Need for acceptance into the tribe is more compelling than will power
Habits
By now, you will have established habits to cope with living in coronavirus world. your habits may be constructive or destructive. Your habits may have evolved. Eating and drinking to excess is an option many have adopted. Reading electronic books has picked up dramatically. New methods of getting exercise are through the roof in the form of in-home gym equipment, the Peloton https://www.onepeloton.com/ and Mirror https://www.mirror.co/ in-home fitness. New habits, whether good or bad, sustainable or not require willpower. Even if you’ve got the new equipment, you still have to get up, stand in front of it or sit atop it and exercise. We know from the biggest medium.com writer, Benjamin Hardy PhD that willpower doesn’t work.
Benjamin Hardy
He wrote a fantastic easy read on the topic. If you need another Corona book to get you through, this one is a sure winner. https://benjaminhardy.com/willpower-doesnt-work-heres-how-to-actually-change-your-life/.Even before Benjamin’s excellent book, I have known that will power does not work. Incentives work for a while to help build good habits. Those established habits can build on themselves and reinforce the good habits. The occasional slip does not result in immediate descent into the Doom Loop. The better plan is to create a scenario whereby excruciating pain will be the result of quitting or failing.
I have endured the Coronavirus hardship with the aid of powerlifting. I shared my journey to my first powerlifting meet on this platform in June 2020. https://medium.com/@jeffjhorn/5x5x5x5-power-lifting-defeats-virus-anxiety-b76b3c4677a9.
Powerlifting
The Russian-inspired system of (5) sets of (5) reps worked as advertised. I gave myself no choice by telling a lot of people including medium.com readers what I was doing. I gave myself no escape hatch by entering a competition and cemented my participation by engaging the meet director for personal training. While personal training for powerlifting, I met others who would be participating and officiating the meet. I inserted my unpowerful physique into a very uncomfortable position of training with skilled and experienced powerlifters. The key takeaway is that powerlifting is not just for rock heads to lift things up and set them down. There are so many subtle pieces of technique and rules that require precise movements. Each powerlifting training session left me with my mouth hanging open, not from the rigor of the workout but from the magnitude of technical competence the skilled lifters had earned and were eagerly passing it on to me.
I have not been invited or accepted into the inner circle of real powerlifters. The top powerlifters in the gym and at the meet recognize me as a humble and respectful student of the elegant blend of power, technique and rule compliance required for powerlifting success.
Pain
Once I committed to the meet and the training, the pain and embarrassment of quitting (which I contemplated) or failing to follow the strictures of my training were unbearable consequences. The results were beyond my reasonable expectations. Check out the prior article for the build-up. Bottom-line results: squat 308 lbs; bench press 231 lbs; deadlift 369 lbs.
Life score – Good Habit = 1 and Coronavirus = 0.