The Valley of Despair
Welcome to the one day at a time podcast where we forget about yesterday. We don't worry about tomorrow. It's what are we going to do today? This all matters because you've only ever had or will ever have the fantastic twenty four hours a day you're about to embark on. Hopefully this episode is going to give you some daily dose of wisdom that you can take action on today to improve your life.
Speaker 1:Remember, all it takes is one day at a time. Good morning everyone, that means good morning everyone in Welsh. So today I'm talking about something very important it's called the Valley Of Despair. I was in the Valley Of Despair on Friday and, we've all probably we're all probably feeling it right now. There's a lot of us feeling this, so I'm gonna get into that now and how we can basically combat it.
Speaker 1:Hold on. Just ask, let me take this call. Hello, who is it? Oh St David man yeah you're right boy yeah yeah good good yeah yeah no no I'm actually doing that voice note to the English people now yeah they're mostly English no I can't say you hate them no man I can't say ah, nah they're that bad honestly they're not worse than mold you're nuts man they're not they're decent right down we got a good connection going on Yeah I'll tell them the story yeah I'll tell them about the leaks yes yes okay yeah no probs okay tada tada. St David I was, give me a ring.
Speaker 1:Anyway St David I got to tell you about him, the patron saint of Wales, basically the Bishop of Britain at the time the year May. Yeah, I mean he loves you so I don't, no joke. Basically, right, Saint David, there was the army of Britain, basically the ancient Welsh were fighting against the Saxon invaders, you know, the English people, Anglo Saxons, you can work it out. He told the boys, he's like, boys, the Saxons are coming at us. Right?
Speaker 1:So for you to win, and I'm a bishop of I'm the bishop of Britain, I got magical powers, I'm basically the Jesus of Wales. I'm g I'm the Jesus around you. Put a leak on your head and go to battle with a leak on your head. So the Welsh soldiers say, know what? Good laugh, let's do it.
Speaker 1:They did it and they won. Right? And my my theory is the Saxons probably saw them with these leaks in the head and got, these boys are nuts. There's no way we're going into this. They're probably shooting leaks off the head like Bulbasaur and Pokemon.
Speaker 1:They took them one a day and ever since Welsh soul is about to eat raw leek on the eaves in David, it's basically punishment. Let's be honest, it's the worst, the worst vegetable in the world. Okay, don't recommend it and there's as young Welsh kids we have to dress up in our Welsh uniform and put a massive giant leak in our chest and run around these massive leaks around us that we're flying right and basically the symbol of Wales even though we've got a red giant dragon as the symbol we don't need the baby the pathetic leak as our symbol we got the dragon right. Anyway, anyway, so the important thing is Saint David lived to over 100 years old. He's basically a monk, He was a vegetarian as well, didn't believe in using animals for work.
Speaker 1:Quite a good guy to be fair, only drunk water, etcetera, etcetera. So he's on his death deathbed loudly. He's on his deathbed. Right? And he said something in Welsh, which is a famous saying in Wales now.
Speaker 1:And it's a common saying that people live by. So he said, and I'll say it in Welsh, so tune in. There's a lot of coming in at you. And if you have a if you have a if you have a with it, Welsh is all in English, just so you know. Anyway, so he's on the deathbed right like, oh, my god, I'm dying, Scott.
Speaker 1:Then he says in Welsh, Then he dies, okay. So what does that mean? What does that translate to? No, it doesn't translate to Ryan Libby nope, it doesn't translate to that. I know you're thinking it might have but Ryan does, I swear down doesn't translate to that.
Speaker 1:What it does translate to is do the little things in life, okay. And to this day like I said, there's common saying do the little things in life, it's quite a cool nice little saying and I think it's important that we do the little things, do the little moments, we have meaningful moments in life like Viktor Frankl says, we give our small moments meaning and that gives our life meaning. So St David's, the OG of this method, fair play to him. Also Britain's smallest city is named after him, St David's. He's in Pembrokeshire.
Speaker 1:Basically I don't recommend you go but just let you know in case he comes up in some trivia today you might win like £100 or something. Anyway the main lessons you're thinking Scott mate you've on for four minutes above this guy right give me something on Monday I'm in the valley of despair and I'm telling you now I was in the valley of despair on Friday I was doing the martial arts, I was just going through the motions I wasn't in it right, I felt tired, I was like, oh my god, so it's week three, like we're only halfway through. We're only halfway through these people. We're only halfway through in terms of like all the workouts. I'm doing the challenge with you guys, right.
Speaker 1:So I'm doing it so I can be immersed in it with you guys. And how it works is the first week you're obviously like pumped up. So the Valley of Despair works against the first week you're like guests class can't wait to join the communities buzz boom boom boom. The first week happens, you love it, it's new and you're like pumped up. Then week two comes and you're like oh okay week one is good week two is again a bit you know I'm doing the workouts getting a bit tired but you know I'm pushing through I like it.
Speaker 1:But you're going on a little slope at the moment. Guess to week three and you're like oh my god week three quite difficult like can I do this forever like is this worth it like what's the point? This is a big change in my life. You might find the benefits be like, can help? Can I keep this going?
Speaker 1:And then the step four after that is like, you know, gassed, you're like, I can't do it. You're in the valley of despair where dreams go to die. And you're like, I can't do it. It's too uncomfortable for me to do it. Change is uncomfortable by the way.
Speaker 1:And you're there and you can't pull yourself up and you go back and you give up and you crawl back to step one and you do something else and you do the same thing again and again and again and basically the valley of despair is eating you up every time you do it. Okay, so the end result is really this resist we've got this inner resistance and all of you feel it you have this kind of like what's the word self sabotage some people call it one author Steven Pressfield calls it resistance you know in his art of war, War of Art book is amazing how he explains it and resistance basically you know it stops you doing the stuff you're really meant to do and if something really is hard and it's like yeah you gotta stop that's when you know you need to keep going that's a good indicator and he says that if that's resistance tan you, well you can't do as fast when you should double down. Resistance is the most dangerous when you're about to make a big breakthrough right so a lot of people this is some check ins I've seen this like I was amazing all week felt really good results are coming Friday came thought, know what, I've done really well this week and have a dominoes, dominoes turned into a double dominoes.
Speaker 1:The next day turns into no workout, it turns into another binge and then Sunday like, my god, had done it again. Exactly. It trips you, it counter attacks you. You think you've won, you think you've you're winning and then slaps you in the face in your gob, right? St David comes out of nowhere, boom, knocks you out.
Speaker 1:So basically you've got to understand when you're making changes and you get a momentum you're at the most dangerous path and it's kind of like think of this image where someone dig in at the top in a tunnel and there's basically diamond at the end and the digger at the top stops one centimeter from the diamond breakthrough and he starts turning back he's like I've been digging for ages like the diamond, the diamonds yeah I can't get to the diamond but the people underneath are like we're gonna keep going as long as it takes us, keep plucking away. They keep doing it, keep doing it, boom breakthrough find the diamonds. Same as when, what's his name, James Clear mentions in atomic orbit you know, is the work of taking an ice cube from minus 10 to minus one worthless if you're trying to melt it? Is it? It's not worthless obviously but the ice is still there, it's still an ice cube minus 10 to minus one you've done all our work heating it up still ice cube, it's only when it goes from minus one to zero does it start melting and changing But you got to put in the minus 10 to the zero working.
Speaker 1:You can't just start off from minus one to zero. None of us are in striking distance of that. I mean, you know, ideally when you go to maintenance in the future, you're always within striking distance. You're like minus one minus two degrees away from like, where you want to be optimally if you wanted to go on holiday, you're like, you know, I'm going to spend like two weeks, like, know, losing a bit of weight or whatever. And that's fine, we want to speed within maintenance zone.
Speaker 1:Most of us are away from it. So don't feel that all the work you've done and you're only seeing some changes, look at the positives. Now look at the small things you've done, the mindset stuff and all that. And I'm telling you it's very normal to feel how you are. It's very normal to feel tired right now.
Speaker 1:It's very normal to think, oh, I can't do macros. It's very normal to be like, I'm not getting the results even though you're getting a lot of results in different areas. It's very normal to want to quit right now. Okay. This is intense.
Speaker 1:It's a lot of stuff going on. There's a lot of overload, the lockdown, everything, right. So the important thing is and I swear to God this is the most important thing you've got to do this week, you just got to keep going. You have to keep going this week even if you feel tired and shitty. I've got low energy, I'm going to keep going, I'm not gonna stop right.
Speaker 1:And one technique you can use to help is the quick wins right, look for quick wins that can get our momentum back. Quick wins, okay, some quick wins could be doing a workout because you know it makes you feel better, going on a walk right, listening to Calon Lan my favorite Welsh song right YouTube Calon Lan was on Britain's Got Talent 2012 or whatever it was. Track you know go to the shop and get the food and you know track your macros in bulk right get it done, go do you know what I'm gonna meal prep, I'm gonna have this today and I'm gonna track it all right now I'm gonna spend five minutes doing it boom boom boom quick win, food's done for the day. Okay get the workouts in. Q and A tonight with Donald, there's many things you can do with the stretch class like even if it's nothing you're like, do know what, I'm so frazzled, I'm in this valley of despair, I just can't do it guys and it's like what I'll say to you is if you really want to stop and you don't want to track or whatever just go, I'm going to be moderate with my intake today, I'm not going to trip myself up, I'm not going to get in my own way, I'm not going to self sabotage, okay, I'm going to take it easy, I'm going to do my to do list, I'm to do my one big thing and I'm going to do any urgent tasks here in the back of my mind that have been there.
Speaker 1:What urgent tasks have you had to do that you haven't done for weeks and you just do them, get them out of the way, you'll feel better. Your one big thing and just do the stretch class, get the stretch and you feel good, sit down listen to some Donald's soothing Scottish tones, right? And go to bed that night go, do you know what, that was a nice start to the week four, I know the valley of despairs claimed many but I'm gonna keep going and that's your goal today. So I'm gonna leave you in that, bit of a longer voice note today for obvious reasons, saying David, give me a ring, but one day at a time okay that's all it takes. So one big thing don't worry if you're feeling lose momentum it's very normal I'm feeling that too Let's keep going.
Speaker 1:It's the only thing we can do. And have a good day, St David's Day. Happy days. It's St David's Day. Okay?
Speaker 1:Ta da. But ta da for now. And that's it. Thank you for listening to the one day at a time podcast with your host, Scott Fleer. Hopefully, you understood something I said.
Speaker 1:I hope that some wisdom kind of distilled through into your mind, and I want you to now action it today. I don't want you to think about tomorrow. I don't want you to think about yesterday. I don't want you to think about leaving a review on this podcast. I don't want you to think about going to another website.
Speaker 1:What I want you to do is as soon as this podcast ends, you will take action and make the most of today. Ground yourself today. Follow the one day at a time philosophy and your life will change.
