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Get the fuck out of your comfort zone

Steady their boy, my high horse gets twitchy when we are about to go knee deep into another crusade.  If you’re looking to learn some cool training tips or not have your current thought processes challenged, then I would kindly ask that you return to your safe space before your equilibrium is punctured.  I’m going to sound like a preachy cunt in this article but fuck it.  I’m getting on my altar if you don’t want to listen fuck off somewhere else and yes I know I am being a hypocrite in this article.

 

Anything that is static in life is dying.

There are a few certainties in life normally death and taxes are the two that get cited the most (not sure which one I prefer at least after death there are no more taxes, inb4 HRMC heaven branch) another one that people often neglect and in quite a few instances probably fear more is change.

Life is in a constant state of flux there are no unchanging features in life even some of our sayings such as “being unchanging as the mountains or the sea” is complete nonsense as they too are in a constant state of flux.  The only real concept we have come up with as a species that is “unchanging” is the notion of “god” and all you have to do is have a brief glance at history to see just how much that has fucking changed over the past few millennia.

Nothing will ever stay the same, things have to evolve, adapt, overcome and change constantly just to keep pace with their surroundings.  It’s part of life so why are we as a whole so resistant to it or constantly trying to stick our heads in the sand, sucking on the pacifier of the past.  Nostalgia has it’s place but it’s place is not dominating the present or clouding your idea of what should be the future.  What’s gone is gone and what is to be is to be the only thing you have control over is what you do in the moment, so why aren’t you taking charge of that?

Fear is nothing other than you wanting not to try.

“Fear of failure”, “what will other people think” “what if it goes wrong” are just three amongst a galaxy of bullshit excuses that people (including you) make to stop them going out of their way to try something new.  For some reason, the thought of doing something is almost always way worse than actually doing it the mind has a nasty habit of building mountains out of molehills.

The mind is a sneaky wee cunt and is to be mistrusted at almost every juncture it is normally best to act first and then dissect later with a critical look trying to tease out inefficiencies and mistakes you made along the way.  By far the worst course of action is to plan and think about how you are going to do things correctly the first time because there is zero chance you are going to get anything correct the first time you do it.

You are going to make mistakes, you are going to get things wrong and you are probably going to be shit at it.  The only thing you need to do is to try and make sure that risks are measured and you aren’t going to die trying to climb Everest because you decided to try the ascent in your speedos at the height of winter.

Exposure therapy is your saviour.

We all have a list of things we would love to do or would like to try some of them are huge some of them are small.  We would be foolhardy to think we can go from being a snivelling wretch who is too scared to speak out during a meeting to being the atomic bomb of awesome who doesn’t give a fuck and shoots lasers out of their eyes straight away.  You have to start somewhere.

The more you get used to taking risks, trying new things and generally going out of your own way to inconvenience yourself the better you will become at it.  One thing I am fucking awful at is paying bills (talk to my credit rating) I am so much better at it now however than I used to be because at some stage in life you have to stop hiding like a little bitch and deal with shit.

When I was 18 I got a credit card which I used to buy a PlayStation 2 and GTA San Andres during my first semester at university.  I then proceeded to ignore the minimum payments and torpedoed my credit rating to shit.  Fast forward to 2018 and I run a business which last year ran up a cost of in excess of £30,000 which was (mostly!) paid up in a timely manner, add to that the £12,000 I have paid in income tax in the last 4 months and you have a bit of change in scenery.

It didn’t change overnight, by incrementally being less of a piece of shit around my financial situation, taking responsibility for my own actions and then going into business and trying to scale what I am doing week to week, month to month I have improved immensely over the last 14 years.  Ask Laura and she will still tell you I shove my head in the sand from time to time but I am much less of a sniffling piece of shit then I used to be.

The more you do things you don’t want to do, the more you take risk in exchange for an upside and the more you stop doing things because it’s “normal” the more you are going to end up doing the shit you want to do and when you want to do it.

The acid test for if something is a good idea shouldn’t be it’s popularity.  It should instead be active distaste from most people when they hear about it.

Some of the best things I have done in my life are far from “normal” by most people’s definition

  • Moved away from my hometown
  • Became self-employed
  • Worked in a career I wanted to and didn’t pay any attention to how long it took
  • Taken up sport
  • Taken up powerlifting
  • Experimented with my own body and diet
  • Took responsibility for my own finances.

These actions are not what most “normal” people do in fact, when I talk about these sorts of things to normies that they say things like “you’re lucky to have found that”, “isn’t that risky”, “what if it goes wrong”, “that sounds dangerous”. “aren’t you scared you’re going to hurt yourself”.  If you hear these snivelling excuses for a conversation on a daily basis, then you my friend are living a blessed life.

The only real regret I have so far is taking the easy option after my postgraduate degree in 2008 when I applied for a well-salaried position instead of going for my PHD.  Every time I have done something that scared the fucking shit out of me I have been much happier for it.  The only time in my life I have been annoyed or disappointed with what I was doing on a day to day basis is when I took the safe option.  I am never going to take another safe option in my life.

What you can be sure is that the things that most of your friends and family can’t get their heads around or understand why you do it are probably some of the things in life you derive the most satisfaction and pleasure from.  A meaningful life, in my opinion, is fuck all to do with your possessions, your beliefs or whatever other smoke you blow up your own arse.  It’s the joy and satisfaction you derive from every fleeting moment you get to spend as a sentient conscious being.

Call me crazy but doing a job I don’t like, spending time with friends I don’t like, watching TV, complaining about the things I am choosing to do out of my own free will and spending my life with a person I ultimately loath doesn’t sound like a fulfilling existence to me.  This is what a lot of people do every day, fuck that.

If an idea or viewpoint makes you uncomfortable then you need to look into it more.

Our mind (that piece of shit, the villain of the piece) is hell-bent on protecting its own ego because it is super important to us and our existence.  We all have our own worldview and what we think is correct and what we “know” to be wrong.  When we come across an idea or opinion that goes directly against our own grain of thought the tendency is to get annoyed and defensive.  If there are certain ideas or people who fuck you off beyond belief you might want to look into it more.

Some of the quickest and best advances I have made in my own training and the training of others have come from looking into some ideas or people who initially fucked me off.  Sometimes it just reaffirms the reasons why you didn’t like it in the first place which is just as valuable as it cements your own beliefs and values.

Ultimately if you are not open to falsifying your own viewpoints and taking other things on board you are going to stop adapting and changing and you will become irrelevant in time.  Ask anyone who knows me well and they will tell you I am likely to rip your head off for bringing me ideas or opinions that go against what I think.  The people who do this to me on the most regular basis are the people who I value the most in life.  My biggest critic is also my partner no one fucks me off more than Laura and I am a much better person for it.

What are you waiting for get out of your comfort zone.

I hope this article has pissed you off or challenged you in some way.  What I would like you to do now is something small in scale that you don’t want to do.  A client call you don’t want to take?  Slightly awkward conversation you need to have? Bit of social media you need to put out? Gym session you have been putting off?

Whatever it is – go ahead and fucking do it, quickly before your cunt of a brain has anything to do with it.  If you do just one small thing a day you don’t want to do, you will be astounded by how much your life will change in the next few years.

Marc

 

 

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About Marc Keys

As a coach Marc's philosophy uses a minamilast approach that yields superior performance gains. Having worked as a coach for over 7 years providing support for athletes from over 30 sports (Olympic, Paralympic and commonwealth medallists) he has plenty of time to learn his craft.Marc currently works full time as a strength coach based in Edinburgh.A competitive power lifter for 5 years some carrer highlights include (2011 - British and Commonwealth Senior Champion, 2012 World Championship squad member for great britian and former holder of 3 British records). Marc Coaches strength and power sports in his spare time and continues to develop castironstrength.

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