Stoicism & Fitness
Welcome to the one day at a time podcast with your host and the future leader of The Republic Of Wales, Sveldfjer. Now this might be the only podcast in the world where you actually have to reduce the speed instead of increasing it. However, what I wanna get over to you is that the past is gone. The future doesn't exist. So if you wanna make the most of your life, you've gotta make the most of these moments every single day.
Speaker 1:And this podcast is gonna help you live a healthier, more fulfilled life, hopefully, giving you some wisdom to take away every single day. So I'm gonna shut up now so you can get on with listening to the next episode. Good morning everyone, I hope you're all on your walk right now in the morning listening to these because the weather's improved, is no excuse and on that topic today we're going to talk about stoicism and fitness. Are they related? Now, if you've been part of the Turtle membership or challenges, you know that we incorporate a lot of mindset mental health stuff and a lot of it is based on stoicism and CBT and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:And I've been fascinated by stoicism for a long time, like I mentioned yesterday. What I've been looking into more is really how the stoics would have maybe dealt with fitness and health in today's world. Right, and I think they would have had a lot to say that would have been very helpful for us, right. So just as a reminder, you know, what is stoicism? Stoicism, not to be confused with lowercase stoic, is an ancient philosophical framework or school for living well.
Speaker 1:Basically you focus on living virtuously so you've got the four cardinal virtues of stoicism which is courage, justice, wisdom and temperance which means moderation. And they want to reduce the impact the negative emotions actually have on us, And that we basically, we learn how to deal with adversity, handle it, stay balanced, right? And understand our emotions. That's what stoicism is all about. It's about understanding what we can control and what we can't control.
Speaker 1:And once we differentiate these two things, it's a lot easier. It basically is a shortcut for us to make decisions that are going to benefit us, right. So as an example, things might happen. For example, you want to go for a run but it's raining today. So you might say, it's rainy, I can't run today.
Speaker 1:A stoic might have said, well I can't control the weather, can I? But I can run on my treadmill or walk around the house to hit my daily steps or I can wear the right clothing, to go for a run-in the rain right that's how they would have approached it. So Marcus Aurelius once said you have power over your mind not outside events, realize this and you will find strength. Another example would be maybe you're saying, ah my co worker brought in donuts to the office today, I have to cheat on my diet because they were there, they were free, right. But the Storix or Markus readers would have gone weird up mate, I can't control if my co worker brings in donuts all the time but I can control having only one that fits my macros or I can't decide to not you know indulge in them if I didn't want to do it right.
Speaker 1:You need to wheel power over your emotions, you can't let them control you right and if those circumstances are outside your control keep dictating your emotions and then your behavior, you are out of control. You are controlled by the external factors all the time. And that's when you feel lost and you feel like a whirlwind is going on in your life because you keep getting really you get distracted, kind of like someone's controlling your life. Like I could, you know, if we were to put you into an experiment, we could say, well, someone walking with donuts now, someone walking into that, someone walking into that. And for a person that's not protecting or guarding their mind, they're really going to be controlled by these people and we can't be that type of person right, especially when it comes to health and fitness as well.
Speaker 1:So to be stoic right is not to be emotionless, it's a myth that's not what it's about. It means to be remain unaffected or minimally affected by your emotions. You want to respond not react. If we react we have no control but if we respond we decide how we control right. So the key to consistency in managing our emotions, right, so the Stoics take comfort not in avoiding emotions but in not letting them get in the way of what needs to be done.
Speaker 1:Stoics also understand that emotions are powerful influences. Influences but not the ultimate judge of our lives we are not our emotions right you're not your emotions if you get angry right people say this all that I'm an angry person, well you're not, you simply react at your peak anger. Anger is a feeling and it does go it comes and goes you are not anger, are not happy, you're not happy, you're not sadness they're just feelings and they come and go right and how we react at the peak of those emotions, those actions can dictate how people perceive us. Like oh he's always lashing out in his anger, pass the snarl by one second of your life, right and you act on that and if you didn't you'd be completely different person. Okay so we all know we can we all know about this, we all know that consistency and control in our emotions is very important so you're not going to get stronger, faster, leaner and stuff like that if you're always going to let your emotions take control of you.
Speaker 1:Because when it comes to health and fitness, emotional eating is a big thing to overcome. And emotional eating can be triggered by a lot of things. So instead of thinking of always stopping the trigger to emotional feelings, we can maybe say right, when I feel a sense of peak emotion, and I want to eat something, we need to delay judgment, we need to delay, we need to make that time between the trigger and the decision to eat something. We need to make that time as long as possible so we can rationalize it and give ourselves a chance to not react at the peak of the emotion. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:So we must make, we must respond, right? We must respond. So setbacks as well. When we look at setbacks, the only setbacks if you view them that way, can learn from all your setbacks, can learn from all your failures and all this stuff. You've heard this all before.
Speaker 1:But it is true. Like, if you do fail, you try again and you fail, you try again, you keep going, you keep going, you keep going eventually, eventually things start clicking. An example of this is like this week now it's actually mental so our app we wanted in terms of my life, I wanted to launch the app probably a few months ago. I then wanted to launch turtle clothing. I then wanted to launch rugby warfare clothing, men's, and then rugby warfare women's.
Speaker 1:And then I wanted launch well, we had to do a challenge as well a few weeks ago. Then we wanted launch a way like a snowed and all the stuff. So we wanted to space it out. But all of a sudden, it's kind of it was all a setback, setback, delays, waiting, setbacks, wrong design, apps not getting approved, apps the app not working is pushing our challenge right right until the last moment we can do it. Now all of a sudden, everything's happening at once.
Speaker 1:Right? The clothing's coming on, it's launching, apps launched at once, everything's just launching fast, fast, fast. And then I'm not complaining about that fact. What I'm saying is there's been a lot a lot a lot of setbacks that has now come and it's just a crazy week is coming up and you know it is what it is but it does end up working out if you keep trying to work on a solution. Now Ryan Holiday, one of the, you know, most well known stoic authors, one of his books Obstacle is the Way is all about this.
Speaker 1:Like, whatever the obstacle is, that is the way you go. You don't try and run away from it. Oh you got a setback that's where you go then straight to it let's go straight up what's the setback you've got to blitz through it, work through it immediately, no delay in that because this is going to build up and get worse okay but we all experience the setbacks in life and all that but me and all in our fitness journey right, we have a big weekend it takes us a few days Monday Tuesday so I get back into it then we got plans again in the weekend, I'm saying this is happening to me and you have to accept you know what, we have been in lockdown for ages, we have got chances now to go on normal weekends for a while, it might be another lockdown later down the line right, sometimes balance isn't about fiftyfifty, Balance is sometimes you enjoy in your head off a week, and then you have a few days training, then you do have another big week, and then you go back into it. It's not about the fiftyfifty split.
Speaker 1:Like, I'll do my best, obviously, this week to get my steps in, eat well, get a few training sessions in. I'm not going to kick myself for not being at my peak physical shape before any event or whatever, know, or thinking, I'm going to have a setback after this weekend of drinking and eating food with my friends and not thinking about macros much. I'm not thinking as a setback, I'm thinking that's part of the journey. That isn't the truth of it. It's not a setback, that's lifeline.
Speaker 1:You can't expect to go through this health and fitness journey and not have peaks and troughs. That's exactly how it works. So you're really being very unreasonable and having silly expectations if you think you're going to make progress every single week. I'll be happy to make progress twenty five weeks of the year, and then I'd be happy to hold progress for another twenty weeks, and I'd be happy if five or six of those were completely disastrous. I don't even know if that adds up to fifty two weeks of the year, but it's close.
Speaker 1:It's close. We don't need to look at as fifty two wins, 52 weekly wins, right? But we can be consistent in how we approach each day, can't we? We can say I'm going to try my best today, I'm going to try the best of my ability today, I'm not going to let my emotions get to me today, I'm not going to be a slave to my emotions today, I'm going to respond today instead of react. If you can just do those simple things and if you can live with discipline, if you can bring discipline to your days and remind yourself I need discipline.
Speaker 1:Remember the Jim Rohn quote, it's either the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. If you really to break it down, it's those two. And if you want the pain of discipline, it's, yeah, I don't want to do it, I want to do it. Sometimes you just go, you know, this pain is better than the pain of regret. And then you bring in the, you're not going to be a slave to your emotions and you keep going through and you blitz through it right.
Speaker 1:And the stoics would have gone through this and they would have really taken hold of that kind of mindset right. So don't worry if you have setbacks as long as you keep going trying again it's all good. Don't put too much pressure on yourself right. So Seneca, one of the other famous stoic authors also said the whole future lies in uncertainty so live immediately and look at this podcast one day at a time it's all about being in the present moment so all you can do is be in the present moment right We've all got this present moment. We wake up every day twenty four hours a day, new twenty four hours every day, everybody has the same new load of twenty four hours a day.
Speaker 1:We've all got different days, we've all got different responsibilities, some people have more free time, some people have less free time, some people have literally completely different stressors than someone else. But the truth of the matter is, it doesn't matter about everyone else. What can we do with the twenty four hours we've got today? Like what can we do today? Maybe we can, look, we can't, I can't train like a professional athlete.
Speaker 1:I can't take, I can't have a two hour working day, right, but I can't do my best today, can do the best with what I've got, with the work ahead of me, I want to get my steps and I want to do a bit of training and want to do my best today with my twenty four hours, that's what matters and that's what matters for you as well. So no need to compare yourself right and no need to live up to anyone else's standards, you know exactly what you can do and what you're capable of and that's what you need to approach today. The stoics basically believed in existing in the here and now, the worrying about the future. Right now is promised, tomorrow is not. Stoicism emphasizes doing what we can in the given moment to move us along, which involves putting in actual work right now, go for that run right now, go and do that task that's been nagging in your head, go and do it right now, stop this podcast bugger off and go and do it, it's been nagging, just get it done, what is the weight right, you know schedule your training sessions and like I said you write down your workouts when you're gonna do them what time and where on a piece of paper you're three times more likely to do it so get that pen and paper out right down now if you it's Wednesday have you done any dance sessions this week any training if not start writing down today.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna do one on Tuesday, Thursday, I'm gonna do one on Friday, I'll do Sunday, whatever whatever you want it to be. Right? Have and track your macros, get your phone out and track where your breakfast is gonna be today. Once you start building small bits of momentum and you start planning when things down, your day starts moving along and then you start running the day and the day doesn't run you. And that's what the stoics would have been all about.
Speaker 1:They would have been all about running the day because the day today is the only thing we ever have right. And a few more things on the stoicism and fitness the stoics believed in detaching yourself and to practice Amor Fati right and this is what Nietzsche said he's a German philosopher he said my formula for greatness in a human being is Amor Fati that one wants nothing to be different not forward not backward not in all eternity not merely to bear what is necessary still less conceal it all idealism in menacity in the face of what is necessary but to love it. Essentially, whatever happens to you, love it, right? Don't think you, oh, I wish I was different, wish I was that. Don't try and conceal it, just love it, love your fate, Right?
Speaker 1:And I remember this phrase helped me back in the day when I was I think it was I think it was 2017, '20 '16, '20 '17. So I went full time rugby war for 2016. And then in 2017, I did loads of mistakes with shipment and all that, a massive amount of debt. And I sat there with my Amofati coin. And I was like, you know, love my fate.
Speaker 1:Love this. Like, this has happened. Who is the type of person that can get over this and get through this? And I said, I can. I can do this, I'm gonna love this is part of my journey, my fate and I'm gonna love it, I'm gonna get through it and it really did help, I don't know if it sounds any cheesy or whatever but it really did help me through that moment.
Speaker 1:I think these little phrases can help us. So it's not about a reason what's happened, accept it, accept it wholeheartedly and then you can start chopping it down. You're going to go up through the obstacle, you're going to go through you know brick by brick, step by step, wherever it may be, you're going to start plowing through it. We have to accept it first, that's the main thing right. So if you're in a bad place fitness wise, health wise, accept it.
Speaker 1:Okay, I've fucked up. I'm not in the condition I want to be in and I'm not talking about being physically in a certain shape, talking about health. If you don't feel healthy running, I to train more, I want to be fitter right, don't let anyone else tell you oh it's power to do that, like you know that all this fucking nonsense and now people are like it's barred to tell people to lose weight. If someone feels they're overweight and unhealthy and they want to lose weight, that's absolutely fine. There's so much studies on if you're overweight or obese and you drop weight your health markers go up, it's as simple as that, it's not about looking any different.
Speaker 1:You could look the same if you wanted to. It's all about health. Okay? So accept that. What are you gonna do about it right now?
Speaker 1:That's the thing. It starts now. It doesn't start tomorrow. So you're gonna go on that walk now. You're gonna track your macros now.
Speaker 1:You're gonna get the app now. Like, you're gonna do things today because it all it all adds up these small little things right bloody now that you're gonna do that's gonna make the difference and the stoics would have been all about this, living right now accepting your fate and getting on with things. That's all there is, that's all there is okay, so we need to get on with it, we need to guard our time and I leave you with this quote by Seneca. 'We're tight fisted with property and money yet think too little of wasting time, the one thing about which we should all be the toughest masters or misers, right, so we should be guarding our time. You wouldn't let someone come up and rob a hundred quid of you, but you let people on social media, you let people, your friends and family come up and rob time of you without even defending it right.
Speaker 1:So you do need to defend your time today, so get some me time in you, get that workout in, get off your phone, do a good workout, go for a walk, whatever it may be and guard your time and it's all about that guys, honest to God, it really is that simple. It's simple but it's hard right, so it's easy to not, it's easy to do, it's easy not to do but we must keep going, we must do this right, we must keep going. And I promise you, if you do combine the kind of stoic mindset and the fitness, it will make it a lot easier for you. What you can't control is just your voluntary actions, everything else you can't control, right. And I hope that's drilled in.
Speaker 1:But it's a bit of a lot on the voice note today, but, yeah, I'll share more stoic stuff that I'm reading. I'm going back into it, and I'll share that. We might get Donald back on for the q and a as well, to see what you guys want. But I hope you're enjoying the app. Any questions, let me know about the app.
Speaker 1:We make we've made the app so it's easy for you to integrate tracking into your life without it taking over your life. So we want you to use it for less than five minutes a day. It might start by using it a bit longer because you get used to it, but we've tested it out to people now, we're parents and all that stuff and everybody tends to be using it for less than five minutes a day and you know let the app do the work for you, make the changes for you so you can get on living your day and spending more of your time doing what you want, spending with your family, your friends, your career, whatever it may be. That's where you should be focused on spending time on not like reading articles about this new miracle pill and arguing on Instagram about if keto is better than paleo all this nonsense right. So go forth enjoy your day do what you need to do right now don't delay and I'll speak to you all tomorrow.
Speaker 1:And that is it for today's episode so hopefully you took something away from it if you didn't here's what you need to take away stop wasting time on social media Stop wasting time gossiping. You've only got a day to live. Today's the only day you ever have. So if there's anything to take away from this podcast, even if you can't understand the word I say, even if you didn't resonate with the wisdom I try to deliver, this is a reminder of you daily to live one day at a time. Give your moments meaning today and don't be fooled by thinking you've
Speaker 2:got unlimited amount of days.
Speaker 3:But if you can make
Speaker 1:the most of today, I'm telling you, you'll have a fulfilled life. So enjoy your day and hopefully I'll see you back tomorrow. Do daily to live one day at a time. Give your moments meaning today and don't be fooled by thinking
Speaker 2:you've got unlimited amount of days.
Speaker 3:But if you can make the
Speaker 1:most of today, I'm telling you, you'll have a fulfilled life. So enjoy your day and hopefully I'll see you back tomorrow.
