Self-Auditing
Purposeful Challenge As A Tool For Developing Personal Insight
Challenges Are Teachers
Challenge is an inevitable part of life. Whether we like it or not, no matter how good things might seem, unforeseen obstacles are on their way to greet you at an unknown time and place. If we aren't in the habit of regularly challenging ourselves when those moments come our ability to respond will be a roll of the dice.
Consciously participating in challenges both big and small teach us to lean into difficulty, form a more robust mindset. Looking for opportunities to test the edges a bit keeps us from getting deluded about where we stand in the bigger order of things. Not only that, it gives us an opportunity to improve our blindspots before nature chooses the moment of challenge for us. Nature is a harsh and merciless judge so better to choose challenge before it chooses you.
Putting ourselves in positions of difficulty whether at the limits of our total capacity or just a minor test of will is an opportunity to deal with frustration, apply effort, learn, and develop an appreciation for the pursuit of improvement. As it turns out these qualities are not only important for dealing with more obvious and overt obstacles that may turn up as a part of life but are also embedded psychological programs and neurological circuitry that keep us resilient and capable humans.
Big Challenges
Large scale challenges are like getting audited by the IRS. That may be an unnecessarily unpleasant analogy but the point is big challenges open all the books. They peel back layers a lot of layers at once. Entering a jiu jitsu tournament, running a race, losing 50 pounds, writing a book, or working on getting promoted at work can all be big challenges. They can push you develop multiple aspects of mind and body simultaneously and can lead to big leaps forward in performance.
Big challenges are purposefully more stressful so be thoughtful about when, where, and how much time you have to recover from those. What exactly determines a big challenge is specific to the person, time, and place. Stepping into big challenges may require some thoughtful planning so you don't set yourself up for failure from the outset.
Really big challenges are a rarity because they will require so much energy from you to get to the other side of. If it doesn't stretch your understanding of yourself, it's probably not that big of a challenge. These audits are often used in test days in sports performance to see how athletes hold up under pressure before they have to perform at the event. While not something that should be done with high frequency, big challenges have the ability to expose you to weaknesses in body, mind, and spirit you might not have been aware of.
Little Challenges
Smaller challenges are simply touch points that let you know where you stand today. Little challenges are small agreements that you can make with yourself to keep the edge sharp if you will. I like to have small challenges that I do at various times of year and some that are running on a continual basis.
Every winter a do one hundred kettlebell swings every morning for one hundred days in a row. These swings are in addition to any other exercise or training that is to be done that day. Every swing is to be performed with crisp and powerful effort. I can break them up into any set:rep ration I want. Five sets of twenty reps, twenty sets of five reps. It does't matter. What matters is that I do one hundred before I'm done with coffee.
While one hundred kettlebell swings doesn't necessarily yield a major exercise stimulus for me what it does do is challenge my mindset to keep a habit that I've set out to. The first ten days are so are pretty easy. I just stroll into my kitchen move around and get swinging. I have the vigor and excitement of doing a new challenge. When things get interesting is around day 60, when I don't fucking want to do it any more. I do it anyways. With the same crisp, powerful execution as day one. The actual challenge for me is the doing it all, not the physical toll of the swings on my body.
This challenge isn't a big one in that it doesn't push me to the limits of my physical or mental capacity but it does represent a sort of mini-audit that gives me insight into how willing I am to stick to something monotonous and easy to give up on.
Plan it
Planning is the key when it comes to regularly stepping into challenges. Improper planning can also provide a convenient “out”. Here's a few steps that can help:
Decide what the challenge is. Make it an actual challenge.
Say it out loud to at least two or three people who care about you enough to hold you accountable.
Plan a time and date(s) when this will occur.
Stick to it. That's actually part of the challenge.
Choose Real Challenges
What am I avoiding?
What don't I want to do?
What causes internal friction?
That is the weak point in the dam that will crack when the river rises. Give yourself to the challenge. You might be surprised how much misunderstanding occurs around this topic. Let me explain - something that seems difficult to others, but is routine to you is not a challenge. It's only a challenge if there is some form of friction. Whether that's internal friction, "I don't feel like it. This is dumb. This is hard. I don't need to do this." or some sort of external friction that is a legitimate test of your ability to perform physically.
Where do I really need to grow?
Some of us know how to lean into being physically uncomfortable and so intense exercise looks challenging from the outside but may not be where the most growth is available. For me personally, I can do physical work ad nauseam. So while physical challenges are hard it was much more of a challenge for me to learn to control my temper. At the end of the day only you know if something is truly challenging you or not. If you decide to take the easy route, when you bump into true audits of your capacity you will not have the skills to navigate them.
Growth Through Awareness
Having a better sense of internal awareness is a common them on this Substack on for good reason - we suck at it. Even the people who most often tout being skilled an mindfulness never really push themselves into the harsh audit of character and capacity that comes with doing some truly difficult for them.
We do need the ability to get quiet and listen to the soft internal voice of our conscience but we also need to see if there’s a fussy little wimp that shows up when things get tough and do everything we can to extricate that part of us in every domain of our being.
Thanks for reading,
Rob
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Check Engine Light: Tuning Body and Mind for Performance Longevity
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