So, I promised to you on 31st Dec 2024 that I would write a post and tell you about my 7 years of fitness journey that has taught me more than just to be fit. It’s been the tool to learn a host of traits that have now become a permanent part of my character. 

This is what I said on my What’s App status:

Let’s resume where I left.

5. It’s not motivation dear, Sorry.

And this is what it is : Discipline.

We all want to wait for the right time to start doing something. You know why we say, I want to start going to gym or start running but…I don’t have time. May be, I ll start next year. May be it’s not the right time because it’s too cold or too hot or it’s raining.

When we have siad this, we meant we don’t feel like doing it right now. If someone came to me and told me that you have won a lottery of Rupees 1 Crore, please come with me and collect your prize me, I will get rest less in the middle of night to go and find it out. Would I say, “Hey listen, I am in the middle of sleep right now. Please wait till tomorrow morning!”  This is another reason, we don’t think going for a run or to the gym would make an immediate impact on my life. But, that bag filled with Money will.

We are motivated by greed or fear.  Fear in the sense when you visit a Doctor and the doctor tells you that if you wish to get your BP or sugar under control, you better start exercising. Here the fear has  gripped you and pushing you to the brink of exercising now.

So, we wait for the postive or the negative motivation to take us to the ground. It never happened to me that I found myself consistent motivation to drive me every day. I may have had sparks of motivation to drive me here and there but most of the time, the motivation was absent for me in these last 7 years.

I have realised one simple yet profound fact of life: the hard things we hate because it takes effort and it’s boring. And that’s what discipline is all about. Discipline lacks the thrill and the excitement. It’s about sticking to your plan of action under all kinds of weather.

So, who can share to be disciplined?

You could be. All you need is a dream and the strong hope that you can attain your dream.  In 2018, I dreamt that I wanted to have a body physique that when I saw in the mirror, I would give a salute to. When you have a dream, you can see what other’s can’t you.

No one can see your dream and it’s only you. So, when you move from listening to the outside noise to your inside voice, you start to dream. That dream is your inner voice. That’s what your sould is longing to be. But, you shut it up when it’s flow is disrupted by the outside noises.

So, for me, this understanding came that achieving or accomplishing means keep your eye on the long term game. Don’t get thrilled by sensory pleasures. So, I stopped relying on motivation. You find the strongest people on earth where they are driven by discipline and not motivation. Their strong discipline may become a source of motivation.  

I kept doing just one thing – day in and day out. Fo for a run every day. Resting in between. And then resuming it. Initially, it felt like hell. I wondered why I need to do this? What did I sign up for and why ?

And then I got the answers.

“I am doing because I have promised a dream to myself. And that dream is only visible to me. Only I can see it and there fore I need to move in the direction of my dream.” My inner voice became my guide. And soon, these questions ceased to bother me any more. Because I have found the answers that I have been seeking for a long long time.

That inner discipline if you don’t keep, you end become a slave to your senses. You end up become a slave to the world. You will be used and consumed to fulfill the conspiracy of someone else.

Because you traded your freedom for sensuality. You wanted to leave it to the fluctuations of mood.  If you look around, all great products are works of disciplined efforts put up by the humans and the humanity. Again, the Rome was not built in a day.

So you think, if you listened to your senses to work to earn your livelihood, you will ever make any progress. It’s the hard self discipline. Ok, one more thing I want to tell you. Its hard at the beginning. As you grow into taking hard thing in your stride, it becomes a habit. And then it doesn’t matter ! And you instead start to enjoy your hardness as you stronger and better!

Easiness is a death sentence to your aspirations and your dreams !

6. It’s You Vs You

I have realised that I don’t have any competition in life. I was like a fool running behind the wrong things, wrong people and wrong ideas. The life is not a chase. It’s you vs you.

To get what we need, we are made to feel like we have to get others behind us to win. On the one hand, the world tells that you have gotta be easy and look for motivation, on the other, it tells you it’s tough put there. It confuses you, right !

There is no competition at all. Those who are willing to live a hard life, embrace self discipline and measure their own progress and strive to their best versions has the world under his or her feet. It’s only those who have become confised themselves that are panting to be anywhere!

Look at your self and ask where you are today. Don’t look at others and aspire to become one like them. You just decide that you want to be a little better tomorrow than you are today. A little more wiser, a little more healthier, a little more kinder, a little more stronger.  And you keep making your tomorrow a little better than today. You won’t need to compete with anyone or anything.

You have a place in this world and your work will decide you place. Don’t worry.

Once you understand that, you will stop being lazy bum. Because you are staring at your tomorrow to make it better than today.  Now, you are on your own. You are free. You are independent.

I run long distance. But I desist from running someone else race.  This profound enlightenment liberated me and allowed me to explore and experiment. I became free to try various ideas and discover my own strengths.  This allowed me to stay injury free because I didn’t chase any one else. I just ran to be myself. 

And to give your a perspective, I started with absolutely no background in sports and hardly being able to run 2 kms to running a marathon distance of 42 kms. And I can go longer and stronger as I don’t have to chase anyone and prove myself to others. I have only arrived to make my today better than yesterday and arriving to make tomorrow better than today. That’s it.

7. It’s not just about your belly. It’s about your values.

After these 7 glorious years running to be fit and happy, I asked myself a question. Why can I do this and not others. What made me to stand out?

It boils down to one thing – Choices you make. And the choices you make are determined by who you are as a person. What you really in life.

As a kid, I always saw around me people who made an informed choice to be something or someone. And that’s what I guess I went to school or college. To realise who I am. It’s different matter altogether that the education system is now reduced to seeking a job and become a spoke in the huge mechanical system.

The real essence of life is who you are. I decided and made an informed choice that I was blind folded all those years where my choices were made on the preferences I was taught and conditioned to choose. I mean who would want to be sick or tired all day long. But that’s the result you have when you consume and behave mindlessly.   I never wanted to be a pawn in someone’s hands. So, I took the ownership.

That’s why I say, your belly reflects your values.  It’s your character. Those who are fit are fit because they chose to be fit. And they sign up for all the hard choices that they make. It’s a voluntary choice to live a life filled with real joy and happiness.

I always values living in a neat and clean environment. I always values having a good control over my mind and body. These are the values I imbibed while growing up. And that’s what I want to pass on to my kids. These values have helped me to survive many a heartbreaks and protected me from becoming a slave.

If you are struggling to get fitter today, it’s the choice you made. If you are weighing heavier than you should, it’s predominantly the sum of all the habits and the lifestyle choices you are making on a daily basis.  

You have the power to chose your character but you don’t have the power to modify its results !

So, live by your values.