I HAVE DECIDED: SOLIPSISM AND TRAINING

Nothing is more powerful than the moment when you have decided on something, for it is at this moment that action can occur and change will be made.  Despite claims to the contrary, we ultimately have the greatest control of our lives.  You can be a stoic ala Aurelius and decide that the power you have is the ability to decide how you react to the world, or you can embrace the very tyranny of your radical freedom ala Sarte and understand that every action you make is a choice, but the end is the same; your actions are a result of when YOU have decided to do or not do something.  But I say you take this even further; cast out all reality and make it merely a product of what it is that you have decided.  Ignore science, good sense, convention, historical evidence and all doubters and let your battle cry be “I have decided!”

Not a bad second choice...yes, I realize this is censored from the original

Bend reality to your warped, fractured and diseased mind, and make it conform to YOU.  Make it such that, when you say “I have decided that I will lose weight and get stronger, despite all claims to the contrary”, it occurs.  “I have decided that I will train one side of my body while the other heals, and encounter no imbalances and only become stronger”, “I have decided that I will become stronger by lifting lighter weights”, “I have decided that I will get better at full ROM work by training partial ROM”, “I have decided that there is no such thing as overtraining”, etc etc.  In all these instances, the power resides in YOU to make things happen.  You are not an agent of reality; reality is an agent of you.  It is YOUR reality to bend, shape and beat into conformity, and you make it happen because YOU have decided it will happen. 

This means shutting out the negativity of others that refuse to take control of your reality.  Those that will quote studies at you, that assert their own failures at your attempts, that degrade your intelligence, that mock you by calling you crazy.  Crazy as a mockery?  That is true insanity; being crazy is the way that one becomes different, and different is a side-step away from average, allowing growth into something more.  Read your Focault; what was classified as “insane” was traditionally simply those behaviors that drew too much attention to the very failings of society.  You exemplify these failings WITH your success.  You should be so lucky that your methods are considered ridiculous by others, because those sane people are getting some pretty sane results.

It is amazing how many times I try to use this as a punchline and it ends up refuting the paragraph above it

I’ve done this many times in my life.  The instant I blew out my knee, I decided right then that I would do whatever it takes to heal and come back bigger and stronger than before.  Making that decision in that moment set me up to do what it took to accomplish my goals.  It meant getting surgery, training whatever I could, and using every tool I had access to for my recovery, and it meant I came back and won my first show post surgery.  I did the same thing the first time I decided to drop weight, in that I decided I wasn’t going to get weaker while it happened, and ended up dropping 30lbs while breaking through a 3 year deadlift plateau, hitting a 601lb deadlift at a bodyweight of 181 after failing to clear 550 at 217lbs 3 years prior.  Once the decision was made, it was up to me to execute it.

You won’t be beholden to what others have decided FOR you, because YOU have decided instead.  And this holds true for your negative decisions too.  Went on a 2 day ice cream bender because “the cravings got the best of me?”  Negative; YOU decided to indulge.  This was a choice, and you made it; embrace your empowerment.  Slept in and skipped a morning training session because you “really needed the sleep?”  Untrue; YOU decided to skip training.  Again, embrace your empowerment; how absolutely fortunate you are to HAVE such autonomy.  You are the ultimate arbiter of your own success and failure; what freedom!  The freedom to dictate if you reach your goals or never meet them; the freedom to be something great or something average, and all it takes is for you to make the decision. 

I CHOOSE THIS!

And when you make that decision, OWN that decision.  If you decide to skip training or eat poorly, admit that it was a decision you made, because that empowers you to also UNMAKE that decision in the future.  You are still in control of your reality and your destiny, and in being control you have the freedom to make poor choices just as much as you have the freedom to make good ones, but in all instances, the results are the product of something that YOU have decided.  When you attempt to pawn off your actions on outside forces, all you are doing is removing power from yourself.  As unintuitive as it may seem, you are much stronger when you decide you will not train than when the decision to train is removed from you and vested in outside cosmic forces.  The man who is able to decide his own fate will always be stronger than the one who is a mere victim of circumstance, for the latter, no matter how strong fate has made them, lacks power over the self.  And in turn, one who decides to fail STILL holds more power than one who fails because of circumstances.        

I have decided.  No one else decides but I.  And once I have decided, I will act in accordance with my decision.  Let it be your mantra.  Let no reality exist that is not the reality that you chose to create; the you decide to create.  Let nothing happen unless it is within your will; unless you got to say “I have decided it is so”.