“It is easier to find men who will volunteer to die, than to find those who are willing to endure pain with patience.” -Julius Caesar
“The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.” -Leo Tolstoy
When you start a fitness journey, you are often presented with a choice between two very different options. Two doorways to two very different journeys. Door #1 is the journey promised by most popular training programs and influencers. They promise a journey that is short and easy, filled with hacks, secrets, and shortcuts no one else knows. They tell you it’s a journey that will be painless, convenient, and comfortable.
Door #2? Well, that’s a gateway to a place I call The Valley of Suck. It’s a long, difficult journey with lots of pitfalls, lots of discomfort, struggle, and hard work. If you make it through, it’ll be very rewarding. But that’s a big “if.” Certainly doesn’t sound very appealing, and that’s why most people choose Door #1.
The problem is, despite all the promises of an easy, wonderful journey, Door #1 is a dead end. It’s like paying for a ride you never actually get to experience. Like buying a plane ticket to Australia, but instead someone takes you to your local Outback Steakhouse. (And you have to pay.)
I first envisioned this concept of The Valley of Suck when I realized I went through the same process every time I tried getting back into shape. After a period of letting things go, either after an event or a vacation or the holidays, I would decide it was time to get back into shape. So I’d start exercising and eating healthy again.
You’d think when you start exercising and eating healthy that you’d feel better. Actually, just the opposite tends to happen.
When you start moving after a period of non-movement, your body doesn’t like it. Your muscles feel tense, you feel tired and slow and heavy. You’d think that healthy food would make you feel good, but instead you feel fatigued and weird. As your body seems to be rejecting this new physical activity and eating right, you start to have doubts. Maybe you’re just getting old and can’t do stuff anymore. Maybe you’re doing it wrong. Maybe it’s not for you.
But this is just a period of adjustment. Your body is adjusting to this new reality, and you need to give it time.
As many times as I’ve done this, the doubts still creep in. But a funny thing happens. After nine days of feeling like garbage, like clockwork on Day 10, I start feeling good. Really good. Even if I felt like death on Day 9.
Now I know when going through that adjustment/ramp-up period, that it is just my Journey Through The Valley of Suck, and if I push through, I’ll come out the other end feeling good. Most likely on Day 10.
Your journey might not be measured in days. It might be weeks or even months. And when you’ve battled through it and find yourself in a good place doing well, you might eventually find that the Valley of Suck has come around again. And you have to do the journey all over again. Sounds pretty daunting and painful, and even depressing.
I get it. The idea of venturing through a place called The Valley of Suck, sounds pretty terrible. So it makes sense to want to avoid it. But this journey is necessary. And if you want to get fit, you need to take this journey and pass through this valley. It is the only way.
Think of it as a quest. As your own hero’s journey.
Imagine Star Wars if there was no big, formidable struggle. If Yoda had just said to Luke “Here’s how to learn the Force in three easy lessons,” and then it worked and Luke single-handedly ended the Empire with some force razzle dazzle. Pretty boring movie.
Or if Rocky started off with him being fit and dedicated, and then he just knocked out Apollo in the first round, and went on to just smash Clubber and Drago. Again, pretty boring.
The hero’s journey certainly appeals to us because it is compelling and entertaining. But maybe it also appeals to us because it is a lot like life and it has valuable lessons for us. Maybe that’s why stories were crafted this way around campfires by our ancestors. To teach us that the journey has value and the process is meaningful.
The problem is when it comes to real life, especially fitness, we miss those lessons.
When you begin a fitness journey, you are leaving the familiar and entering the land of the unfamiliar. You are leaving the comfortable and entering the realm of the uncomfortable, of the painful. But instead of respecting the journey, we buy into hucksters selling shortcuts.
There’s a reason new hucksters and programs are popping up all the time. They don’t work, so they don’t last. Easy has no place in this process. That’s the bad news. The good news is accepting that can position you for success.
You are also your own worst enemy. Remember Luke being impatient? Or Rocky smoking and not wanting to chase the chicken? They changed, but not before there was a process of struggle and overcoming difficulties; difficulties that were often of their own making. You are much like those characters. Change is a process, and it takes time. You need to respect the process and let it happen.