depending on the intensity of your training regimen). In addition to this, in your mind and in your reality you have to feel like a rock star to be a top athlete. It is my understanding that as the training programs become harder that you think “maybe I should not have taken this one” in the first place. It is a bit of a vicious circle because a lot of guys say that after an injury, it is like this one thing in their life has ended. This isn’t even the case for me. It is more like I will just go back to being a person that enjoys the outdoors. At first glance this might seem like I am overselling the idea that this stuff is addictive. This is far from the truth. It is more that I can feel a part of something that I really want to be part of. This is not some fluffy, watered down thing. It will push me to my edge. It will also keep me from ever getting complacent. I don’t mean to say that this is wrong. I am not the boss of your brain or anything. I am just sharing what it is that is happening to me and from my experience. I am starting to get into my late 30’s now. If I was only going to live this type of lifestyle for my career as an athlete, I might only have a few years of this. This is a hobby that can go on for a lifetime. It is just that it is a bit more difficult to maintain this mental balance when you are in the thick of things. The last thing that I want is to have regrets later in life about how much time I was giving this. The thing that concerns me most about the future is making sure that I am enjoying the process. It is easy to get sucked into thinking that you will always be thinking about trying to do better next time and getting some kind of buzz out of the mental challenge of trying to be a better athlete. Sometimes I try to be this better athlete that is just doing something for the sake of doing it. Just like if I try to be a better parent, I am just playing a role that needs to be in the situation. If you want to do this thing for the rest of your life, it is easy to become absorbed in the fantasy that you have to reach some type of mental end state of physical perfection. Just when you start feeling good about your progress you will get a setback, and you will push back to try to get back to where you were before. The mental cycle can actually become self-perpetuating. If you don’t want to give into this, I suggest making a plan and not letting this thing control you. I know that I am not perfect, but I am trying to do things right. Instead of using this as an excuse to be a less than good person and not take care of other people, my biggest aspiration is that I make the right decision. That way it doesn’t feel like a loss if I am no longer able to keep it up for as long as I had planned. Instead I can make a plan for my life and be happy. That is one less thing that can cause me grief. At the same time, I know this is not the case for everyone. The last thing I want is to be the wet blanket that ruins a good time. If it is just another day for you then there is no need to worry about what tomorrow will bring. Just because I am having fun now does not mean that I can be sure that I will continue to be good at this later in life. How should we take care of this? Aside from everything that I already said about being dedicated to the process, you really need to be able to figure out how to take care of yourself. If you can’t find this answer you might have a problem. There are actually a few things that make it easier. If you want to do this on a daily basis, you need to have a plan for your diet. I am not talking about just consuming protein and carbs and the rest of your nutrition needs will take care of itself. I am talking about eating the right food on a regular basis. I am also a big believer in being able to be able to eat food that you enjoy. If it is eating at a restaurant, making sure that you enjoy the atmosphere. If you are going to eat out of your house, cooking yourself in the kitchen and then sitting down and having a meal with your family. Just because you have reached a point where you are more comfortable with your physical skills doesn’t mean that you can’t have fun eating dinner. As far as workouts go, I do still spend my days working out. It might be just a walk. It might not even be for health purposes. I think it is important to do what you can to stay active. At the same time, this can be a difficult thing to come up with as I am sure you can understand. In the case of one thing, I am still recovering from shoulder surgery and have a long way to go from where I was. Other days, I just take a nice long walk with no particular goal in mind. Just to spend the day enjoying the outdoors. I don’t know what I want to do other days. If you want to look for something interesting to do other than just staying in the gym. If you find that nothing is that interesting then maybe it is time for you to think about making an appointment for a therapist. The idea of this article is to help people do this by sharing a few of the mistakes I made in the past. You might think that I am being a hardass about my approach to this. The reality is that I am being a bit of a jerk. The idea is for people to get past this and be able to be successful. In any case, maybe we can help each other. As an extra special bonus, you can follow along on my adventures on Instagram. The handle is @naturalshaker. I will try to be more frequent with my updates as I continue on. Thanks for reading!