Week 8: What’s your driving force?

MAYBE you have never heard of David Goggins, but he has an incredible story.

He may seem like a superhuman, because he’s the only man ever in United States armed service history to complete training for the Navy Seals, Army Ranger school and Air Force tactical air controller. If that were not enough, he set about taking on the challenge of completing the 10 toughest endurance events known to man, often placing highly. And if that’s not impressive enough, he set a world record in 2013 for the most pull-ups (4,030) in 24 hours.

Doesn’t sound like an ordinary man, does he?

But he built himself up from practically nothing. Consider this. Goggins was abused as a child, obese, a self-confessed coward with no self-esteem, subjected to racism, full of insecurity, has a hole in his heart, suffers from sickle-cell anemia, is scared of heights and deep water and hates running!

So how on earth did he do it?

His answer is plain and simple: he wanted it badly enough.

Usually, when I have people sign up for the Amazing 12 Chichester, it’s because they want change or to discover how far they can go. They are like Goggins. The desire is strong. There’s a driving force.

But can they – Jo, Stacey, Adriano and Ben – stay the course? Can they keep the driving force alive with only four weeks to go? The Amazing 12 will challenge them. It’s not just the training, but also the discipline, commitment and change to their normal routines.

Some of my current group have had to answer and deal with searching questions. This week in particular was tough for Ben and Jo.

Jo missed most of the week and Ben has been nursing an injury that has left him feeling frustrated. But he admits, “it was a wake-up call.” He understands better now the need for good technique and breathing.

It is all a part of the journey as far as I am concerned. The value of any experience is what you want to take from it.

And if you adhere to Goggins’ philosophy, “failure is information on how to succeed”. There is no downside – as long as you keep going and learning.  

What really separates Goggins from most others, though, is his mindset. While many of us don’t pay attention to how we think, Goggins has trained himself to think his way out of any sticky situation that comes his way. And anyone can do it.

Where many will say “I quit”, Goggins says “I’m not stopping”. Where some say “this hurts”, he says “it’s making me stronger”.  

Goggins converted himself – over many years – from that shy, meek, overweight, frightened boy into a man of steel who now proclaims with confidence that there is nothing he cannot achieve.

I believe most of us would like a piece of that, but how many of us want it badly enough? And where Goggins says we need to focus our energy (and I’ve touched on this in previous blogs) is in our thinking.

“We change everything in our lives from our cars to our underwear to our shoes to what we decide to eat,” he says. “But the one thing many of us never change is our thinking.”

Therein lies the secret. Really, it’s no secret. It’s common sense. But it doesn’t happen by accident. It took Goggins years of failure and setbacks and trying and persevering. He is not afraid to fail and never gives up!

When people think of training in the gym, though, they often think of just lifting weights and doing exercises. Some turn up and merely go through the motions, as though they just want to get it done and then move on with life.

They are not getting the full package. They don’t realise how training allows for so much more. We’re not just training movement patterns or developing strength or increasing mobility and stability or working our cardiovascular system. Every training session and challenging situation affords the opportunity to work on our thinking and breathing as well. You just need to think of it as practice.

You have probably heard the expression “practice makes perfect”, which is not really spot-on in my opinion, because if you practice something poorly, it is unlikely you will become perfect.

A better version is “perfect practice makes perfect”, which shifts the onus of practicing to doing it properly, mindfully and with patience instead of just doing it for the sake of it or with our focus elsewhere.  

Perfection may not even be attainable in most circumstances, especially when it comes to movement and weight-lifting, because there’s always something that can be improved upon. This is what makes it challenging and enjoyable, yet also frustrating. Perfection is the distant – and perhaps impossible – goal that keeps us going.

But the only way to make progress is to put the time in. Show up (see week 3 blog). Make the effort. Keep going – no matter what.

Ben’s new to training, so was entitled to question one evening why the training was “repetitive”.

The answer is that good, purposeful and beneficial training is repetitive. It has to be. You don’t get good at something by doing it only once.

It’s all about the practice and I express this daily to my two young children – probably much to their dismay – in the hope they, too, get the message one day.

To create change, we have to do movements over and over to hardwire the patterns until it becomes easier and our bodies adapt faster and better. Initially, it may be difficult. But don’t give up.

When my children achieve something they had earlier said was impossible or too hard, I try to make them see how the magic of practice and perseverance made the difference.

They are growing in a world where everyone seems so impatient for results. Because of this, we struggle more with the art of practice.

So much is available to us at the click of a button and life is generally more comfortable that I suspect we’ve lost the ability to be ‘up’ for the fight when success doesn’t arrive easily.

One of my favourite boxers, former world middleweight champion Marvin Hagler, once famously said: “It’s hard to get up to run at 5am when you wear silk pyjamas.”

It was when I started to look at training more as practice than exercise or a workout (ie changed my thinking) that I saw changes, both physically and mentally. That’s when training stopped being about how gassed or fatigued I could get and shifted towards quality of movement.

When it comes to longevity, well-being, injury prevention and quality of life, how well I move wins every time.

I also stopped seeing training as a short-term fix and took a long-term and lifelong approach, because, as I’ve touched upon in previous weeks, the older we get the greater we need to consider how we move and live and what we eat in order to apply the brakes to the process of ageing and deterioration.

The Amazing 12 lasts only for three months, but I can only take my A12 Chichester group as far as they allow me to. I do my bit and turn up every day (unless, like next week, when I have to attend a funeral). But my students must still put in all the leg work. This is why I’ve never offered a guarantee on this program, even though I know it works.

I supervise and guide the training and manage the process of the Amazing 12. But I can’t know for certain if my candidates are doing EVERYTHING I ask them to do when not in the gym.

It again comes down to what Goggins says – wanting it badly enough. Develop a strong mindset. Surround yourself with positivity. 

Focus on what motivates you, not what demotivates you.

Here’s a simple example of that: each week I put my group through a short but intense workout (they know what it is). Some dread it (demotivating), while others may instead choose to think of the benefits of doing it (motivating).

Master your thoughts and your world will change. Isn’t that worth working hard for? The Amazing 12 gives you an opportunity every day to practice it.

Think you have what it takes to complete the Amazing 12? Do you have that driving force to achieve your goals and transform yourself through intelligent training and eating? Contact me at Claude@intelligentstrength.co.uk