Day 747: direction vs. goals

personal

while doing my front lever training at the climbing gym, this absolutely jacked guy walked into the room

i had seen him climbing with a weighted vest, so i asked him about that and then asked him if he happened to know what his body fat % was because he was at the level of leanness that i aspire to get to

he said he didn’t know for sure but guessed around 8%, which seemed about right to me

i asked him a bunch of questions about his diet, training, history, etc. because he clearly had a lot of experience with the fitness goals i set for this year, and what he told me blew my mind:

  • he got into climbing about 13 years ago and on his first year, started climbing double-digit grades (!!!!!!!!!)

    • let me just stress how insane this is. people take many years to hit V10 (assuming they even reach it in the first place — most people plateau way before that point) and he got there in his first year

  • he’s able to sustainably maintain his current physique. (i.e. it’s not a temporary peak.) he’s been that lean for the past 3 months.

  • he does intermittent fasting and doesn’t count calories

  • he was able to do a front lever the first time he tried as a teenager. then he lost it and a decade later, recently had to train to get it back over several months. he did one in front of me and his form looked perfect

talking to him was mind-blowing because not only was he so advanced in all the skills i’m interested in, but it seemed to come easily to him. i mean, it was obvious from talking to him that he trains incredibly hard so it’s not like he came out of the womb with an 8-pack holding a full planche, but even just the fact that he went from V0 to V10+ in a year is just unbelievable (even as i type this, i’m questioning whether i might have misheard him because of how insane that is) and he clearly has a ton of natural aptitude and strength (also his ability to be that lean without tracking calories was surprising. hope i can get to that point where i’m able to know what to eat without having to put it all into myfitnesspal)

he asked me what i was working on and i told him about wanting to get the straddle front lever, frog planche, and climb V6s this year, and he said, “can i be honest with you?” i said sure, of course, and thought he was going to give me pointers about my front lever form (we were talking in between sets of me doing lever exercises). instead, he said, “with the level of strength i see from you doing the lever exercise, i think you can definitely do V8 this year”

i laughed and told him i’d take that with a grain of salt given he’s a climbing savant but that it was super encouraging to hear. to be honest, i think if i fully dedicated myself to climbing i could get there, but i’m also trying to learn a million other skills + grow my indie business so i expect progress to be slower

and reflecting on that, i feel perfectly content with that. even though i set all these concrete, specific goals for the year, i actually don’t care all that much about whether i hit those particular milestones. that is, i won’t be that bummed if i can only climb V5s instead of V6s and hold a handstand for 5 seconds rather than 30 seconds at the end of the year. what matters to me is the directionality: am i heading in a direction i enjoy in a sustainable manner? that’s how i feel about browserflow, too. i set the goal of $10k MRR, but i’ll also be happy with $5k or $7k or whatever as long as things are headed in the right direction. (i definitely would be disappointed if browserflow’s revenue completely died and it was lower than it is today, but a few meditation sessions would probably make me feel ok about that too)

in short, being direction-oriented resonates a lot more with me than being goal-oriented

i think it’s because i’m fully aware that these goals are completely arbitrary and that once i hit them, i’ll just create another one

so why not just see through that game and enjoy the process instead?