Blog En – Page 5

Perfectionism

Perfectionism, as I would say, is the act of putting efforts into a work until all defects are gone, or to get it as close to perfection as it can be. By itself, it can be nice, meaning that you are able to do high quality work, but it tends towards being a problem when you don’t set limits. In a perfect world, we would have unlimited time to do everything we want and people would appreciate the efforts we put into our work, but we don’t live in this kind of world. In this world, we all have thousands of things to do and people expect results (fast).

You have to be able to see what won’t add value to what you’re doing (not only $$$, but what won’t be worth the time and efforts). It’s better to get something done, even if it has some flaws, than having something perfect but incomplete because you lost interest and hope in finishing the project someday. The imperfect work will most of the time be of better value than the incomplete one. Would you rather have a complete car that you have to bring to the garage from time to time or have a perfect half that you can’t drive?

I used to be a perfectionist, in my case, so I was putting so much time in my projects that I would lose interest before getting things done almost everytime. My mindset was: If I do something, I better do it well. At some point, I came to realize that I hadn’t accomplished much interesting things in my life, it was time for me to change my lifestyle. I felt like it was time to start doing things and getting them done. The mindset became more of an incremental one: I’ll do the best I can now, see the results, and do better next time. In other words, I’ll do things the best way I can at that moment, finish the project, learn from it, and in the next project I’ll have more experience and I will deliver a better work.

I’ll give you an example, since I was a kid, I always dreamed about making music, I play guitar, bass, and I’m currently “learning” piano, but I never really made any song. The reason? Everytime I play one of my instruments, what comes out of it never satisfies me, it never sounds as good as the bands I like. So I ended up thinking that I was a bad musician and nearly stopped playing music altogether. But have you ever listened to your favorite band’s first album or demo songs? They sound really different from their later work but they still have that appeal that makes you like them. Of course I’ll feel bad about myself if I compare what I do to the work of someone with years of experience ahead of me. But if I choose to do it anyway no matter how bad it seems to sound, I’ll build experience, and the more I fight this feeling, the more I’ll get experience and the better it will sound. And maybe someday I’ll listen to my favorite band and say to myself “I can do that too” and actually do it.

But don’t go thinking that I encourage people to do bad work just for getting it done, I’m saying that we have to know our limits and work according to them, always push them a little further everytime without getting too far. If we take back my music creation as an example, I know I will probably not be able to write a symphony in the first few months, but I for sure can write some more simple music that sounds good. And little by little I’ll get better at it and someday I’ll be able to create something as good as my expectations of it.

Not giving a f**k

In my opinion, this is the best answer to life, “not giving a fuck”.

We’ve been taught since we were young to give a fuck about everything. Our appearence, what other people think of us, our grades, politics, environment, the weather, our job, our reputation, etc. But what does caring also creates? Stress, of course. Because when you think about something, you also have expectations about how it will be, and when reality doesn’t meet your expectations (which is probably more often than the opposite), you stress.

So if you want to release some stress, just let go of what isn’t important for you to care about. In other words, don’t give a fuck.

“But I can’t stop caring about everything in life?” Probably not, but you can stop caring about what you have no power on, and also about what isn’t necessary for you to care about. For example, I found out that documentaries about pollution, global warning and other bad things about human society get me really depressed. So I avoid them as much as I can. You could say that I do like the austrich and put my head in the sand, which is true, but I wouldn’t do anything about it even if I knew about it, so I better keep this stress off my shoulders and spare my energy for something else. On the contrary, some other people will get motivated by these kind of things and will work to make a change, and it’s great that way. We just have to find what gives us energy and what removes it from us.

I won’t talk about each thing we care too much about but I think that one in particular deserves a closer look: Caring about what people will think of you. Eliminate this one from your life and start living for real. Just think about how much time you spend thinking about that stranger you saw at the grocery store that looked “weird” before completely forgetting that he exists. That’s probably the same time as the rest of the world thinks of you when they see you if they are not attracted to you in some way (or if they don’t need to sell you something). Our life is already overfilled with responsibilities, activities, notifications and everything else so nobody has time to care about anybody other than themselves. If you had to care about what one person would think of you, make that person be yourself. Make sure you can stand for your own choices, it is all that matters.

Just a quick tip: When you’re unsure about doing something or not, just say to yourself “I don’t give a fuck!” (ou pour mes amis francophones du Québec: “J’m’en câlisse!”) and feel the caring escape you, letting you the fraction of a second you need to actually do the action without feeling bad about it. And once it’s done, you have to live with it no matter what’s the outcome, but at least, you did it. (please don’t get me wrong, I’m not encouraging you to do bad things, but if you lack a little confidence for asking a girl/boy out for example, this can make the difference between getting a date or never see the person again)

Liquid confidence

You’re probably thinking about alcohol, but I want to talk about supplements instead. The article won’t be about talking to girls/guys at the bar but instead about how supplements help me make gains while training at the gym.

Some people say that protein shakes really make a difference, and some other say that it’s just expensive urine.

I’ll start with the “expensive urine” thing first. Pretty much everything you drink that isn’t water directly taken from the river IS expensive urine. You pay for everything you drink whether it’s juice you buy at the grocery store, your protein shake, or even tap water (your taxes). I’ll admit that some are cheaper than others, but nothing is really free in this world. So I choose to pee cookie and cream flavored protein powder instead of juice and soda.

I tried a few protein types, whey, isolate, rice and gainer (whey + maltodextrin + creatine + glutamine), and I recently tried electrolytes which is a blend of fast absorbing sugars and BCAAs. Beside flavor and texture, I can’t say with certitude that it made me gain more muscle mass than I would have without them (I’m not really big anyway), but there’s one thing I know, they make me train harder. “How is that?” you may say. It’s simple, sometimes when I workout, at some point I feel tired, or empty (energy wise), so I take my protein shake at that moment instead of waiting until the end of the workout. If I didn’t have it, I would probably strip off a few sets and get back home sooner. It gives me the confidence that I’ll make it to the end because I have something in my stomach other than just plain water from the fountain. So even if the powder itself would be a placebo, it would have the effect of making me do my whole workout instead of giving up in the middle of it.

The same thing goes for the electrolytes blend except that it is meant to be drank before and during the workout, so having already drank some of it before the workout, I already have the confidence that I have the energy I need to complete all my workout.

So when I talk about “liquid confidence”, I mean that the drink makes me believe that I’ll be good enough to do the whole workout without collapsing under a heavy pile of steel plates. Which itself is a benefit, more training = more gains.

I personally think that supplements can help us getting better results, but for me, even if they were just plain white powder, they would still have a positive effect on my gains.

Positive thinking

I’ve always been told that I was a negative person and that I was always complaining about everything. I recently made the switch to become a more positive person and it really didn’t happened the way I thought it would. So I thought that I’d share it here because it could help someone else.

I’ve always thought that positive thinking was forcing ourselves to believe in a positive idea of a situation over the negative ones. It doesn’t seem to work that way. In the last few weeks I was surprisingly positive compared to what I normally am. I wasn’t richer than I was before, I didn’t have a better job, I didn’t have a girlfriend or any other person closer to me than I normally had. The only difference was that I took time for myself, writing, reading, drawing, making music, working out at the gym and watching anime. These activities made me feel good about myself, and it automatically made me see life on the positive side. Working had now become less of a chore, I had less road rage while driving and I was just in a good mood all the time. Because my mind was fulfilled by all that creative work and entertainment, all the bad things had now a lot less hold on me. (and when I say “entertainment”, I’m not talking about reality shows or other similar things, but more about things that entertain me while also stimulating my brain)

It’s just like everything became less stressful because I was at peace with myself by finally doing what my body and mind really needed to do. I was being a positive person without even trying, it was just a side effect of doing what I liked. I don’t have much else to say about it, it’s that simple, do what you’re meant to do, and see how everything around becomes a lot more enjoyable.

Life with a beard

I’ve finally reached my first 6 months long beard and I think it’s time to write some kind of report on what it feels like to live with long hair on my face. The timing feels right as it is november/movember/no shave november or whatever you want to call it.

Beards are kind of a trend at the moment, which is good and bad at the same time in my opinion. It’s nice that it becomes more accepted by people but seeing too much can also kill the appeal.

For my part, I’m not growing it to follow anyone or anything, as far as I remember I have always liked beards, it probably comes from the fact that I have never seen my father’s clean shaven face. By the time I finally got the courage to let it grow past a few weeks, everyone was already doing it.

Before starting I’d like to make clear that I’m not part of any gang or group nor am I a religion extremist that would make it “acceptable” to have a big beard, I just do it for the love of the beard. Be also advised that I’ll talk about my own feelings as a sensitive men, most men won’t feel the same because they are probably less sensitive.

Society’s pressure

Most non-bearded people seem to consider beard growing as a sign of laziness, from my own experience it is harder to grow a beard than to shave it frequently. Why I’m saying that? Feeling people judging you everyday for being “different” is pretty hard, especially when this difference can easily be erased by spending a few minutes in front of a mirror with a razor. I’m always juggling with the “Should I keep it or shave it?” question. Having a pretty girl telling you that you look way better without it hits the ego quite hard too. People keep telling me that I’ll have a hard time finding a job, it’s probably true for most customer service jobs, like it’s the case for people with visible tattoos and piercings. From what I know, open minded people still exist so it may be longer to find a job while having a great beard but not impossible.

The beard VS other accessories

Have you ever seen someone showing his/her new tattoo or piercing to a friend and getting a response like “I think you looked better without it!”? I personnally haven’t ever seen this, because people try to be polite, yet I get that kind of reply for my beard. Since when does injecting ink under your skin or inserting metal pieces in it got better accepted by society than letting some hairs NATURALLY grow on your face? People should at least accept the beard as an accessory to your face, women have makeup, men have beards.

Hobo VS ordinary guy

Everytime I see a hobo I always ask myself “Does my beard makes me look like a homeless guy?”. I came to the conclusion that it doesn’t. Having a beard is only one feature of many needed to look like a bum. As long as it is kept clean and so is the rest of your body and clothes, chances are low that someone will mistake you for a hobo.

Guys VS girls

Guys seem to accept my bearded face more easily, I feel like some respect me for having it. In the first few months they seemed to think my beard was nice, but now that it is finally long enough to start getting away from my face’s shape, most of them want me to shave.

Girls just don’t like it as soon as it quits the “stubble” stage (from my experience at least). They see it as completely unaesthetic.

From the two sides I have heard the “You’ll never find a girlfriend if you don’t shave” argument quite often. I’m not really sure about this one because I have never been the kind of guy that attracted girls in the first place, whether I was bearded or not, so I haven’t seen any difference yet. I like to think that my beard is a “dumb girl filter”, if a girl focuses more on the beard than the person behind it, I prefer to keep away from her anyway. For those who say that the first impression is really important I say that I am willing to take the risk of giving a bad impression to stay true to myself.

Beyond the look

For me, a beard is more than just hairs on my face. It’s a matter of self confidence, to hold tight on my goals even if 95% of people don’t want me to do it. It’s about patience and persistance, just like getting in shape or climbing up the career ladder. It is part of becoming a better human being. I also get some kind of confidence boost from having a beard on my face, I don’t know exactly what’s creating that feeling, maybe it’s the feeling of looking good or being authentic (from my point of view). I guess we can compare it to getting fake boobs, the accessory itself doesn’t magically elevate the person’s confidence level but she still feels like she has more of it because of the accessory. It feel like I’m a more complete person with it, that’s all.

Drawing attention

Of course I don’t ask every stranger if my beard has caught their attention but I can guess it easily by the look on their face. I feel like people notices me more with a beard than they were when I was an ordinary clean-shaved guy. I’m an introvert so I’m not really asking for attention but it feels good to get noticed sometimes.

I have a good sense of humour so people naturally tell jokes on me, now most jokes are about my beard. Sadly it doesn’t take long to notice that the same jokes come over and over again.

Mirrors

For me growing a beard is like getting bigger muscles, I can’t stop looking at it everytime I’m near a mirror. Seeing a change in length gives me the same satisfaction as having some muscle gain, it just feels good.

Eating

Eating is normally an easy job, now try eating with a mustache and a beard. Ben Parker once said: “With great mustache comes great food absortion” or something like that. Pretty much any food touching it will stay in it. It can get really embarassing when eating a burger or peanut butter. At least this can be easily avoided by the use of extra napkins. I chose not to trim my mustache for a while because it would make it thicker, once it got over my top lip it started curling up (I didn’t expect that) so I kept it this way. It still catches everything though, I get the taste of what it is to be a ginger when I put Sriracha in my meal. I could easily live without having to chew on mustache after taking a bite and getting hairs caught between my teeth though.

Water magnet

Forgetting to dry your beard after showering means having water dripping from your chin until you decide to go back to the bathroom and dry it properly.

Taking care of it

I never really cared about combing my hair but I do it everyday for my beard, I must do it while under the shower or else the comb gets caught in my steel wool hair.

Should you grow a beard?

Well if you are a woman, probably not (but who am I to tell you what to do?), but for men the only way to know is to try it!

How not to crumble under pressure to shave

Here is some tricks I found to keep my motivation and not shave my beard:

Defining a length/time goal (6 months or 6 inches or long enough to make a braid out of it, etc)
Trimming it to even it or to make it fit your face more (watch out for that because you may also slow the growth thereby)
Taking care of it so it looks good (grooming, combing, washing, etc)
Find a person (or several) to take as a model (a bearded guy that you want to look like)
Follow beard pages on social networks (so you get motivation from their posts and followers)
Take progress pictures to follow the growth (by looking at these photos you’ll see how far you’ve gone and the time it will take to come back to the same point after shaving)

Last words

My experience in beard growing is pretty tough up to now as almost no one else but me wants me to keep it. It also confirms that I’m on the right path to be who I really want to be, me. So for the guys thinking about growing one or struggling to keep the razor away I’ll say the same thing as I would say for any kind of life goals, do it for yourself. If that makes you happy then f*** what others think of it.

What would you do if you had no job?

Your answer would probably be “Search for a job”. That’s not exactly what I’m talking about. Imagine yourself in a parallel universe where your basic needs were fulfilled. You would have food on the table, a roof above your head and some clothes to wear without the need of having a job to pay for it nor would you need to hunt and build everything yourself. What would you do with all this free time?

Take some time, think about it a few minutes or maybe give yourself a full week to come with an answer. There is no “one size fits all” answer to this question, it’s up to you to think about it and find what you think would be worth doing with your time. Maybe you like running, or drawing, or playing guitar, just think about what you like to do and what you would like to do.

When you’ll finally get a satisfying answer to the question (don’t restrict yourself to only one thing), it’s time to get back to reality and know that you still have engagements and responsabilities. You won’t be able to do the activity/ies full time (at least in the beginning) but why not start by cutting down on TV and beer and try it out? If it’s something that matters (or has the potential to matter) to you, give yourself time to practice it.

The way you set up the needed equipment can also greatly help you to start doing something. If you like drawing for example, just keep a paper and pen at hand and scribble when you get the chance. The easier it is to start doing it, the greater the chances that you’ll actually do it. So keep things at hand. If you’d like to ride your bicycle more often, don’t store it in a shed where it takes 10 minutes just to get it out of there, you just won’t do it. I keep my bicycle in my apartment so it’s easy to go for a ride. Long story short: make it easy for yourself!

Why is it so important?
It may not be clear for you yet, but it will positively impact your life. Doing what you like will make you a happier person, and I don’t know anyone who doesn’t want to be happier and I don’t see any downside to it. Being happier also means that you’ll radiate positive energy so you’ll obviously get positive feedback in some way.

We just have one life, so why should we spend it all on things we hate? Think of it that way: You heard songs and words, you saw pieces of art, you also saw people do amazing things, and maybe some of them touched you profoundly in some ways, inspired you or maybe even encouraged you to be a better person. But what we often forget it that we all have the hability to generate that effect on other people if we give ourselves the chance. Go ahead and be a creator, do what you’re meant to do and invest yourself in it. Wouldn’t it be awesome if you had the chance to make the world a better place and put a smile on someone’s face?

Procrastination

Like a lot of people, I master the art of procrastination. It sometimes seems to be the most effective way to get things done. For perfectionist people, it can be a better approach to avoid wasting time by getting too deep into the subject. The stress it gives you can also help you keep focus and work faster. I think that procrastination have benefits in some cases, but not all.

I’m convinced that it works for things that have a precise ending in time, because you know that the task will be done before due date whether you procrastinate or not, but what if the project doesn’t have an end date? If we’re talking about a project or dream that you want to accomplish, there’s no date. You can procrastinate endlessly, which in that case isn’t good if you want to get something done during your lifespan.

This is the hard part, nothing/nobody is pushing you to do something about it and the consequences are unclear, so you have to motivate yourself. More often than not, you’re stuck at the beginning, maybe you’re scared about it, or maybe you don’t know where to start. If you’re just scared, feel free to read my article about fear, it could help you. If you don’t know where to start, my best advice would be to start by gathering information about what you’re about to do so you’ll get a good understanding of the subject and at the same time confirm that you’re still interested in it. Once you know the subject, start with whatever you think is a good place to begin with, you can follow the advice of experts or just go with what you feel is the better for you, everybody is different so there is no predefined path, especially for creative and spiritual activities. If you want to actually make a living out of the activity, I think that you should do it your own way, it will make you stand apart from the rest.

Maybe you also need more money to invest in some equipment or material, sadly I can’t help you much with this one. Beside reorganizing your priorities to waste less money, you’ll have to work your way to get some kind of loan or just work more. It’s not nice but it’s the best I can say for now, I still have to do this myself too. When I’ll find a better way, I’ll tell you!

So, to keep your motivation, here’s a few tips I use:

Remember that the sooner you’ll start, the sooner you’ll get results.
Write your aspirations somewhere and read them whenever you get the chance so you’ll keep your goals in mind.
Visualize yourself proud at the end of it and seeing the good it will bring to you.
Don’t let too much time slip between every session that you’re working on your project, because time kills momentum. I try to work every day or every 2-3 days on my projects, that way I don’t have to remember all the project each time because it is still fresh in my mind and it doesn’t seem like a mountain everytime I come back to it.

Ok, the next two tips are contradictory but I found that they work for me each in their own way even if they are completely opposite:

Surround yourself with ambitious people that have the same kind of goals as you. Seeing close people having success in their life (and being happy) will motivate you to do like them and reach your own goals. You can learn a lot from these people, be sure to listen to what they have to say.
Surround yourself with people that don’t have much goals. Seeing people that don’t have any life projects or goals (and a boring standard life) will motivate you to not do like them. These ones are pretty easy to find, pretty much anyone who’s working a standard 9 to 5 job and contributing to a retirement fund is part of this in my opinion. You know who I’m talking about, these people are always complaining about their job but they keep doing it year after year. You obviously don’t want to be like them, but you can sure use them to get some motivation.

And lastly:

Don’t be afraid to be yourself and experiment with life, you won’t get anywhere worth of interest by doing the same thing as everybody do.

Note: You still have to respect your body though, don’t push yourself too much or you’ll soon become ineffective. If your body is telling you to take some rest, you should probably take it easy. If you’re just lacking motivation, motivate yourself and start working towards your goals!

One year beard and shaving

I have finally reached my goal of having a “yeard” AKA a full year of beard growth. I’m really proud that I made it through but I must say that it has been pretty hard for me. As you already know from the title, I decided to shave it off, but I’ll start by saying what was positive about the experience and at the end I’ll talk about the reasons why I shaved it all. This post is some kind of a continuation to the one I made at about six months of growth, I’ll keep about the same structure but I’ll instead write my feelings of the moment, so I recommend that you read the two articles so it will make more sense.

Society’s pressure

As for the pressure, nothing really changed, I don’t look more “acceptable” to others at 6 months than at 12 months. In my friend and family circle, most people got used to it and nearly stopped talking about it, but it stayed the same for the rest of the population.

Hobo VS ordinary guy

In the past article I said that I didn’t look like a homeless guy but the more it grew the more I thought I looked like one, this thing was so curly that it was nearly impossible to make it look “clean” and well kept. And I don’t want to go to the barber shop every two weeks so I was doomed to look like something I don’t want to look like.

Guys VS girls

For the guys, everything stayed pretty much the same as it was at 6 months, most of them don’t care and some find it really nice.

<frustration>I see a lot of beard memes, and in my case at least, they’re all bulls**t, a beard doesn’t f**king attract any woman. I’ve been single for quite a while now and a beard didn’t help me finding my soul mate, if it has done something, it probably have driven it away from me.</frustration> Ok I had to say it, sorry. Seriously, it seems that it’s a turn off for most women, try it out and see for yourself (not that 3 days long beard, a real one). From what I’ve seen, if you want to have a beard and still be attractive, you’ve got to be blessed by nature (or maybe just old enough) for it to grow thick evenly all over your face and also have that natural charisma and self confidence that looks appealing on the opposite sex. And I’m obviously not there yet. I believe that the day we find true love it won’t matter how well or bad we look, but I really have no idea so lets keep hoping for it to be true.

Beyond the look

I think the greatest benefit I got from growing that beard was the self confidence I gained. The stare I got from people whenever I was in public and all their comments about shaving and looking good, it obviously made me less sensitive to other people’s hate and more confident about my own life choices. But at the same time it made me more aware of the importance of the image we project on others. I think that a man looks way more badass with a beard, even if the guy under it has nothing badass about him.

Drawing attention

It gets attention, whether you want it or not, you stand out of the crowd when you have a beard, and that feeling is awesome, it makes you feel like you’re “more” than other men, I bet some confidence comes from that feeling. It also feels great when someone tells you “hey nice beard” although it doesn’t happen has much as I thought it would.

Facing reality

I follow many beard pages on Facebook so I see many photos of guys at a six month growth who have a beard longer than mine after a full year without trimming. Some would say that we must not compare ourselves to others, while I agree with this, I feel more like I have to wait two times more than others for the same result, and with it being relatively hard on my morale, I don’t think it’s worth it anymore. I have a pretty strong neck beard but the cheek and mustache hair are visibly weaker than the rest, I’m not sure how it looks from the outside (from other people’s point of view) but I get annoyed by it whenever it get in front of a mirror. I feel like it’s not mature yet even though I’m nearly 28 years old. I guess I’ll wait some time and try again someday.

Shaving

The same paterns seem to repeat themselves as I remember when I was young and trying to grow longer hair because all skaters were doing it, after some time I just got tired and shaved everything. Now that I don’t care much about my hair anymore I feel the same thing about my beard and after a few months I feel an urge to shave it to none. I guess I’m just like these girls on Facebook that change their hair and post statuses about a new life beginning. Like I said earlier, I gained a lot of self confidence from growing this beard but I have come to a point where I feel like it’s draining all of my energy. They say men think about sex every 7 seconds, but for me this thought was replaced by the thought of shaving (ok maybe not completely…). You know when your computer suddenly starts lagging intensively and you find out that some process is taking 100% CPU time, in my brain that process was thoughts-of-shaving.exe. For the last two years I have been working on myself to live a simplier life and lately this beard was making me feel like everything was harder because of it, so f**k it I’ll just shave and start living again. If you’ve read my other articles you probably know that I keep talking about ways to make life more enjoyable, it was getting less enjoyable because of the beard so it had to go, just like if it was a bad relationship. I don’t just say things on this blog, I try to apply them as much as I can too ;).

The matter of the look after all

The more I get older, the more I seem to think that it’s important to show oulselves on our best side (while still being true to ourselves). It might seem a bit superficial, but I like beautiful girls, so why shouldn’t I look like what I expect of others? While I agree that inner beauty is as important as physical beauty (maybe more), when we see someone we don’t know (in person), we have to rely on physical apparence before we can get to know the inner one. And I’m pretty sure that most of us will be more interested in knowing someone deeply if the person in question is good looking externally. It was a personal challenge for me to grow a beard for a full year, once that the goal is met, I have to keep on going forward, and for me going forward required that I shaved.

Should you grow a beard?

I still think that men should try it at least once, there really is more to it than just hair on your face, it makes you see the world from a different eye. I say try it and see where it takes you, and if it doesn’t live up to the expectations, then shave and go on.

Final words

I still think that men look great with a beard, but I feel like I need to look “normal” for a while so I can keep on making progress in my life. And don’t forget, it’s not the beard on the outside that counts, it’s the beard on the inside.

Gym people and the rest

What I call gym people are the ones who are training in the gym all year long, the rest are the ones going to the gym on key moments of the year for short term results, new year resolutions, beach body, back to school, etc.

Gym people are people who love working out, they can’t live without it, so it’s obvious that they don’t miss any training session and that you see them everytime you go there. They get in shape because they like the process that makes it happen.

The other people go to gym because they think it’s the only way to get in shape. What I’m trying to say here is that the will to get in shape is a great resolution, but maybe you find it on your list each year because you’re doing it in a way that you don’t like. So this year, instead of taking a gym membership like everyone else will be doing, and stop going one month later because you find it boring, find something else to do.

There’s plenty of ways to get in shape and most of them don’t require a gym membership. If you like team sports, you can join a local team that practices a sport you like, hockey, ultimate frisbee, soccer, etc. You could also find a friend and play tennis or badminton with him/her as a team or just against each other. If you don’t like team sports or competition you could also do a more individual activity like jogging, hiking, biking or swimming.

This isn’t close to being a full list of the activities you can do, there is tons of activities you can do that you may enjoy while getting in better shape, the trick is to find something you like doing so it will last more than a few weeks. Just look at what’s available in your town and try new things. When you’ll find something you actually like, you won’t have to force yourself to practice it regularly. You don’t have to lose hope if you’re not a gym person, there’s so much to do outside the gym.

As a last note, don’t forget that getting in shape and being healthier in general requires clean eating too. Exercice alone will surely get you some results but eating food that’s good for your body will help it reach its full potential.

A short time VS no time at all

Society seems to have taught us to do things by sessions mesured in hours. We work 8 (or even more) hours a day on the same tasks at our job, so why would it be different when we want to work on our own projects at home? Simply because after work, we don’t have the time and energy to do that, and for some, we can’t manage do the same thing for so long.

What I’m trying to say here is that even if you can’t/don’t want to amputate a full day of your already too short weekend, you can still manage to progress in something that matters to you.

My bass guitar teacher once said: “You’re better praticing only 15 minutes a day than not a all”. 15 minutes doesn’t seem like a big deal, but at the end of the week I would still have practiced for an hour and 45 minutes. And that’s a lot better than 0 minute.

It doesn’t only apply to music, I’m currently building a website using this method, I work for about 30 minutes then go to something else, sometimes I’m in a good mood for more and I can work for an hour or two. My website is growing slowy, but at least it’s not left to rot somewhere on my computer’s hard drive. Slow progress is still better than no progress at all. Sometimes it can take up to 4 days to write an article for this blog (by their length you could think that I write them in 5 minutes but it’s not the case) because I write for some time and then stop when I don’t feel it anymore and I come back the next day to write a few more lines and add new ideas.

I like this method because I can see some progression while keeping away from the feeling of lacking time to do all the things I have to do in a week. I also think that the slow progress makes a more “mature” result in the end. The multiple sessions help keep the project in my head so I’m always thinking about ways to improve it.

I agree that you can’t apply this to everything because some activities are long by nature but for the ones that can be splited in multiple sessions, it could be nice to give it a try. It doesn’t matter how long it takes to achieve something as long as you keep working on it.