Monday Motivation: Stop Optimizing
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Arnold Schwarzenegger <[email protected]>
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Arnold's Pump Club promotes a mindset shift, encouraging readers to simplify rather than optimize. The campaign argues that overthinking and excessive research can be forms of procrastination. Arnold shares his thoughts on the importance of taking action over perfecting every detail.
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Before You Optimize, Simplify
Arnold shares his thoughts on why "optimizing" is a form of procrastination and distraction, and the "secrets" that the builders and doers understand.
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Today’s Health Upgrade
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Arnold’s Corner
Monday Motivation: Don’t Optimize, Simplify
Last week’s discussion of rest time got me thinking.
No, it didn’t get me thinking about changing my program, where I barely rest between sets.
It got me thinking again about how many of you struggle with overthinking.
We say we read all the emails we get in response to the newsletter and all the comments in the app, and we aren’t joking.
We respond to some of you to dig deeper.
Here’s what we find, over and over:
Someone who endlessly searches for information and doesn't put it into practice. Someone who is so worried about the right direction to go that they aren’t going any direction at all. Someone who is stuck in analysis paralysis by all of the information they’re ingesting, trying to “optimize.”
Let me just say, I dislike that word.
Optimist, I love.
Optimize…I have had enough already.
Everyone these days is listening to five podcasts and reading twenty books to find the “optimized” way of doing things.
But you end up only listening instead of doing things.
Most of the time, optimizing is really procrastinating. It’s an excuse to research. To read. To listen to podcasts.
Listen, I’ve got news for most of you. Don’t take this the wrong way, but you are not a professional athlete. You are not perfecting your final 1%. Most of you aren’t perfecting your final 10%. Many, many of you aren’t working on your last 50%.
“Optimizing” isn’t what you need.
So let’s go ahead and replace it right now with a new word: “Simplify”.
Do you need to worry about whether you’re resting the optimal amount of time between sets for muscle growth?
Or any of the studies you hear about on social media or podcasts about the absolute best way to get that 1% edge?
Let’s answer some questions about your week first:
Did you eat fast food or fried food?
Did you stay up too late any night watching Netflix or Amazon?
Did you skip any of your workouts?
Did you go a day without walking or moving outside the gym?
Did you eat a meal or snack with no protein and no fiber?
If the answer is yes to any of these for the week, nothing is wrong with you.
You’re normal. We all do those things occasionally.
If you answer yes to any of these daily, great. There is your playbook! You’re going to work on turning your answer to “no” more often before you ever work on optimizing.
I just want you to realize how silly it is to worry about optimizing and not worry at all about the basics.
Our brains love hearing what might work best, even when deep down, they know we aren’t working at all.
I started my career in real estate. In architecture, there’s something called a paper architect. You don’t go to them if you want to build a building.
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