drink water.
Maybe I’m just old and winsome (like Batman!), but it seems a little narcissistic to “force” my values on someone (I’m not saying anyone is saying that!). I kind of look at it like the political divide in the US (world?): we can both think we’re sincerely doing the other person a favor, but if neither of us showed up to have our own opinion changed, we’re just being disrespectful.
To that end, I like all your thoughts around “I’ll put it out there; it’s up to them what to do.” To @Chris_Shugart’s initial question, we’re kind of in the business of discovering what change they actually want to make. Even us purists can get onboard if we think of it in terms of progressive overload: start with the least, get an adaptation (compliance, in this case), and let them ask for more.
I try to be clear about my sources, whether science-based or a Facebook meme, whether I’m speaking based on personal experience, or to note that “I get to observe a lot of lives and of course am living my own ridiculous life, and…” I’ll also freely acknowledge hypocrisy on my part if appropriate (“I get to sleep earlier if I read a book at night, but definitely sometimes scroll my phone”).
To me these are just conversations, which may lead to experiments in change, but which may also just be thought exercises for some people. I also very much recognize that I like the things I do, for the most part. I don’t like rich, goopy foods, which plays a part in my avoidance of obesity, as does my fidgety nature. Not everyone is wired for fitness. I have a friend who keeps trying to convince me to take up fly fishing. Like, NO. I don’t want to! It sounds like torture. I do hear her when she talks about the zen of it, but zen is not really a state I’m seeking. It’s laughable to me to think she may be all disappointed and discouraged that she tried to lead me to water but I refused to drink.
Pretty much… when people in the real world ask me for my 2 cents on something I’ll give it but after that its their affair.
When they’re your wife
