Don't Sweat the Small Stuff....

I'm am sure many of you have been told this or said this to someone else at some point in your life. When you are stressed out or struggling to get by it sounds like a great idea. Don't stress about the small things you have to deal with and everything will run smoothly.

I find in my life, not sweating the small things tends to get me into a lot of trouble. Say a light bulb goes out in house, you think, hmm... I don't feel like doing that today, I'll take care of it tomorrow. Tomorrow becomes next Tuesday and next Tuesday becomes next month...until you have been thinking about the stupid light bulb for two months and now another one is out and now you have two to replace...well I think you see where this is headed.

I find in my training and eating, I tend to get into a habit of "not sweating the small stuff." When I'm tired/sick/busy or various other things on my extensive list of excuses, I cut the little things out. When working out, I'll take away accessories work or skip my dreaded pullups, cut down on rest time or skip warming up and warm up sets. The idea being, "well, as long as I get my big lifts in, I'm good."

But it turns out, "I'm not so good." When I leave out the seemingly less important accessory work, my big lifts suffer. When I don't properly warm up, my hamstrings get extra tight making it harder to work out next time. I am starting to find, that if I "sweat the small stuff," the "big stuff" tends to come easier.

It's the same way with my diet. I like to convince myself that having a treat now and then won't effect my training. In many ways this is true, but I find if I say ok to a White Chocolate Mocha on Monday, I'm more likely to try my Grandma's homemade chocolate chips cookies on Wednesday, and then one Thursday don't feel like cooking and decide the fast food isn't really so bad for me. It is a vicious cycle.

One of my professors in college once told me the story of the first guy to reach the top of Mt. Everest, while I have no idea if this is true, I think its worth sharing. He told me in his very thick Indian accent, "There were two men climbing who went on the expedition to reach the top of Mt. Everest. They climbed the whole way together, but only one reached to top first. The difference between good a great, is often only a couple of feet."

I wonder how different my life and training would be if I really lived out that idea?