I had never felt more defeated in my life.
What a waste of time.
I had been going to the gym consistently (3-4 times per week) for 1 year and saw no change in my body.
I was doing what all the internet fitness gurus were telling me to do!
Paying my dues! Day in and day out.
But still no progress.
I came in a scrawny little boy, and I left a slightly older scrawny little boy.
I was bummed.
I didn’t understand why I wasn’t seeing any progress.
There must be something wrong with me.
I’ve got scrawny genetics I guess.
Maybe even a disease that makes me incapable of getting massively jacked.
My mind made up all sorts of excuses in order to justify my lack of results.
But it never crossed my mind that my own effort was part of the problem.
Then, one day, everything changed.
It started off like any other day.
Woke up, stretched, and left for the gym.
The only difference was that I decided to work out with a friend that day instead of lifting solo.
And that’s when it clicked for me.
When I watched my friend workout.
I saw the way he was pushing himself.
Like realllyyyy pushing himself.
Sweating, grunting, going full-tilt.
Pushing until failure on almost every set.
I thought to myself “Wow, I am not pushing myself like that.”
In fact, I wasn’t pushing myself at all.
And then it all made sense.
I had been so focused on just checking the box of “going to the gym” that I had forgotten the whole purpose of being there: tearing apart my tiny little muscles so they could grow into big-boy muscles!
In short, I was half-assing it.
Not giving it my all
Doing the same weights every day
Staying in my comfort zone
Refusing to push past my previous limits
Since that day, pushing past my limits has been my sole focus when at the gym.
Trying to go further than the day before.
And, at risk of sounding like a total gym bro hardo, this really has made all the difference.
We are a collection of our repeated behaviors.
Enough silly gym examples.
This is bigger than the gym and can applies directly to you.
Let’s be honest, you do the same shit all the time.
And as you repeat these behaviors, you slide into grooves.
Grooves make sense.
If you had to reinvent your day every single day, you’d be living in eternal chaos.
So you establish grooves (or routines) to help save you from such chaos.
Aside from physical grooves like where you get your coffee or the route you take to work you also get into psychological grooves.
Psychological grooves are the ways you think about life and approach challenges.
Back to half-assery now.
Half-assery is a psychological groove.
It’s a way of living. A way you approach challenges.
Doing the bare minimum
Checking the box
Going through the motions
Those are all symptoms of half-assery.
I used to hate when NAVY seals on YouTube would tell me how making my bed in the morning would change my life.
But now I get it.
It’s not really about the bed.
It’s about carving the “I do stuff with 100% effort” groove in your mind.
Because when you start full-ass making your bed, it’s more likely that you will full-ass other things in life.
And the funny thing about life is that a majority of the progress lies in the last 10% of effort that the half-assers will never get to.
Allow me to illustrate this point with a personal story.
When I was 12 years old I only gave af about two things:
Playing the piano
And since we don’t have the time to dive into my cup-stacking career, let’s talk about the piano.
Learning to play the piano is a fun but mind-numbing journey, but I enjoyed it.
It took 5 years for me to get pretty good.
I could play all the classics: Hot Cross Buns, Twinkle Twinkle, even the song from Up.
But then I got soft & I invited half-assery into my life.
I stopped learning new songs and began playing the same songs over and over again like a broken record.
It was a lot easier than trying to learn new songs and I was already good enough to impress people so why even bother trying to learn anything new?
I had come down with a chronic case of half-assery.
Fast forward 10 years, and I’m probably worse at playing the piano than I was when I was 15.
This is because all the progress is in that last 10% of the effort when you are pushed up against your current ceiling.
When you slowly start chiseling upwards into uncharted territory.
Pushing past what you thought was possible for yourself.
And while I was still playing a lot, I had stopped pushing my limits.
And so my growth stopped.
The dangers of half-assery.
Half-assing things is dangerous.
It’s like taking a nap on railroad tracks.
It may seem fine for a while, but it’s only a matter of time before disaster strikes.
It’s dangerous because on the surface it looks like you are putting the work in.
You are taking action. Doing things.
But underneath the hood, you are actually slowly training yourself to go half-way in all aspects of life.
It starts off in one facet of your life and then slowly creeps into the rest, like a slow creepy virus crawling through your body.
And that’s not all.
There’s another unseen cost with half-assery.
The damage you are doing to your self-worth.
Don’t think that your subconscious isn’t picking up on your half-assery.
You can’t lie to yourself.
Trust me, I’ve tried.
Your subconscious knows when you are half-assing things, even if your conscious mind won’t admit it.
And you are slowly degrading your self-worth by doing less than your best.
The good news is that while half-assery can creep into all aspects of your life, so can full-assery.
And if you are on board with the full-ass lifestyle but don’t know where to start, just start where you are.
Whatever you’ve got going on today, full-ass it.
Don’t do the bare minimum. Go above and beyond.
Full-ass your drive to work.
Full-ass making dinner tonight.
Full-ass the next conversation you have.
And then see how you feel after.
You can slowly rebuild or repair your self-worth by full-assing everything you do.
You get out of life what you put into it.
^ remember that cliche? We heard it a million times when we were young.
Turns out, all the cliches we heard growing up were true.
We just had to get knocked around a little as adults to really internalize them.
That’s where I am at.
I’ve recently become aware of the impact my own half-assery has had on my current life circumstances.
That’s actually why I’m writing this - as a reminder to myself to not half-ass things.
I have half-assed work, workouts, and relationships.
And these have all led to mediocre outcomes.
And I’ve decided I don’t want to live a half-ass life.
I’d prefer a big, juicy full-ass life.
A question for you (action required).
And so here is my question for you…
Are there things in your life that you are half-assing?
I know there are. We all have things.
When you think of those things, does one of these excuses come to mind:
“This actually isn’t that important to me, that’s why I’m not giving it my best effort”
“I don’t have time to full-ass this”
“I don’t know how to full-ass this”
Let me tell you from experience, these excuses are your ego trying to protect you from getting out of your comfort zone.
So I have a challenge for you.
In an area of life you’d like to stop half-assing, ask yourself the following questions:
Why am I half-assing this?
What would it look like if I full-assed this?
What would it feel like if I went above and beyond on this task?
Has half-assing this thing led me to half-assing other parts of my life?
If you are brave enough, email me your answers, I’m curious to hear what you’ve got to say.
And after you answer these questions, take action.
Fight back against half-assery!
As always, thank you so much for reading and sharing.
You are truly a beauty and I hope you have an amazing day.
Cheers to you for working towards becoming the best version of yourself.
I admire you for it.
Until next time,
Flickman