The athletes who I coach know that I am a big lover of consistency. I am 100% into the concept. It teaches you discipline and makes it easier to stay in routine, taking some of the thought process out of training. There is merit in just doing your sessions almost without thinking at certain parts of the year. During base phase specifically I may make some of them run 30min for 30 days in a row, swim 3km for 30 days in a row or ride 60min indoors (with ME work) for 30 days in a row. Crazy and not high volume individually, but there is just something that comes out of a phase like that which lasts an entire season.

We are creatures of habit and consistency allows us to build good habits as well as remove the bad ones. It takes much longer to break a habit than build one, so often its more important to NOT be doing something than particularly doing something else. For myself, the following areas require the most effort to find consistency, but once its there and built in, they are quite easy to maintain.

1. Regular sleeping hours: I tend to want to watch my favorite shows at 9:30pm which means to bed at 11pm, which is far too late. I end up short on sleep and the rest falls apart. I am a far better human being if I get regular sleep.

2. Eating habits: Once I am on the food plan its pretty much always there, but its getting onto it that requires attention. If there is ice cream in the house, I will eat it EVERY day. Generally the start of any healthy eating period involves a few days of eating all the crap that’s around, followed by a few days of “penguining” the fridge, looking for crap that’s not there, followed by buying new, good food and the habit kicks in.

3. Cleaning consistency: When my living area is relatively neat (I am never 100% tidy to other people’s standards, I am just not that prioritised on it) it takes me 3-5min in the morning to clean, which is easy and voila, I feel better. When I let it slide, it takes me ages at the end of each week to get it done properly.

I have to admit that when those 3 things are good, I can pretty much be nice to people, train regularly and count on consistent energy levels. What are your 3? People with families will have totally different ones, I am sure.

An interesting topic which has come up a few times lately is stillness. Some will say “me” time, others will call it quiet time, stillness, solitude, etc. For me currently, it’s a whole whack of time as I am training on my own almost 100% of the time. Not out of choice. Purely because others aren’t quite into the long stuff I am doing at the moment.

Even within these extended periods of being alone, it’s not that often that I am not thinking of something or focusing on something to do with keeping going, raising or lowering heart rate, watching for cars, glass, potholes etc. I am continuously coming back to Ellipsis and how it relates to that stillness I try and give myself each day. 5 minutes can be enough, other days I might need an hour. Really its a complete lack of thought and movement. I do it to find my quiet power, which can only come from a quiet mind.

Once I have that quiet mind I find that the people around me are calmer too, so really it has a knock-on effect, this stillness. It requires practice and a bit of dedication to master, but the effects are profound. I found a great article on it here and it went like this:

“Silence is a source of great strength.” ~Lao Tzu

Post written by Leo Babauta. Follow me on twitter .

It’s a busy day, and you’re inundated by non-stop emails, text messages, phone calls, instant message requests, notifications, interruptions of all kinds.

The noise of the world is a dull roar that pervades every second of your life. It’s a rush of activity, a drain on your energy, a pull on your attention, until you no longer have the energy to pay attention or take action.

It’s an illness, this noise, this rush. It can literally make us sick. We become stressed, depressed, fat, burnt out, slain by the slings and arrows of technology.

The cure is simple: it’s stillness.

Pause

Take a minute out of your busy day to do this little exercise: pause in the middle of all you have to do, all that’s going on around you. Close your eyes, and sit still. Breathe in, and breathe out, and pay attention to your breath as it comes in and goes out. Just sit still, for about a minute.

This stillness might seem like inaction, which we’re taught is a bad thing. It’s lazy, it’s passive, it’s against our Puritan work ethic. And yet, this simple inaction can change our world.

Stillness calms us. It gives us a small oasis of quiet that allows us to hear our thoughts, that allows us to catch our breath, that gives us room to breathe at all. It is the antibody to the stress and rush we feel daily.

“Activity conquers cold, but stillness conquers heat.” ~Lao Tzu

The Strength of Stillness

Stillness has a calming effect on the world around us as well. By becoming still, we cause others to pause, to pay attention. Our quiet also quiets others. We set the mood for those who work and otherwise interact with us.

When we rush and set a frenetic pace, it stresses others and inspires them to rush frenetically too. Stillness has the opposite effect. It slows the world down, allows us to focus, gives us time for contemplation, for what matters most.

It takes strength to be still when others rush. It takes courage to be different, to go against the stream. But while others might think us weird at first, that’s OK. Sometimes it’s the weird ones that make the most difference. And soon, as our stillness inspires others to find stillness of their own, we won’t be the weird ones — we’ll be the ones with wisdom.

It takes strength to find stillness when the world around us is a chaos of activity, but it’s a strength that’s in us, and we need only to find it. Paradoxically, it’s stillness that will allow us to find that strength. Be still, look within, and it’ll be there.

Finding Stillness

It’s pretty simple, really, and you don’t need me to tell you to do this: to find stillness, you just need to take the time to sit still, every day that you can.

Find a time in the morning, when the world is still fairly quiet, to sit still. Don’t do anything, don’t plan your day, don’t check email, don’t eat. Just sit, and learn to be comfortable being still.

In practice, we’ll gradually find that comfort, and we’ll become good at it. If mornings are no good, find time during your lunch break, or after work, or just before you go to bed.

Find a place to be still. It can be a chair in your house, or a front porch, or the roof. It can be a park bench, or the beach, or a path in the woods. Let this be a ritual that you come to look forward to.

From this small place of stillness, calm will carry to the rest of your day, radiating like a soothing force. You’ll be calmer throughout the day, and learn to find little pockets of stillness everywhere: when you first start your workday, when you are ready to sit down and create, when you’re about to eat, when you are ready to exercise, during a meeting, even.

Practice, regularly. Practice, and learn. Practice stillness, and the stillness becomes a canvas upon which you can paint the masterpiece of your life.

“Let us be silent, that we may hear the whispers of the gods.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Take this photo for example. You see a Thunderbear in full release. The guy is so excited its palpable in the photo. Its not pretty. I would imagine the noise that came from him was Chewbacca-esque and sounded like it was being played backwards in slow motion. Here is what you don’t see…

This is a guy who would only record the training he did “in the zone” – he did not measure warm-ups and cool downs. He ran with an ice glove, in full longs after years of research in chambers being pricked and prodded to work out he had a cooling problem – fatal for Hawaii. He worked meticulously at his running for years after being the strongest biker in Ironman. You don’t see that. You cannot imagine that the release is a part of all that. He didn’t even win – this release is a release of overcoming, which is why its one of the most beautiful madness pictures there is.

Hawaii is pretty, right? This picture is 28km into the run at Ironman Hawaii. In battle in the right of the picture are Craig Alexander and Andreas Raelert. You can’t see Chris Lieto ahead somewhere. They are chasing him. There is nothing to distract them in this picture. The Energy Lab is stark, its ugly, its bare and raw and its hot and windy in there. It’s a place which saps energy from you like a hungry swarm of mosquito. Ironman is a lonely sport. If you can’t work that out in this picture…

Again, in the Lab. Potts has on granny socks and has a waterbottle perched in his bum and at this point is making the 2km stretch (uphill) out of the Lab. He has recently lost his father-in-law. On his right show, the name of his father-in-law reminds him to keep going. As he approaches the finish line, he removes his shoe and points to the name. It’s been a break through race for Potts. He has his reasons. Have a dig into the emotion and find your power when you are out there.

One of the most powerful photos for me. You see Lieto, just been passed for the lead at World Championships. His face shows utter despair, his entire year he has only thought about winning and suddenly he is hanging tight for second. Fellow pro Lovato has stopped on the opposite side of the road to watch his mate being passed and you can see in his face that he knows its over for Lieto. Crowie looks only forward, I think his face shows he is running scared, that he is at his total limit as well. His form though, perfect. It an ugly picture if you`re a Lieto fan, a beautiful one on being the pro’s pro if you are a Crowie fan.

+++

The story behind the story and the beauty in the madness. Go out there and find it this weekend. It’s out there. Find the wild eyes and the scary moments. Turn them to work for you and don’t look back. Just keep the pedals turning, the arms moving and make sure to keep the nutrition going. You are so much more than you know…

‘A few strong instincts and a few plain rules suffice us.’ ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Post written by Leo Babauta. Follow me on twitter or identica.

Life can be ridiculously complicated, if you let it. I suggest we simplify.

Thich Nhat Hanh’s quote, which I’ve stolen as this site’s subtitle, is the shortest guide to life you’ll ever need:

“Smile, breath, and go slowly.”

If you live your life by those five words, you’ll do pretty well. For those who need a little more guidance, I’ve distilled the lessons I’ve learned (so far) into a few guidelines, or reminders, really.

And as always, these rules are meant to be broken. Life wouldn’t be any fun if they weren’t.

the brief guide

less TV, more reading
less shopping, more outdoors
less clutter, more space
less rush, more slowness
less consuming, more creating
less junk, more real food
less busywork, more impact
less driving, more walking
less noise, more solitude
less focus on the future, more on the present
less work, more play
less worry, more smiles
breathe

Such a beautiful way to begin the week, I had to share. The article was originally published here.

Come here, I`ll tell it to you calmly, quietly, without prejudice. I`m happy to sit and listen to you tell me why I am mad to be trying to balance a full work day with my crazy sports obsession. I`ll sit and listen, without judgement. I realize you can’t fathom the compromise, the level of effort it takes to live the life I choose to live, every single day. I realize all you see is the training and the work and the limited time. I see that you see I am tired, that I look “ill” to you, too skinny by societies terms and conditions.

What you don’t see is the real effort. The packing of 2 bags a day, the effort it takes to shower 3 times a day depending if I am squeezing in a lunch session too. The compromise it takes when I want to go out partying with mates, because I LOVE the dancing, singing and laughing and bromance that they offer, but when I am simply too tired to be a part of whats going on there. The compromise it takes to stay true to a dream, a goal. I know you don’t see me when I`m sitting, 140km into a 180km ride, tired and weary, with 40km of hills and block headwind to get home. You cannot see the doubt in my mind right then, the fight in my head and body to keep going, despite the surrounding circumstance. All you see is “crazy boy spent the day on his bike again”.

You really can’t see that I`m training my mind as much as my body? Really? Interesting…

I full realize that you and most of the people I am surrounded by look at me with caution because they don’t understand my motivations. I know those of you who watch these videos and get goosebumps, wanting to be out there, on that course, that you share that burning desire. I salute you. In fact I am standing on the highest perch with a banner and a microphone for you, protesting the limits of society for you, with you, through you. I know you don’t expect everybody to understand you, but that you feel like an island some days. That the island gets lonely.

I get that. Just remember that life is NOT about finding yourself out there, in the open road. It’s about CREATING yourself out there, in the open road. That you are building the foundations for making amazingly good decisions by pushing the limits. The limits are beautiful. Just when you smash through one, it goes just a bit further again. The limits will challenge you forever. That is their essential beauty and truth.

Still not understanding what I am saying? Have a watch at this, tell me it doesn’t grip you in the heart and wake something in you. For me, I get so emotional when I watch this that I am ready to run out the door and onto the mountain, disappearing for a few hours where I set the trail and there is no route. Where all bets are off on whether I hit a limit out there or not.

It makes me want to go find that beautiful moment where I have to stop and ask myself serious questions about WTF I am doing out here in this state with so far left to go. Give me those moments. They make me laugh at myself. Yes, I am mad.

What am I doing?

This is my language. I know you might not understand it. I realize the crazyness of it all. I know it’s a little obsessive. I am fully aware of how intense it is. I am 100% coherent on the fact that I do it 100% for myself, however. I really can’t complain, all is Kosher around these parts. Thank goodness it`s far from over. Really there are too many great roads, trails and open stretches of water left to explore, too much great food to experience and far too many amazing wines I have never sampled.

I may not always be so driven to obsess about sport. I may switch it to exploration at some point, but I guarantee you I will explore by bike, foot and human power. I`ll be climbing the mountain, not catching the cable car to the top. I am too addicted to the way the body feels when it moves. How good it feels to walk, run, ride, climb, dance, jump, boogie, bounce, paddle and in the middle of all that, with all the senses going bazongkers, standing perfectly still with my eyes closed, arms wide spread, being amazed at how everything tingles with absolute excitement at doing what it’s supposed to do, when the mind and body are 100% stimulated through a full body sensory experience.

Don’t tell me I am mad.

I am well aware of the fact.

— Penelope Trunk, Brazen Careerist