Edition #21

Hi All!

Here is your weekly serving of practical guidance and inspiration to ensure you live your life with purpose. Feel free to forward this along to friends and family. Enjoy!

I wanted to give a quick shout to the 5 amazing individuals who have joined us since last week. Thanks for being here and welcome to the Never Idle team!

Read Time: 7 Minutes

Master Your Mindset

Use Yourself As The Bar

Michael Jordan did not instantly go from being cut from his high school basketball team to being the greatest basketball player of all time.

J.K. Rowling did not instantly go from writing concepts of Harry Potter on napkins to a world-famous, best-selling author.

Success and greatness are not reached by standing at the starting line and jumping all the way to the top.

It is a slow, methodical process of small steps, setbacks, resiliency, and ultimately progress. Progress from one level to the next until success starts to shine through.

Too often we look at successful people and think, “How could I ever be like them? How could I ever reach that level?”

There are 2 COLOSSAL issues with these questions.

#1 You aren’t them. You don’t have the same experience, the same journey, or the same skills.

You are a unique person with unique circumstances so to think you can perfectly replicate someone else’s journey to success is unrealistic.

#2 You are neglecting the essential piece that got that person to the level they are now: The intermediate steps.

You are looking at yourself at level 0 and looking at them at level 100 and comparing the two.

What you are forgetting is the countless hours they have dedicated to their craft to reach the level they are at now. In this comparison, your mind tricks you into thinking their success stems from luck or circumstance when in reality it came from dedication and hard work.

Today — Right now — It’s time to recalibrate your mind to set the bar you aim to reach as yourself. Compare yourself against yourself.

Here are the 3 big reasons this is a necessity to reach the success you seek:

Sets Realistic Expectations

Look, no matter how hard I trained, whether I started now or 30yrs ago, I am never going to be a better basketball player than Michael Jordan.

He has natural abilities that few possess AND he worked his ass off to apply those gifts at the highest level.

Okay, so no beating MJ’s basketball career for me. Got it.

However, using myself as the bar, I understand what natural abilities I possess and I also know the amount of effort I am truly putting into the skill I want to develop.

This knowledge allows me to set a more realistic, yet still lofty expectation, that plays to my strengths and holds me accountable to give the appropriate amount of effort needed to reach that expectation.

Think about this in your own context.

Are you a naturally good writer? good teacher? strong athlete?

Whatever that ability is for you, do you want to improve it?

If so, are you putting in the effort to make that happen?

You know the answer to all these questions and that’s why using yourself as the bar sets you on a realistic path to achieve demanding outcomes.

Natural Sweet Spot

The human body and mind thrive at a level of challenge that is difficult but isn’t too hard that it is unattainable.

This means you want to put yourself in situations where you continue to test yourself — to face difficult challenges — but make them attainable so you can feel that success as you continue to improve.

Say you did want to get better at basketball. Trying to play MJ 1-on-1 over and over again is going to be a challenge way beyond that ‘difficult but attainable’ threshold.

Instead, if you tested your jump shot and made 10/20 shots from the elbow you might challenge yourself to make 15/20. A 50% increase in success rate is challenging but with enough practice, you can achieve it.

Using yourself as that comparison you develop these natural sweet spots of the appropriate amount of challenge your body and mind can thrive in.

Prioritize the Journey

Remember the all-essential component that wishfully hoping to be as good as someone else neglects?

The journey. The hours. The dues paid.

Setting yourself as the standard on your path to success brings this firmly into focus.

You know you aren’t going to become an overnight success. It becomes clear that the journey is the priority.

Now, instead of hoping you can get better you just have to aim to be better than YOU were yesterday.

• Learn that new concept

• Practice that old skill to reinforce it

• Try that new technique you read about

Whatever the specifics are, by maintaining the mentality of just beating yourself yesterday, the stepping stones naturally appear for you.

These stepping stones — the self-improvement journey — are the only way for you to eventually reach the level you desire.

Use others as inspiration. But use yourself as the bar.

Hone Your Habits

Resilient Routines: Adapting Habits During Major Life Events

This past weekend, My wife and I moved from Texas to Florida.

We had one helper (my wife’s aunt) but besides that, we did the whole move on our own.

• Packed up a UHaul

• Drove the truck and one car 10hrs+

• Unpacked everything and returned the truck

• Flew back to Texas

• Drove our pets and 2nd car another 10hrs+

One thing is for sure with a major life event like this: Your routine WILL BE thrown off.

However, you should NOT use this as an excuse to throw your habits in the trash.

Instead, your goal should be to modify your habits to fit the situation you are in.

Here are the 3 main pillars I followed to ensure I kept on track with diet, exercise, and content creation all while moving across the country:

Pillar #1 - Have A Plan

I knew I would be away from my desk, kitchen, and exercise equipment for long durations of time.

Armed with this knowledge, I was able to plan ahead to keep my habits going strong.

I:

• Took the week before the move to get ahead on content. I wrote and scheduled content in advance to prepare for the time I knew I would be missing

• Bought high-protein snacks I could eat on the way to ensure I got close to my macro goals

• Maintained my intermittent fasting routine. I typically eat from 12:30pm-7:30pm daily so even though we hit the road early in the morning on the 3 travel days, I stuck to my feeding window, which helped avoid overeating when I…

• Made mindful deviations. Look, I wasn’t trying to be perfect during this time. I just wanted to avoid going off the rails and losing major progress. I typically count calories but for this time period I planned not to. I simply used mindful decision-making paired with intermittent fasting to limit overeating.

Pillar #2 - Know Where To Splurge

In a normal week, I tend to reserve sweets for Saturday where I have a cheat meal outside of my planned weekly meals.

However, in a large life event such as moving across state lines, I gave myself some extra grace.

This wasn’t free reign to eat however much I wanted. But it was some additional freedom for things I usually wouldn’t eat during the week.

Some awesome things like iced honey buns, Waffle House waffle with chocolate chips and bacon, and chocolate pudding with whipped cream and Oreos.

How did I know I was okay to eat this stuff?

• I had been on a calorie deficit the past 31 days prior

• I was hauling furniture and boxes in 104° heat

• I was only eating during a 7hr feeding window

I knew 5 days of individual choices like this would not derail me.

I knew I was utilizing the quick carbs and sugars I was taking in.

I knew I wasn’t eating around the clock.

Having an idea of where you can splurge during a major life event such as this makes the process that much more enjoyable.

Pillar #3 - Bite-Sized “Exercise Snacks”

This concept comes from Dr. Andy Galpin on the Huberman Lab podcast and I leveraged this quite nicely in a real-world scenario.

“Exercise snacks” are not food that you eat to prepare for a workout. They are mini-workouts you can perform with no warm-up.

I had just flown back to Texas from Florida after bringing 95% of my belongings to my new home and was sitting on the floor in my nearly empty apartment back in Texas.

Empty apartment or perfect exercise space?

For me, it was the latter.

The two exercise snacks I incorporated regularly during these 5 days were:

• Max Push-ups until failure

• 100 Jumping Jacks

But these can go much further. Think of any exercise you don’t need a warm-up for that will increase your heart rate quickly. Could be:

• 10-15 burpees

• 20-40 secs of sprinting

Get creative with these. They are perfect for getting in some exercise with minimal time to spare.

They can also be incorporated into your daily routine, even if you have a regular exercise practice.

These exercise snacks were exactly what I needed when all my exercise equipment was packed up and I had a few spare minutes to get my heart rate up.

The point of these pillars?

Having your routine affected by major events is a normal part of life.

However, letting your habits go to shit because of these routine breaks is nothing but an excuse.

Sure, you will have to get creative. Your routine won’t be perfect. But maintaining the core components of your habits, while tweaking them to suit your specific situation avoids any major setbacks until you can fall back into your normal routine.

Make your routine resilient, no matter what life throws your way!

Words of Wisdom

You can complement this weekly newsletter with short reminders, ideas, and thoughts about personal development by following me on Twitter (or X. I can’t get used to that).

Thanks for reading! And always remember…

Slow and steady. Never Idle.

Until next week,

Austin Sargent