Raising Your Floor

I had a bad day in the gym recently. My training sessions are normally two-hours in length but on this particular day by about the seventy-minute mark I was on my knees — totally spent. A set of an exercise of which I could normally manage 15–18 reps, I was failing at 10 with the same weight. Needless to say this was frustrating as hell. As much as my mind wanted to continue, my body was not on-board. I had things on my mind, I was tired, coming off a poor night’s sleep and hadn’t rested enough to perform well.

But at least I was there. At least I was doing it. Despite my limitations on this day, I was putting in the effort anyway. That was infinitely more beneficial to me at this time than being in bed.

Here I was, getting maybe 60% of my maximum performance today as opposed to zero. 100% in reality is pretty elusive. In fact I don’t think I’ve ever had a true 100%, 10/10 day. 90% and above is an excellent day but was off-limits to me today. 80% and 70% were also not within my physical capabilities that day unfortunately. So I chose to hit 60%, 6/10 rather than zero that day. That’s as low as I’m willing to go. That is where I’m setting my floor. This much is achievable by effort alone. The extenuating circumstances can’t prevent you putting in the effort unless you let them. All you need to do is choose to try.

Choice is everything really. I had various choices to make throughout my day to this point that contributed to this. I could have skipped it and stayed in bed. I could have shortened my workout, cut out a few tough exercises I wasn’t really feeling. I could have chalked this one up to being a bad day over which I have no control and let it spiral, start thinking about the next one. But I didn’t. I chose to put in what effort I could, I decided to suffer through it. Sometimes that’s what you have to do. Sometimes it’s all you can do.

You’re going to have these bad days. That is an unavoidable reality. Maybe you have other stuff on your mind and your focus just isn’t there. Maybe you haven’t slept well the night before and your physical and mental energy levels are depleted. Maybe you overdid it on food / drink over the weekend. We are all human and as a result we have these annoying little things called personal lives that get in the way of our goals from time to time.

Let’s go through one of those days. You’re down and unmotivated for whatever reason, maybe it’s just a Monday. When your alarm goes off you can choose to get up or you can choose to sleep in an extra hour and skip the gym or the morning run.

When you get to the gym you can choose to attempt the workout you’ve planned or you can choose to take it easy and maybe work on the cross-trainer for 45 minutes if you’re ‘not feeling it’. You can choose to do the 5km loop you’ve planned and accept that you’ll be miserable, slow and probably hate every minute of it, or you take that shortcut and cut it down to 3.2. Again, just ‘not feeling it today’.

When you’re in work you can choose to start that new report or that tricky task you’ve been putting off for a few days now, or you can choose to spend your morning catching up on all the weekend’s sports news. I’m just “not able” for today guys. Sorry, “can’t deal”.

For dinner, you can choose to re-heat that takeaway from last night (maybe even order another) or you can choose to cook up a nutritious meal, some chicken, rice and vegetables.

These choices are the difference between a 2/10 day where the floor falls out of it and a 6/10 day where you set that limit as low as you’re willing to go. 2/10 is accepting your fate. Letting the floor fall and sinking uncontrollably, without a care. A 6/10 day is a day that really sucks but the choices you’ve made have bolted that floor in firmly at Level 6. You’ve minimised the damage you’ll allow this day to do to you and your goals. This day has knocked you down but this is as low as you’re going to let yourself fall.

Days where you have low energy, your ceiling is probably going to be far lower than a day when you’re at your peak or even at your normal level. This can be as a result of circumstances beyond our control. What we can control is how low our floor goes on these days and we can stop it from collapsing underneath us.

On bad days, like all other days you will be faced with series choices. When they present themselves, make the choices you know will benefit you. Don’t be of the mindset that fate is against you today and “it’ll be bad no matter what”. Today is an exercise in damage limitation. A lot of it is going to be crap alright but influence what you can influence. Get the basics right. Set your floor firmly at that 6/10 mark.

Choose not to go lower than that.