When you don’t know what you stand for, everything becomes debatable.

You can justify any action because you don’t know what you stand for.

I have this feeling recently of cracking out of a shell of bad habits. Today was back day at the gym. The hardest day by far. I would rather do hours of legs than back.

The reason is because you never feel awesome after a back day, you just feel like you’ve been hit by a truck (if you have done it right). I bring up the gym a lot because it is a metaphor for life.

In the gym, what you put in is what your going to get out. It’s a simple equation. Nothing beats hard work. If you can’t do it right in the gym, how the hell are you going to do it right in real life?

You aren’t.

I am incredibly hard on myself in the gym, because I have these goals that I haven’t accomplished yet and there is no excuse for not achieving them. I know exactly what I need to do and how to get there.

Now it is all about my mind. And going back to what I believe in…if I actually believe in these things, then I will stick to them.

You will see a transformed body in no time.

However, If I falter from these values, you will get the exact same thing.

Back day…absolute hell. But in the middle of one of my pyramid sets (a pyramid set is 5 sets, first set unbelievably heavy low reps, to lighter with high reps) I was confronted with absolute exhaustion.

But I looked at the ground and saw the puddle of sweat accumulating and said “KEEP GOING.” I finished that set.

Hell, I finished another 45 minutes of absolutely brutal lifting and ab-work. I took the fear and showed it what it was up against. I was listening to this amazing speech the other day and the guy said “Don’t cry to quit! Cry to keep going!”

This means that no matter how bad it hurts or how hard it is, and if you need to cry, then cry, but don’t give up keep going.

Draw a line in the sand.

Never break the certain things you stand for. But don’t list off 100 things.

Make them things that you actually stand for.

Things that represent you to your core.

Then, you can achieve anything.

Evan Sanders
The Better Man Project