“Life comes at you in all its unanticipated and startling particulars; the thing that makes you an artist is the way you respond.”- GQ, Zach Baron
Two pieces ago, I wrote about how the time between Valentine’s Day and my birthday in May had become insanely busy for me, something I would never have anticipated in this new lifestyle. I believe I compared it to being an accountant in tax season.
In my last piece, I wrote about a very poor performance in my most recent golf tournament due to physical soreness, mental exhaustion, and poor practice habits. The two pieces are obviously related, but more importantly, the poor performance was a great piece of feedback that another adjustment along the abk journey was needed.
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Designing a one-of-a-kind lifestyle is exciting as hell, but with the prevalence of so many unknowns, it requires endless patience and ability to adjust both mindset and action. Certain macro adjustments regarding a change in geography, change in career, and a growing family are obvious. Other micro changes are less obvious and require a completely open mindset and willingness to adapt, lest the journey hit a wall.
In fact, I HAVE hit a wall. I’m not afraid to say it. I have improved and improved and improved, and I’ve endured the expected plateaus multiple times. But right now, right at this exact second, I’m a little bit stuck. Not in all aspects, but in the one that is most important to my quality of life AND to the success of my new lifestyle.
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So many things are good in my personal life right now, but living with a constantly sore body, more sore than usual, blunts much of the goodness.
So many things are good in my professional life right now, but not being able to consistently practice my own golf game when I am fresh blunts much of the goodness.
So far this year, my tournament scoring average is five whole strokes higher than last year. Intellectually, I know what I need to be working on, but after eight hours of helping run a very popular golf course and two more hours of teaching, my brain and body want to go home. It irritates me to no end that I know what I need to be doing, but that some days, I am physically unable to do it (25+ years now).
Due to the growth at the course, growth of my teaching business, and all of my varying interests, I find myself at a crossroads. Can anything I am doing be dropped? Sure. I could cut out lots of stuff that is meaningful and that I enjoy, but there is very little riff-raff left to eliminate. Well then, when is my available time? 5-8am and 8-9pm.
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My brain loves 5-8am, but my body does not. However, in the name of hopes, dreams, physical comfort, and golf progress, it’s time to make another change. The good news is that I know what it takes to be an elite athlete. Been there, done that with soccer. The bad news is that my body was twenty years younger and I had no responsibilities.
But the second piece of good news is that I want it more than ever, and as I’ve illustrated from day one with abk, want is an underrated intangible that drives extremely productive action.
I don’t mind going backwards or being stuck along the journey. Those are key parts of a real journey, I’ve learned. But if there is a way to get unstuck, and there usually is, I’ll find it.
It’s part of the abk DNA.
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Have a great week.-Benj
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