The hard part isn’t healing; it’s getting out of our heads long enough to learn the lesson injury is trying to teach. — There are two ways to live; injured or sick. The good news is, we get to choose. We can either put the work in and live with the occasional tweak, strain, or pull. Or we can sit on the sofa and wait for The Reaper. …

The question isn’t, do you really want to succeed? Everyone wants that. The question is … — You’ve heard the rationale before, maybe even used it occasionally. “I feel like this is where God is leading me.” And maybe it’s the truth. Or perhaps you just want to stop every argument before it begins. After all, can’t argue with God unless you’re an atheist or the…

Preparation is critical, and having a goal helps tremendously. But knowing some obstacles you’ll hit along the way is paramount. — You’re gonna be bored. Food isn’t going to taste as good. At least not at first. There will be dishes that need washing, stores that need shopping, and trash that needs taking out. Either that or you better have a butler. Cooking will most likely become a thing, so…

The names people give us matter because they might be true. — “Don’t take names to yourself, Sméagol,’ said Frodo. ‘It’s unwise, whether they are true or false.” That quote comes from a relatively obscure passage late in The Two Towers. Frodo was sleeping, and Sam, our somewhat unappreciated hero, took the chance to tell Gollum how he felt. It’s genuinely…

It doesn’t matter how sustainable something is if it doesn’t work. — Most humans go into each new healthy experiment hoping to remain committed for a lifetime. Or at least until something better comes along. This behavior fails more than it succeeds, so we start tinkering. Eventually, instead of tactics that will deliver the desired results, we choose sustainability over outcome…

Discipline lives in the dark. In the habits we maintain when no one is watching. — Stubborn is for show. A favorite t-shirt we wear when we want attention. When we want everyone else to tell us how good we look. Discipline is different. Discipline lives in the dark. In the habits we maintain when no one is watching. The little things that go unnoticed…

Some food combinations completely wreck our self-control. — I want to swim in Oreos after drowning in a never-ending pizza buffet. And I want to wake up the following day looking like a bodybuilder about to go on stage. But I can’t. It’s not pizza’s fault. Pizza isn’t broken. It keeps right on being delicious bread and…

Sometimes it’s low-tech for the win — For some, measuring progress is as simple as checking a box. For others, it’s a 5k every six weeks, a deadlift PR, or a scale that shows all your hard work in the kitchen, one pound at a time. And that’s not even scratching the surface, especially if you’re…

Sometimes the price is pain, or a relationship, or time we don’t have. And every now and then, it’s an entire identity. — She bit me the first time. No blood and not intentionally, but surprising all the same. Space saves, I thought, so I held her treat by the corner like it was a priceless comic book I didn’t want to ruin. It made it worse. Fine, no more treats, I…