At the beginning of 2021, like I do at the beginning of every new year, I set goals in several key areas of my life. I set them for the amount of date nights with my wife, the amount of books I’m going to read per month, financial goals, and family get-away goals. For the first time in my life, I set a fitness goal that I new would challenge me to be even more consistent than I already was. Even as a seasoned fitness professional, I have my ebbs and flows throughout the year, but I knew I was leaving some results on table by allowing myself to “ebb and flow.” Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t unhappy with myself, I just knew it was time to level up. Leadership expert and podcaster Jocko Willink sums it perfectly when he says, “discipline equals freedom.”

As I’ve branched into a few business endeavors, coaching in my small community, and having the blessing of being a very present husband and father in the lives of my beautiful wife and 3 growing children, I’ve learned that I need to level up in my discipline. The more discipline that I create in my life, the more freedom I can continue to have. I know that I function at a much higher level for my entire day when I’m ultra consistent with my fitness routine right away in the morning. Furthermore, this spills over into making better nutritional choices on a consistent basis, which also leads to higher performance and energy throughout the day. Additionally, sleep quality has never been a forte for me. I’ve always struggled to stay asleep at night, and while there’s still room for improvement, I’ve had the best sleep of my life this past year, and that’s largely due to the consistent early fitness routine. This, along with not having cable TV and wasting my life behind the idiot box, you’d be amazed at how much productivity and progress you can make in your life.

I think this is why some people wonder if I work or not during the fall because I get out and hunt pretty often LOL. I just tell people, “Look, I get up at 4:30am, coach and train at 5am, and after that I’m pretty dialed into working until Noon. I’ve got 7 hours of work in before most of the world has 4 hours in. That discipline has allowed me to chase my hobbies (God bless my wife) during the second half of many days! 

At the halfway point of my goal, I knew I was going to reach 300; in fact, I knew that I’d reach it from the very first day I set the goal, but it was at this point that I realized I’d never do less than 300 training sessions in a year. It felt too good. In a sea of people swimming aimlessly and towards self-destruction, I promise you that it feels incredible to swim right past them through the current as they continue to drift downstream. Let me be clear, it doesn’t feel incredible because I think I’m better than them, no that’s not it at all. Of course I want them to switch gears and join me in the swim upstream, but when you’re willing to do what most people won’t, there’s a swagger and confidence that you build up that is almost like a super power. You can walk taller, walk faster, hike farther, love stronger, and accomplish so much more when you’re on the disciplined path!

Look, I know if you’re out of shape, eating out of convenience, hitting the snooze button when you wake up, crushing a couple too many brews in the evenings, and finding yourself addicted to the Netflix series, 300 training sessions in a year may look like freakin’ Mount Everest. But it’s not. You can re-create yourself starting tomorrow. I know that if you were to commit to 300 – 30 minute training sessions in a year, you can absolutely transform your life. Experts always want to make it sound so much more difficult than it is to justify their existence. If you can possess a stubborn tenacity to fight the old by focusing your efforts on building the new, you can become the best version of yourself year in and year out. You can learn more, accomplish more, love more, and experience vitality on a level you could only dream of when you were drifting with the current.

It’s not until you swim against it, that you realize the current is your friend. Remember, water only flows downhill. Your destination isn’t the valley, it’s the top of the mountain.