Category Archives: Goals

Business, Friends and Family, Goals, Habits, Health, Life, Sleep, Travel

Ready for what’s next

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Happy 2020! I didn’t write a mid-year update for 2019 because I was putting in crazy 16 hour days, under cyber-attack, and just trying my best to stay afloat. It was insanely tough and there wasn’t much to say other than it fucking sucked. But I got through it and here I am reflecting not only on the past year but the past decade as well.

 

A year ago I was terrified of leaving my job to work full-time on mailfloss. At the time it wasn’t doing a whole lot in revenue, had a high churn rate, and a ton of bugs. Mentally, I felt really isolated, unprepared and alone, but in retrospect, it was absolutely the right thing to do. It’s been incredibly challenging at times, but nothing in my life has ever felt so rewarding, either.

 

2019 gave me a glimpse of a new life and what’s possible. Walking into the new year and the new decade I feel like I’ve gained some confidence back and know that everything is going to be alright.

 

I spent half the year in Canada and half the year in Thailand. There was one issue with Thailand, and that was the fact that I didn’t work out at all. This is horrible and something I need to fix. I’ve been doing double duty since coming back to Canada for the past month and it’s really made a difference in my size and leanness, but it’s also starting to nag on my joints a bit, especially my elbows.

 

The good news is I’ll be heading to South America for 3 months starting next week, which was my original plan in 2018. I’ll give my elbows a break from the daily grind for a few weeks, but then I’ll still need to get into a bodyweight routine of some sort, or end up with a dad bod again, which happened this year but thankfully is now under control.

 

My Spanish will be put to the test while in South America, which is exactly what I need. I had a tutor for over a year and still feel like my Spanish isn’t up to snuff, which is frustrating but is what it is. I feel like I’ll be able to get by without too much trouble, but we’ll see once I get there.

 

I read 23 books this year and the one that I recommend the most was the first one I finished – Atomic Habits. It’s a blueprint to better habits and really helped my productivity shoot through the roof, eliminate some nasty habits and get better at sticking with good ones.

 

Some lessons I’ve learned and re-learned from the past 10 years include:

Consistency is everything. Slow and steady wins the race. The tortoise beats the hare 9/10 times.

Don’t tolerate toxic people. Friends, family, SOs, classmates or coworkers, it doesn’t matter. If they continuously disrespect you and don’t support you then get rid of them. You will be objectively happier and better off once they’re out of your life.

Nobody gives a shit about you and nobody owes you anything. Don’t cry about it, this is empowering. You can do anything. Get after it.

Friendships come and go in cycles. Life changes, people get married, have kids, move away. Don’t hate, accept it. You can’t force and beg people to be in your life. If it was meant to be, so be it. You never know when you’ll reconnect with old ones.

Be cautious of the “isms” and worship nobody, no matter how great you think they might be.

Respect everyone until they give you a reason not to.

Be kind, even to those who don’t reciprocate.

Effectiveness beats efficiency, but ideally, you’d want to be efficient at the effective stuff.

Be micro-impatient, and macro-patient. H/t to Gary V for this one. Meaning go fast and hard short-term so you can reap the rewards long-term. But they don’t come overnight.

Sleep well so you feel great and can perform well.

Eat consciously.

Kaizen – try to continuously improve, always.

1% improvements add up quickly.

Don’t sweat the small stuff, but don’t underestimate them either.

Believe in yourself, even when nobody else does.

Don’t forget to breathe. This is especially important when shit is hitting the fan.

Don’t be afraid to ask for help, especially if you need it.

Think for yourself and don’t believe everything you read or see.

Exercise, already!

Balance is still over-rated. Especially when it’s ill-defined.

Just because you love something doesn’t mean it’s good for you. This includes friends and hobbies. And cheeseburgers.

Try to full-ass stuff rather than half-ass stuff.

Travel more. (side note: Instagram doesn’t need to know)

Put away your phone. It’s alright.

Looking back on the past decade, I can say without any doubt that this was by far the toughest decade I have gone through and perhaps ever will go through. I left the corporate world in 2009 and haven’t looked back, but nothing turned out the way I envisioned it. While my friends got married, bought houses, cars, had kids, got promotions and new jobs, I got none of that. I failed, again and again and again and AGAIN, moved home, was ridiculed and laughed at and wrote off, brushed aside, disrespected, ghosted, and thrown shade at more times than I’d like to think about.

 

But it’s all been worth it for what comes next. I genuinely believe 2020 and beyond is mine for the taking, and I’m coming for it all.

Goals, Life, Me

2017 was a good year

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I had a good year this year. Good, not great. But I will take it. It was the first good year I’ve had in my thirties. That isn’t an exaggeration.  The last 5 years were complete and utter shit. That isn’t me being negative, that’s just the reality of the situation. My perspective throughout those 5 years was mostly positive, but even still overall it was a sucky time. This year, however, something changed. I didn’t feel lost and confused. I didn’t make mountains out of molehills. I took everything in stride. It was good. Things were busy, as usual, but I never felt overwhelmed or scatterbrained. I knew if I just clamped down and chugged I could get a lot done. And I was mostly pleased with my progress. Slowly but surely I’ve been progressing in the game of life, leveling up where I can, stopping to smell the flowers where appropriate, and 2017 was pretty smooth in those regards.

Some of the highlights this year for me included getting Lasik surgery and hiring a private swimming coach. Both of these were huge. My vision has improved tremendously and I no longer need glasses and contact lenses. I cannot emphasize how much this has improved my life. The same can be said for hiring a private swimming coach. She was able to 10x my swimming ability and drastically improve my confidence in the water. I was so pleased with the results that I’ll be hiring her again next year. Lesson learned – sometimes you just have to pay up to have your problems solved. Both of these were investments into me and were worth every penny.

This was also a great year health-wise. Sure, I still can’t see my abs and I still have a bit more tummy then I did before I started my uber bulk, but the fat has slowly been melting away. I don’t mind, though. I’ve put on more muscle than fat and have had numerous people compliment me on my gainz. But much, much more importantly, I’ve been mostly injury free and a lot more durable this year. This makes me very, very happy. Strength training has gone well and progressive overload has been pretty much linear (or maybe step-wise). A first time in my 5 years of lifting. Injuries in the past have set me back time and again, sometimes for unbearably long periods of time, but this year everything just went well. This allowed me to sneak in some fun BJJ injury-free as well (though not as much as I would have liked). Things are just better without injuries so I’m hoping I can stay this way for a long time. I think I made the right adjustments this year and am quite pleased.

I didn’t do a lot of travel this year but did sneak away to Havana for a few days early in the year. I’ve always wanted to go to Havana because that is where my Grandmother was born and it always looked like it was trapped in a time capsule. It didn’t disappoint in the slightest. It was a fabulous place and the people were great. I also had short weekends in Chicago and New York City, my favourite city in the world. It was my first time in Chicago but hopefully not the last. I had a fantastic time there with some fantastic people. I will be traveling a lot more in 2018, for sure, starting with a month-long trip to India in January.

Aside from that, not much else to report. I didn’t think I read a whole lot of books this year but looking back at my Goodreads bookshelf, it looks like I managed to cram in over 20 books since the beginning of the year. I really enjoyed the books “Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World” and “Persuadable: How Great Leaders Change Their Minds to Change the World” (what’s with me liking books about changing the world? hmmmm).

Next year looks to be business as usual in a lot of ways, but there will also be exciting opportunities available. I think it will be a hard but rewarding year. And if it’s a good year like this one I’ll gladly accept it. I’m excited to see what happens.

Happy New Year! Much love.

Goals, Life, Me

2016 – A little lonely and a little lost

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“Fuck…”

“I can’t take this anymore…”

“Somethings gotta change…”

That was me 3 weeks ago. I was at my wits end. It felt like I was suffocating. What I was doing for the majority of the year wasn’t working and I knew it. I was overworked, ineffective, and unhappy. Basically, everything I didn’t want in my life. So I bailed… on almost everything.

It felt like I just chopped off one of my arms. But it was swift. Painful but swift. I closed 4 of my websites for good. I emailed my customers telling them I was closing up shop and gave them enough time to export and backup their data. And I cried a little. And I may have pooped in my pants. I can’t remember.

2016 was a lot like 2015 in many ways… it went a lot harder than I thought it would. If you were to read my 2015 update you could almost update the year from 2015 to 2016 and you’d almost be correct. It was much worse in many ways. But there’s only so many ways I can write I had a shitty year without sounding repetitive and like I’m feeling sorry for myself. There were some differences, obviously. It’s not like the movie Groundhog Day where I was living the same shitty day over and over.

But I think in terms of my social life, my hobbies, my sleep, it was all very similar and my mid-year update covered it pretty well.

Since the mid-year update, not much has changed except a few things worth noting. In August I began a four-month bulk that resulted in me gaining over 30 pounds. The really crazy part to me was about 2 months into the bulk, I was already over 35 pounds and far too fat. So I had to actually make some adjustments and ended up at 168 lbs. At one point I was over 170 lbs, which was crazy to me. All prior attempts at putting on weight never put me over 160, let alone 170. While I’m happy that I was able to put on that much weight in such a short amount of time, I will never attempt to do it like this ever again. I look and feel disgusting. I’ve got a huge gut, feel much more lethargic, and have a crazy amount of bacne and random skin rashes that refuse to go away. I also don’t have any clothes that fit me properly. So now I have to start cutting out the fat while maintaining the muscle I gained. Theoretically, it shouldn’t be too hard. Eat a little bit less while keeping the protein relatively high, and increase my energy expenditure (more exercise, more daily movement, more activity). Let’s hope it doesn’t get too difficult. I don’t foresee it being too bad but if my track record for everything else in my life is any indication, I’m probably way off.

The neck pinch I had in July resulted in another MRI scan of my neck. The results possibly explained the tingling and numbness I had in my arms and hands and fingers. 5 of 7 of the discs in my neck are bulging, 2 somewhat seriously with stenosis to boot. Yay, me. BJJ, one of my favourite hobbies, has been difficult. I’d spar with some people and my neck would be sore for a week. So I haven’t been going very often, unfortunately, which makes me sadface.

Productivity and learning really started to take off in the last quarter of the year. I was learning a shitload and getting a lot done. I spent a lot of money buying software and online courses to further my education. It was as if I was subconsciously building up a war chest of business software and upgrading my brain because of the coming fallout that my subconscious inevitably knew was coming.

I was disappointed in how I handled some important things this year, especially in business. I was overconfident in thinking I could do it all. Way too much hubris. But I didn’t know what to do and had nobody to turn to. I felt lonely. One of my best friends moved away in February. Another decided to bail on a business we were working on together. Another moved away in August. And my Grandma passed away in July. That one gutted me and still fucks with me. All in all, I felt lost, lonely, and unsure of what to do. I bought an online business because why not. I started dating again around that time because why not x2. They were all missteps that if I just took a second to think it through I would realize how bad the decisions were. I was adding gasoline to an already full tank. I was just overflowing, and scatter-brain, and unfocused. I was like a frog in a pot of water about to boil. It was around September that I was reaching the boiling point. And by December…pop.

But here’s why I’m not worried…

I watched the UFC last night – Rousey vs Nunes. I was wrong about both main events. Two of my favourite fighters lost, and one of them got murked. And then this morning all I could see were memes mocking Rousey for her loss. And I was reminded of something I already knew. People who make memes about women getting beat up just aren’t part of my tribe. I don’t even know how to associate with that or them on that level. But people who work their asses off day in and day out, who try their best and still come up short from time to time but who aren’t afraid to put in the work and keep going…shit…that…THAT is my fam. That I can relate to. All. Damn. Day.

This is Dominic Cruz after his loss. Listen to this shit. I had it re-running for 20 minutes straight so it could seep into my thick skull. The most dominant bantamweight in history just lost for the first time in 9 years yet his perspective is unexpected and inspiring.

 

Story time…. I haven’t told this one to anybody because it’s a little sappy and weird…

I went to visit my old stomping grounds earlier in the year. I went to say hi to some cafe owners I hadn’t seen in a few years – a brother and sister run business. I had gotten to know them over the years and found out a lot about them. Prior to the cafe, they ran a number of businesses – night clubs and restaurants, so naturally they’ve met a lot of people over the years. Anyway, when we were catching up they gave me a lot of life tips, wisdom and words of encouragement and fed me for free until I was stuffed to the gills. As I was about to leave the sister said something that really stuck with me. She kind of sat me down and looked me in the eyes, and in the most sincerest way I’ve ever seen she said I was special. That I was different and unique from anybody she’s come across throughout the years of running businesses and meeting thousands of people. I laughed awkwardly and looked over at her brother to see if she was fucking with me. His eyes were glued on me and nodding at everything she was saying. Then she said something along the lines of “Maybe the world doesn’t see it yet, but they will. How you will show this to the world is yet to be known.” It was so surreal and corny but still sends chills down my spine and something I think about regularly.

Oh, 2016… what a strange year. I made some bad choices, true. But I gained invaluable experience and wisdom. Nothing that I could get from a book or a classroom. I found limits in what I could do, how much I could juggle, and did things I didn’t think I could do. Putting on so much weight was a real eye opener for me. I’ve never been able to do that ever before in all prior attempts. And to do it so quickly, too. Sure, my businesses failed. But the feedback and encouragement from users has been amazing. For some projects, I was able to sell off the assets. For others, I walked away from bad deals after weeks of negotiation. And my skillsets really expanded. Realistically speaking, I’m capable of handling so much more. More pressure, more heartaches and headaches. And the only way to really find your limits is to try to push them.

2017 will be interesting. I have lots to apply and learn and my work is cut out for me. But it’s an exciting time. I hope I can make at least 1 business profitable – either mine or somebody else’s. I hope my cut goes well and I see my abs again. I hope I’ll be able to do a little bit of travel, perhaps in the spring or fall. I hope I’ll be able to connect with more of my tribe, maybe through teaching or joining some meetups. I hope to improve my Spanish. But, we’ll see. The last 4 years haven’t gone nearly as I’d imagined so I don’t really have any expectation that 2017 will be any different. Still, I am excited in the possibilities of what lies ahead. Happy new year and I hope you had a good one and an even better 2017.

Goals, Life, Me

Mid Year Update OR Holy SH*T It’s Almost July

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It’s almost July. My oh my the time flies. This year has been blazing on by like a meteor. It’s been a tough one. Lots of downs and not so many ups. But it’s fine. I don’t care. The winds will change eventually. I am patient and I am determined.

I’m typing this currently with a pinched nerve in my neck that’s causing pain, weakness, and numbness in my left arm and shoulder. I didn’t do anything out of the ordinary except sleep on a friend’s couch. Life is funny that way. I herniated a disc and bulged a disc in my neck many years ago and the pain sometimes comes back to haunt me. This is the worst it’s ever been and I have another MRI planned for it. I have to take it easy from my hobbies like jiu jitsu and strength training for a little while I figure out what’s going on with it. I injured my knee back in December. It was supposed to heal in 6-8 weeks. But at week 12 my physiotherapist told me it’d be 6 months. I was disappointed but took it in stride. It’s now almost 7 months and still isn’t 100%. I can’t even remember the last time I told my friends and family some good news. I am looking forward to when that time comes.

I’ve just re-read some of my year-end goals and predictions that I wrote at the end of last year to compare how things have played out so far, and I’m quite pleased.

Health

Health wise I have some issues I have to tend to aside from this pesky pinched nerve and slow-healing knee. It’s been tough because I have to be careful on what I eat, drink, and do. But I think come August I do plan on going on a bulk. My goal will be to put on a good 10 lbs of lean muscle so we’ll see how that goes. That’s the plan, but it means nothing if this pinched nerve and other shit doesn’t heal up. Plans are useless, but planning is everything I guess. 

I have a few more weeks of another 90-day cycle of P90X3. I enjoy P90X3 quite a bit, but I think after this round I won’t ever do another 90 straight days on the program, at least for a long while. Especially if I’m going to bulk then it would be counter-productive, but I also just need a break from daily rigid exercise. I really like the yoga and mobility program though so I’ll be sure to put those into my rotation on the regular.

Social

Socially my life is even worse than it was before. One of my best friends moved away and I’ve distanced myself from some others who I felt were having too negative an impact on me. Combined with my restrictions due to my health and it’s just hard to get out. I started dating a little bit but nothing really lasted. Women were complaining that I wasn’t spending enough time with them. I have since stopped because they were absolutely right and dating just isn’t a priority to me. I felt like I was being stretched too thin from it and I wasn’t really taking it seriously or enjoying it so I am shelving it for the time being. It’s important that I remind myself to live my life on my terms and not fold into societal and family pressures that I should do this or that or be at this or that point in my life by now.

Hobbies

I did finally get around to trying archery, and I did enjoy it. But the range I went to had tons of mosquitos that ate me alive and also lots of ticks so I haven’t been back. This pinched nerve prevents me from doing it as well, but I definitely see myself doing it more often in the future.

Productivity

I can do better here still. I have had tons of output this year so far and continue to bring it, but it could be more consistent. Some days I’d give myself a 10/10 on productivity and other days a 2 or 3. More 10s and less 2s is very doable. I have also noticed a decline lately as the weather has gotten nicer and that’s no good, either. It’s time to get back on the saddle.

Travel

True to my prediction, I haven’t done any travel this year aside from a weekend trip portaging up north, which was a last minute decision. I was going to go to Colombia in August but that has fallen through. I think if I can go on a 3-month bulk then the timeframe for travel would ideally be November. I want to go somewhere because I have a crazy travel itch at the moment but if it doesn’t happen I’m ok with that as well.

Sleep

It has only improved from last year. I fall asleep faster, sleep deeper, wake up to pee less often, and wake up feeling more refreshed than ever. The quality is there so I am quite happy here.

Happiness

I have spent a lot of time on healing myself up this year. Lots of reading and meditation and introspection and journaling and personal discovery and exercise. I think even if shitty things happen to you, with an unbreakable mind it doesn’t matter. Even if everything goes to shit and your friends and your family give up on you, as long as you don’t give up on yourself then everything will be alright.

So yeah, so far so good. I refuse to let setbacks keep me down. Keep on trucking. Or as Dory would say, just keep swimming…There’s still tons of year left to do some damage, so get after it.

Goals, Life, Me

2014 Year End Review – Laying the Foundation

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I don’t know what happened, but this year went by fast. Too fast, to be honest. But sure enough, here we are at the end of the year, and it’s time to reflect on what happened this past year. It’s a great exercise that I recommend everybody do. Doing a year end review helps put things into perspective, let’s you gauge how you did if you set milestones and goals for yourself, and helps you plan how you’d like the following year to go, among other things. So definitely give it a shot.

For me, it was a painful year, but I knew it would be. What I didn’t expect was just how frequent things would bog me down, and I think I didn’t do a very good job of dealing with it all. Early in the year I was working on a cool project in the wedding industry. I had a great partner, the market was receptive, and there was a hole we thought we could fill. But my partner got busy and cold feet, and there was no way I could pull it off by myself. And with heavy heart I had to shelve it. I still think there’s something there, but for various reasons I had to move on. This was pretty tough for me as I was spending so much time on it. If you’ve never had to kill something that you were working on before it got out of the doors, you’ll know how painful this is. Imagine creating your work of art and then setting it on fire before sharing it with the world. Sucks, yo. But this is the life of an entrepreneur/creative. You build things knowing the risks, make tough choices that you don’t want to make, and you hustle on. If it was easy everybody would be doing it. So fuck it. Onwards!

The whole experience taught me so much. For one, I learned how hard it is to find the right partnerships. Even if you’re on the same page on 9 out of 10 things, that 1 thing could break everything. This extends beyond just business and applies to any type of partnership. The gym you train at, the school you go to, the person you’re seeing. If you’ve found a great fit, hold onto it for dear life and enjoy it while it lasts! Another thing this experience helped me with is it sharpened up my programming skills quite a bit. I built some really cool shit that I didn’t think I could build, but I did anyway. These days, I feel like if I had an idea for the next Twitter, I’d be able to hack out a working version in a weekend and build out a prototype in a week. I feel like programming is a super power everybody should learn. There’s just so much you can do for the rest of your life once you’ve had this skill. Design, writing, social skills, and physical strength are some other things I would consider super powers worth learning.

Setting the foundation for success takes time. It’s not something that you can “hack”. You’re not going to run a 4 minute mile without running a 5 minute mile first. I feel like that’s what this year was for me. I’ve painstakingly been laying the foundation down, and things feel steadier now. There are still some areas that I really fucking suck at, though. There was a lot that I could have documented on my entrepreneurial journey this year, for example, that I didn’t bother to do. That’s a damn shame, and I hope that might change. But I have said that in the past before and have never followed through. If there is one thing I’m good at though it is trying again. So we will see. The problem is that I have so much going on right now that it’s a little overwhelming. But sooner rather than later, I really do hope to blog more simply because my writing and communication abilities have gone to shit. Also, I have learned so much this year on conversion rate optimization, growth hacking, user experience, content marketing, bootstrapping and working on side projects that it would be shameful not to share my journey for anybody interested to follow along.

Enough whining. 2014 was a great year in a lot of respects. For starters, I added nearly 40 lbs to my bench press this year! It was my wimpiest lift and now that hole has been covered. I’ve now started to focus my efforts to move my overhead press up. I’ve always felt that if you could squat 2x your bodyweight, deadlift 2.5x bw, bench 1.5x bw, and ohp 1x bw, than you’re not a wimp. And I’m knocking on that door. (Arbitrary numbers and completely subjective, btw, so your opinion might be different.) I also got promoted to blue belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu this year. I started bjj in 2003, so it has been a long off/on journey. Both my strength gains and new belt both reinforce to me that if you stick with something and/or keep trying, it is an impossibility not to make forward progress. Over and over again, this has been my experience. If there’s one thing I believe in life more than anything it is this simple concept.

For 2015, I fully expect it to be less painful than 2014. It will be an exciting year. Dare I say it will be a monumental year? I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not. Sooner or later, the winds will change. It might be next year, it might be 3 years, it might be never. But as long as I keep learning, keep improving, keep hustling, and keep enjoying the process, then things will be ok. I have great people on my side, and a lot of smart people I’m working with that I am learning a lot from. And right now, I’m working on some awesome stuff with the team at Examine.com, as well as another exciting project that I’ll announce soon. And 2015 will be really exciting for me as a programmer as there is some exciting tech that is starting to mature that I cannot wait to start tinkering with. I feel like there’s an evolution happening and I plan on riding that wave.

Outside of work, I plan on expanding my extra curricular activities a little. I’ve already started doing a little bit of Judo, and I plan on continuing that in 2015. I think I’ll want to get my gun license and join a gun club, too. I’ve also been thinking about archery as it looks so awesome. What can I say, I like doing stuff. Although not a high priority, I wouldn’t mind meeting more people in 2015 either as I find my social circle is dwindling and my friends are turning into boring adults way too quickly for my liking. Eventually I’ll want to make a concerted effort into revitalizing my social circle, but I’m not sure if 2015 will be the year for that. I feel it can still wait as I figure out my next steps.

I also plan on doing some travelling, as I missed out completely in 2014. Travelling is too important to me to neglect for long periods of time, and 1+ year of no travelling was nearing the breaking point. So I have to go. The world is big and I need to see it.

I’m REALLY looking forward to 2015 as I am excited to see what lies ahead. It certainly looks like 2015 will be the year that I decide how I’ll want to spend the next 5+ years of my life, so it is going to be a pivotal year. I hope 2015 brings you happiness and joy and all the hamburgers you could possibly eat. Thanks for reading.

Goals, Habits, Life, Me

Mid year update

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We’re halfway through the year already. Damn, where’d the time go? Fast, man, really fast. So where are we at now? Looking back on my predictions for 2014, I’d say I am doing alright. Regarding momentum, I wrote:

“I plan on taking this momentum with me into the new year. No fucking around, just consistent execution every. single. day. I really like where my head is at these days, and am in a very good place spiritually, physically, and emotionally as well. Just like 2013, I expect the first half of 2014 to be very different from the second half. There are some amazing things in technology that I am expecting in early 2014 that I am getting excited for that will have a large impact on my productivity and career for the rest of the year.”

So far, so good. I’ve worked hard consistently. Spanish, programming, strength training, elliptical work, jiu jitsu, reading. Bam, bam, double bam. For technology, I’ve been all over Meteor. It’s the one. I won’t be switching to anything else anytime soon. I’ve also been working with Macaw a tad, although to be honest it has been disappointing and buggy, and a little bit of Famo.us – also a little bit buggy. However, there is no denying the enormous potential of these technologies to dramatically improve my workflow, and I will be following along closely. I wrote about these before.

So now that we are in the second half of the year, I predicted that it would be very different from the first half. I no longer think that will be the case. Rather than a sharp contrast between the first and second half, I’m noticing more of a slow transition. That’s ok, slow and steady wins the race. Or something.

My health goals in 2014 were just to get stronger. But as I upped my weight, I noticed my recovery was taking much longer. And then I started doing a lot of elliptical and jiu jitsu, and I was feeling crushed. So instead I switched out 531 for deadlifts and squats and replaced it with CAT. It’s more volume and poundage, but I find recovery manageable and power endurance improvements. I’m still sticking with 531 for overhead press and bench as I am still seeing gains for both. I’ve worked hard on ohp and bench and feel like I am no longer wimpy in those lifts, although my upper body strength is still pretty sucky. I’ve had this weird, naggy, weak feeling in my arms that has been bothering me for months that isn’t helping, either.

I cut my hair. It’s the first time I cut it in over 2 years. Last time I cut it was when I shaved my head prior to heading to Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos in May of 2012. Yesterday I cut it all off, got 9 ponytails out of it, and donated it to Angel Hair for Kids. Don’t ask why I grew out my hair. I don’t know. Seriously, I never thought about it. And then suddenly, 2 years later here we are. Weird, I know. I’m weird, sue me. I’ll probably never grow my hair out that long ever again. First off, it’s just a major pain in the ass to deal with. Second, I shed a lot. It’s disgusting. And third, there was this period of a good 8-10 months where I just looked ridiculous. Absolutely ludicrous, so bad that even I was ashamed to be in public with myself. Thanks to anybody who hung out with me during that time, you are all brave souls and deserve some sort of badge.

So there you have it. Not many big surprises for me, although there were a number of hiccups that bogged me down more than they should have considering I was expecting them. All in all though, I think this year has been going well so far. I expect come December things will be different, but through a slow and gradual change rather than immediate and sudden. I’m looking forward to it. I hope your year has been going the way you hoped, just because you’re awesome and cool for reading this whole thing.

Goals, Habits, Health and Fitness, Me

A Month Late

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Last year I wrote a post about some of my strength goals. One of them was to reach a 400 lb deadlift by the end of the year. Well, I’m a month late, but I did it. Monday, during training, I put 400 lbs on the bar and lifted it up. It was my first time trying. The most I had lifted prior to that was 375, which I had done the week before.

On 5/3/1, you don’t normally do a maximum effort lift. You basically enter your estimated 1 rep maximum (1 RM) into a spreadsheet, let it spit out some numbers, and you do the program based on the given numbers. And the program does its thing and magically your 1 RM just shifts up and to the right on your fancy progress chart as you get stronger. But you never really “see” it. My estimated 1 RM currently stands at 452 lbs. But like I said, the most I’ve actually lifted is 375. Luckily, 5/3/1 offers a deload week where you just lighten up, relax and do your thing, and this week I figured I’d give 400 lbs a try for shits. And bam, sure enough, up it went (that’s what she said…not!).

But I didn’t know any of this last year when I made my 400 lb goal. I didn’t know I would be on 5/3/1, either. I didn’t know anything. All I knew was that I arbitrarily set a goal for 400 lbs and I achieved it a month late. Some people would call that a failure. Those people are dumb. If you know these people, don’t listen to them. You see, because in the absolute sense I failed since I didn’t achieve the goal at the designated time, but in the relative sense that’s a a lot of weight to be lifting for a guy my size and my lifting experience (150 lbs and 1.5 years, respectively).

As I’m writing this, I am reminded of the time way back when I was doing Insanity and decided to climb the CN tower for charity. Again, I made a completely arbitrary goal of finishing in 15 minutes without doing any prior research or having any prior knowledge of how long it typically takes to run up the tower or what’s involved. And I ended up finishing at 15 minutes and 13 seconds, which from what I can recall was a pretty good score. That moment for me was a huge eye opener. I didn’t know it at the time, but something as simple as setting arbitrary goals has pushed me to achieve them (or come really close) in situations that I would not have been able to achieve otherwise. And it has served me very well ever since. Even if it took me 30 minutes to go up that tower, I would have been content. Why? Because that 15 minute goal set in motion the necessary actions for me to train and prepare myself in a way that I may not have done otherwise. All I needed was direction, and a goal provided just that.

Part of me wants to say rah rah you can do it. Aim high and shoot for the stars. But that’s just the rosy coloured story that you read in autobiographies and watch on movies or tv. The reality is that the arbitrary goal was just that, arbitrary. But it did help me do what was by far the most important thing, and that is show up and do the fucking work. There’s really nothing else to it. Who cares if you’re a month late, you did the work. That’s worth something.