The beauty of a personal challenge

Happy Sunday & thank you for opening this week’s #TheLifeofJLOWE newsletter!

Happy MAY! In fact, May the Fourth be with you (if you’re into Star Wars 😂 ). If you’ve been keeping up with the weekly newsletter, you’d know that April was a huge month for me, because I went to the gym at least 4 times a week every week and really stayed consistent in my routine of doing yoga in the mornings and gym in the evenings.

Consistency really is the key to success, but being in the gym has taught me to tweak that message slightly, adding that you have to be consistent with small added increases to your routine for growth. For the gym, it means adding a little weight every week to what I lift, so that over a longer time horizon the amount of weight I’m pushing is a lot higher than where I started.

It’s interesting, because I often think about adding that little bit of weight as being similar to what it takes to building a habitual routine. To do that, you can gradually add activities using a technique called “habit stacking”, where you start out with something that you already do and just keep adding to it.

The point of today’s newsletter however, isn’t to talk about habits — I wanted to talk about the blessing of being able to choose a challenge.

The blessing of being able to choose a challenge

After completing the past 6 weeks in the gym I came across a thought that stuck with me. It’s the simple question: “How beautiful and blessed are we that we can choose our own challenges?”

In this world, where things are unfair from the second you’re born into it, there are challenges that each of us will face just by the very nature of our existence. Whether it’s the society you’re born into, the colour of your skin, a physically disability or even something invisible to the naked eye, each of us has a challenge that we face on a personal level that was just handed to us at birth.

On the other hand though, there’s something super beautiful about the fact that as humans, we constantly are taking up additional challenges onto ourselves.

Think about the things in your life that you might be doing that are completely of your own volition. Not work and nothing that you do to make money or exist in this capitalistic society/economy. The things that nobody’s forcing you to do. For example, nobody’s forcing me to go to the gym every day, do yoga every morning or write my newsletter every week.

But for some reason, there’s still something that pushes us to take on personal challenges that lead to our own improvement, despite everything that we already have on our plates.

The beauty of a chosen personal challenge

This week I wanted to highlight the privilege of choosing a personal challenge because I think it’s something that we don’t celebrate ourselves enough for. We oftentimes confuse our achievements with necessities in our lives, and lose the joy in celebrating our accomplishments because of it.

So as I do my best to stay consistent in the gym, I’m also trying to stay consistent in celebrating myself every time I show up. Every time I’m on the ground doing sit ups and they burn like hell, I’m thinking to myself that I’m the one putting myself through the challenge for myself so I should push right through.

For me, that mentality really comes from running. When you run any distance, you realize that you always have the choice whether to slow down and walk when you’re on the route. But then it was you who decided to take up the challenge of a 5K, so why not push to the end and show yourself that you can do it?

It’s such a blessing to be able to choose a challenge and overcome it.

Conclusion

If there’s a challenge that you’re facing in your life right now of your own choosing - whether it’s studying for an exam, staying consistent in the gym, training for a marathon, staying on a diet or whatever the case may be, take a moment to give yourself some grace and to celebrate yourself for what you’re doing.

Remind yourself of your why and give yourself a pat on the shoulder for taking up the challenge in the first place.

Then, push through.

Remember what a blessing it is to be able to take up a challenge to improve yourself, and thank yourself for keeping future you in mind.

You’ll get through it. You were strong enough to start it, and you’re more than capable of finishing it.

Until next Sunday,

Justin