The point of this article is explaining how one habit in our lives and the lessons learned from it can really develop our mind and body as well as our discipline to achieve hardest challenge in our lives. So if you think you are really good at something, try to understand what were the steps that got you where you are now and apply them to accomplish the next thing you would like to be good at. Below are the lessons that I learned by going to the gym everyday.

Just start

We all want to start new things, it varies for everyone. For someone it may be reading a book while for someone else it may be going to the gym. We all heard about the famous quote “just start” but some of us may not know the power of this quote in action. The problem is we usually start from the hardest things when we can develop the “just start” habit by just making our bed every morning, or cleaning our desk every day, and pretty much very small tasks in our lives. By doing so we help our brain to take an action immediately towards something that is good for us but we often find it hard to do, which ultimately assist us on starting or completing bigger tasks on daily basis.

Consistency

Once we accomplished the first step which is starting the new habit, we find it challenging to be consistent about it. Let me tell the method that has worked for me, I do not think about doing the habit tomorrow or any day in the future, it may sound weird but I only think about today and “just start” today. Tomorrow will be another “today” and the same story over and over again. After a short amount of time it will become part of your daily routine to the point that it will not feel right when you can’t do your habit.

Mind vs Body

The first two steps taught me how to get myself to the gym everyday, but the real magic happens in the gym, the battle of mind versus body, I call it magic. I cannot tell you how many times I felt I was done but I pushed for two more reps and I still was able to get it. We need to remind ourselves that mind will shut down long before the body does. If we can develop a mentality that can push through that limitation we can achieve hardest things in life.

Let’s now see how these three factors helped me in my career:

As a software developer, we go through a hard process in order to get ready for interviews. The process might get really challenging if you are applying for big tech companies. It starts with studying data structures and algorithms, and solve various problems during the preparation. I used to read other people’s stories who had successfully gone through this path and as a person who is not really smart I found it extremely challenging at first, but I started (“just start”) with simple problems, I would not think about hard days that I would have to face, I would only care about that day (care only about today) and solve one problem a day. Days that I would face a hard problems, I wanted to give up after 20 mins through but I knew I had it in myself, I knew if I push through and hang in there, I might be able to solve it, and I would solve it (Mind vs Body)

Remember, do not wait for the best moment to start, only care about today if you can accomplish it today at least you are better than your yesterday and tomorrow will another “today”, last but not least, tell your mind to “shut up” when it wants to give up, because it is capable of doing things that you would never thought of.

Thank you for your time