7 things my workouts taught me about my career 🏋🏻♀️
From the gym to the office; I've learned about how to be better at work by working out
I don’t know about your grandfather, but mine is very serious about his workouts. He wakes up every morning and lifts weights on his balcony. He never, ever, skips his morning workouts. My parents were also into fitness and different types of exercise. Subsequently I got into it from a young age, (or to be more accurate, pushed into it).
You might think I was a natural. I wasn’t. Exercise was really hard for me. I hated it at first. I was very bad at all aspects of it, I had no endurance, no strength, no flexibility, no balance and a very awkward build for any sport. What I did have though was determination. In short, I was stubborn. Very stubborn. Funnily enough, if you are stubborn and keep trying, you’ll eventually get somewhere. Which brings me nicely to today’s topic.
Exercise taught me a lot about my career and helped me form a series of helpful working habits:
1. Perseverance
Things won’t be easy. They never are. You learn that if you want to get anywhere, you need to persevere. Work through the hard times and keep your eyes on your ultimate goal. You won’t love every single part of your journey and sometimes you have to do the shit jobs to get to where you want to be.
2. Consistency
Is the key to success. You don’t get better overnight. But you can get better over time. You show up every day and give it your best. You try to improve on the things you lack. At the gym floor, I struggle with flexibility. So I train for it every single day. I put my alarm 30 minutes earlier each morning and go through a full stretching routine to help me build the flexibility I need for my workouts. Similarly, at work, I’ve learned that working on the things I’m not naturally good at, means that over a long period of time, I can eventually get better.
3. Patience
Not my strong point. But it’s something we all need more of. You need to be patient with yourself, your clients and your colleagues. Patience is your ally, it’ll help you along the way. It’s what keeps you going, even when it feels like the journey is slow and the road is full of obstacles.
4. Mindset
The gym is ultimately designed for one thing and one thing only: Self Improvement. No matter what happened yesterday, today is another day, another shot at your long-term goals. Carrying that same mindset outside my workouts and into the real world helped me bounce back from some (not so great) situations. It’s not about getting things right, in fact, you will certainly fail (and often). It’s all about embracing failure and learning from it to grow stronger and better.
5. Determination
No matter the reason why you work out, you always have an end-goal in mind, for better performance, an aesthetic or functional result. Similarly, in career progression, setting a long-term goal is very important. Where do you want to see yourself 1-3 years from now, where do you stand? How can you set smaller, more achievable goals along the way to help with your ultimate, longer goal?
6. Dedication
Failure is good. Discomfort promotes growth. If you never fail, you never learn. (Your ego will only hold you back.) Neither working out or working get easier, you just get stronger and better at responding to them. Doing something everyday is better than sitting back and doing nothing. Even when you don’t feel like doing anything at all, get up and do it anyway. Your future self will one day thank you for it (I know you’ve heard this before but it’s very true).
7. Rest
Take breaks. When I lift weight, breaks are incredibly important for my body to recover and build muscle. The same mentality applies to your brain. Working non-stop is not the answer to getting better. You need to find a balance between improvement and consistency against constant strain. Take breaks when you need them, learn when your brain is most productive and work with it. When inspiration strikes, ride the wave. When inspiration runs low, focus on something else and rest your creative muscles, so they can come back stronger.
I have decided to share these learnings with you because they helped me a lot at times of need. When the road was (very) rocky, when I got very close to giving up and changing my career, when I wanted to crawl into a corner and hide, I chose to keep going instead. Every time I wanted to give up, I pushed myself to try harder.
Life is about self-improvement. Wether that happens at the gym, on a mat, the running track, at work or your social life; don’t ever allow yourself to give up on your goals and dreams.
