I’d like to change the old saying, “The grass is always greener on the other side.”

Whenever someone says that to me I reply with:

No, the grass is always greener where you water it.

Of cycling and arms

If you didn’t know I’m a cyclist then you must not follow me on Twitter. I like to ride a few hundred kilometres a week and that means I’ve got legs that can keep going for a long time. I’ve also got a resting heart rate when I wake up that easily sits around 50 bpm (really low).

What I’ve lost, though, is a truly strong upper body and core. Back when I was kayaking or rock climbing frequently, my upper body was stronger, but I stopped focusing on them and started to only ride my bike.

What you place in front of you gets the attention. And what gets the attention gets better. – One Bed One Bank Account

To get back to the overall shape I want to be in, I re-focused on my upper body by going to CrossFit. If I just kept riding and didn’t start a new type of workout, I would never get strong again outside of my legs and cardio.

Focus and Specialize

I know you’re afraid of specializing in your business so you spend two weeks experimenting with a specialization, then you start saying you might do other things…maybe. Your two-week experiment didn’t yield results, so you give up on it.

But two weeks isn’t really a focus. You didn’t spend any real time digging into being the best; you just hung out a shingle and when nobody happened to walk by, notice your shingle and give you money, you gave up.

You never really watered the grass or put any effort in, but you wanted a lush, green lawn.

As I transition back to getting in better shape overall, I don’t expect to be able to do 25 strict pull-ups (like I could at one point in my life) in the first two weeks. I hope to be able to do them again in 2015, but even then, working on my form and getting the workouts right is what will really put me in the position to be strong long-term.

It took me three years of not doing much core work to get where I am today. It’s reasonable to assume it’s going to take at least one year to get back to where I was.

Going for shortcuts rarely produces the long-term results we want any faster. We usually just end up injured and jaded.

Stop scattering your business focus and start digging into the one thing you can be best at.

photo credit: wiredforsound23 cc