How do we gauge our success? What time limit are we supposed to give ourselves? Do we ever truly see our success? I mean, is it supposed to come in the form of money? Great relationships? A fit bod or thriving business?
I’ve found all four of those at various stages of my life, but I’m also good at losing things, so I take nothing for granted.
But success, what is it? At this very moment in my life I think I had the only bit of success that could’ve made me happy this weekend. Not even Liverpool beating Utd tomorrow could top this one.
At 6:30 this evening we had a phone call from another local business person asking if we had a vacancy for their friends. As I spoke to them, casually flicking through my empty diary, I replied that we could fit his friends in for the evening. In my head I was Jurgen Klopp fist pumping to 60,000 scousers at Anfield. But I stayed calm.
From landing in Sertá on the 31st of October to this day, it has been ten months. We have our first booking. Success.
Success can be going for a walk to clear your head. Success can be scoring goals for fun in the Premier League like Haarland. Success can be having a special moment with your partner. Success can be getting a PB in the gym. Success can be getting your dream job. Success can be buying the Oasis reunion tickets. Success can be winning the lottery. Success can be getting your first guests into your holiday home.
It’s different for everyone. But have a think about what has brought you a little bit of joy today. You might not think that its life-changing, but it could be just the seed that needs the chance to grow. Cherish that bit of success. The more you notice it, the more it happens.
This week the UK government said that it wants to ban cigarette smoking in pub gardens, outside nightclubs and around children’s play parks. Now, it would be hard to find a reasonable argument for being allowed to smoke in or around a kids play park, but I’m not sure about elsewhere. Here’s what I think…
I am living in central Portugal. Cigarettes are still sold in cafe vending machines. Supermarkets have Tobacaria shops inside them and even cafe bars attached to them. Doing your weekly shop, stopping for a smoke while downing a beer or wine before loading your car and driving away is common.
I don’t smoke cigarettes anymore but do occasionally vape electronically in private. I haven’t openly smoked anything since becoming a dad and a Personal Trainer. Smoking while doing either of those jobs is not cool. But I don’t begrudge anybody else smoking. In fact, seeing people sitting around a table outside a cafe in Sertá, chatting and laughing in different languages makes me feel happy and truth be known, before I moved here, it was one of the images that I went to sleep imagining. The cafe music, the different languages and the server bringing out olives and wine on a sunny day, all under a cloud of Marlboro is all very European. That appeals to me.
Some of my best memories of holidays abroad haven’t necessarily been on a beach or doing karaoke at an all inclusive, but visiting an art gallery or castle in Europe. And it was always followed by sitting outside a cafe to talk about what I had discovered, either with my family or with complete strangers.
And although in the beer garden at Wetherspoons there was plenty of alcohol and smoking, I never did get onto the subject of how the Duomo bell tower was constructed with its customers.
Outside a cafe in Sertá
Ah yes. Wetherspoons. Where you can openly shout about hating foreigners while drinking Belgian beer. After that, you can go for a Turkish kebab, watch American TV or cheer on a few Africans in your favourite football team on your Japanese TV while sitting on a Swedish sofa. In the morning, you can drive your German car and if you have an accident you will be seen by a Spanish nurse. Once you are better again, you can go back to Wetherspoons and shout about those ‘bloody foreigners’ in a building most likely to be funded by the European Union. Just remember to wipe your feet on the way out.
And before you start criticising me for being down on Britishness, Wetherspoons is and continues to be a very big factor in what is the cause of a loss of Britishness on the high streets. The Wetherspoons franchise has slowly dismantled the great British pub. You can’t get your piss stained peanuts from a bowl at the bar while drinking a pint of Best at the local Fox and Hounds anymore because Tim Martin came along with his cheap drinks and all day breakfast.
Traditional pubs are ceasing to exist anymore and for all we can blame smoking bans and energy costs, the fact remains that Tim Martin will always be able to make his food and drink way cheaper than Sandra the landlady at The Fox And Hounds.
‘But what about this new smoking ban, Shay?!’ I hear you all ask. ‘Surely it is better for our health and will be less of a burden to the NHS?!’
Smoking is not the number one factor in what causes the two most deadly killers in the UK (heart disease and Alzheimer’s). In fact, everything else they sell in a pub or nightclub are by far the major reasons. That all day breakfast? The Belgian beer or the pint of Best?
In 2022 there were just over 10,000 alcohol related deaths. Obesity causes 30,000 deaths each year. Food and drink related deaths are on the rise and will soon be above smoking related deaths in the years to come. I’m not saying that smoking is better, but it does seem to be the scapegoat when the government talks about unburdening the NHS.
When I watch UK TV I am bombarded by adverts telling me to eat fast food and drink alcohol. Not only is fast food or alcohol not banned but perfectly celebrated as the stuff we should be doing, promoted on national TV!
So eating and drinking crap in a pub is fine, but dare to step into its garden and light up a cigarette and you’re a pariah. You see, it makes no sense.
When I became a PT I wanted to give a different message to what I was seeing and hearing from mainstream gyms and media. It is also how I’ve continued to work at our health and wellbeing centre in Portugal. The misunderstanding from gyms and the media is that health and wellbeing is all about physical health and wellbeing. But I think a little differently.
If society (or your PT) is constantly berating your lifestyle choices such as what you eat, drink or smoke, then this is not going to be a positive contribution to your mindset or your life. You don’t employ a PT for them to tell you that lettuce is better for you than a pizza, or water is better for you than a gin and tonic. Nor should you employ a PT to tell you that not smoking is better for you than smoking.
Balancing these better for you things and the not as good for you things, for me, is the much better position to be in regarding our mental health. This, in turn, can contribute to a more active lifestyle and produce better physical results.
Smoking ten cigarettes a day instead of 20 is a fantastic start. Having a fortnightly takeaway is better than a weekly takeaway and drinking a few beers three nights of the week instead of five is going to positively impact you further.
No bans. No stress. No guilt. Just small things that we call balance.
So, my conclusion and my two penn’orth in the smoking debate is this…
Keep cigarettes, takeaways and alcohol and get rid of Wetherspoons. Society in the UK will seem like a much brighter place.
This week we signed up to a site that will promote our holiday home on several platforms. Although they said that it will take up to ten days to be on all of their participating platforms, we have been getting informed when a platform is showing our property online already. So far we are going live on Travel Nest and Holidu. Here’s a link to Holidu…
We are still working and developing the interior and exterior, so the photos aren’t perfect, but we just needed to get the property up and running. We will be updating our pics as we keep putting stuff in place (I never knew how much brain power it would take to decide on where to put a coffee machine).
And when I say several platforms, we are literally going to be shown everywhere. So much so that I expect the Mashco Piro tribe in Peru to get an alert once our pics are updated.
We still have a massage therapy and shop to reconstruct, plus a possibility of a second holiday home on the property but, for now, for the sake of our sanity, our first job is complete.
Since around this time last year I have had no gym membership. My time, despite efforts in keeping up ‘sort sort’ of a routine outside of a gym, have been entirely preoccupied in my family’s move, house and business set up in Portugal.
I knew it had to be like that. I knew I’d have to take the hit on something that I loved. And training in the gym is what I love.
A few things that I’ve kept in my head have been comforting though…
1. It’s not forever. I’m creating my own gym on the property.
2. I’ve trained 3-5 days a week for the past 27 years (even on my honeymoon). Taking a year out isn’t going to harm all of my good work.
3. I’m keeping calories to around 2,500 to 3000. I’m not counting. By now I just know what I’m eating, but using a calorie counter can be useful too.
4. I’m not sedentary. I’m probably more active than ever seeing as I’m working in the forest and doing building works. So my energy consumption, along with my energy intake, keeps my weight balanced.
But, despite knowing this, I am really missing training. That is because I am not getting the buzz (adrenaline) from the repetition of a lift or push that has become a part of me.
Creating my outdoor gym at 40°
At 18 I had to quit most sports that I enjoyed. Contact sports such as football, boxing and martial arts left my body in bits. And most of the pain came from my back or the sciatic nerve. The sharp pain that drives from the lower back into the buttock and down the leg made me struggle to even get dressed each morning. The anger that I had towards this pain and how it had practically ended my passion for playing sports affected me not just physically but mentally too.
Sports can give us ambition and focus on something positive. Especially for a young person trying to discover themselves. Joining a team, goal setting, planning and staying active weren’t on my radar anymore. Instead, smoking, drinking, clubbing and generally finding substances to enable me to continue clubbing into the wee hours became my focus.
‘When Saturday Comes’ is an expression to highlight the thrill of a football game. For me, my Saturday just became another chance to get into town and party. Now, don’t get me wrong, I have some great memories too! As George Best said,’ I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I squandered .’ I didn’t have his fame or riches, but I gave it a bloody good go for a period of time!
That is until I found the gym. After a few months of training I noticed that my muscles were becoming firmer and I was filling out a T in all the right places. But something more significant was taking place. My back pain was slowly easing, I was quicker, more agile, stronger. And mentally I had a more positive outlook and I didn’t want a weekend of mistreating myself to hinder my hard work in the gym. I had found a lifeline. Furthermore, I had given my career a boost. My confidence grew and helped me to find a vocation which I enjoyed. Things started clicking into place. The gym, I believe, is what started it. My attitude to life was manufactured in the gym.
So then, you can see why it is so important to me. So much so I retrained as a PT some years later to spread the word. ‘How many people could I help?’ I thought. My aim was to just get people active and learn new, interesting exercises. I knew that for the most people that I trained in a commercial gym that strict programs weren’t entirely necessary. They just had to turn up and move to begin with. Push, pull, jump, skip, squat and run. Anything that got them excited about being there. And, no doubt, even for those who hated the gym, there was one aspect that interested them, be it a speed trial, a PB lift, calisthenics or a tyre flip. Something would trigger anyone’s adrenaline. It made me a decent PT because I was like anybody else. I wasn’t a bodybuilder or athlete. I just knew how the average gym goer operated. For me personally, anything heavy that I could push or pull got me out of bed in the morning. ‘How many reps at X weight can I do today?’ was my motivation.
And it will be again, albeit in a very different setting. But it can’t come soon enough. For how beautiful my surroundings are and how well our business preparations are going, I still don’t have a gym!
Yesterday was a productive day. We got stuff done. And it was important that we did as the kids were at the coast with a holiday club which meant that we had more hours in the day to complete tasks. But it did come at a price.
When the evening came and the kids were in bed we simply had nothing else to give to each other. We worked through very hot temperatures and met appointments in town to get relevant licences filed which meant that we were knackered both physically and mentally. At one point Lou mentioned that we were like Challenge Aneka as she put a coat of paint on here, spreading compost there and signing documents to be emailed.
The Challenge Aneka analogy is very accurate. We have a deadline, we are being followed by a camera person and I look good in lycra and a blonde wig.
Ok, forget the last one. But the others are true.
Anika Rice
The last couple of hours of the day, however, was a case of us silently watching Superstore on Netflix and not communicating with each other. Talking, it seemed, had become too difficult to do. One after the other the episodes of Superstore turned into seasons. Each one becoming not as good as the previous series. ‘No wonder they cancelled it’, I thought to myself. I wanted to say that to Lou, but the words didn’t come out.
Me in lycra
We’re not unique. This is a trap that we sometimes fall into just like many of my trainees. We can lose track of the important stuff. We try to juggle too much, often worrying about the little things. We forget about prioritising and we end up spinning plates only to see them all crash to the floor.
Our particular plates, albeit wavering rather than spinning at full throttle, haven’t quite crashed. But if we don’t address it quickly, we will find ourselves in a rut of simply existing and not living the life that we want.
So as productive as yesterday was, our relationship and our personal mental health suffered. Today we needed to strike a balance. We decided on a mind map.
We all plan differently. For me, I like to write down what I need to do. Whether it be for the day ahead, for over the weekend or for the full week. It’s the personal trainer in me. I’ve written thousands of training plans that require following a plan. I’ve always remained flexible with my plans, after all, stuff happens. Life happens. But generally, the very fact that I have a written plan of action that I can attempt to execute lowers my anxiety and, most importantly, enables me to methodically work my way through the plan.
Trainees didn’t just come to me in the gym to help with their clean and press. There is often an underlying issue in why they seem to struggle in reaching a particular goal.
Likewise, I don’t need help in how to paint, treat wood, mix cement or plaster. But I found that I do need help in how to juggle my time and plan when to do this while simultaneously being a fun loving father and husband.
So this morning we didn’t get stuck into the painting, grouting and fixing. We spent the first hour mind mapping.
We scheduled what needed to be done. We gave timelines to each activity. We organised the day onto paper, ticking off each one as we completed it. We even made sure that one of these activities was to take a trip into Sertá for lunch together. We don’t always want our leisure time to be written into our list of jobs for the day but if life gets a little on top of us now and again then why not?! It is important to recognise these things.
Author Alan Lakein wrote,”Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now.”
We can’t achieve anything without planning, however one chooses to do it. After all, if you don’t plan which way the wind is blowing, you could end up pissing into it. It gets messy.
Mind planning got us another productive day today, but it also got us some important time together where we could chat and enjoy each other’s company and not just drift through day to day, barely having conversation. After all, we won’t achieve our family goals if we can’t survive as a family. No matter how good I am at painting.
I remember taking a penalty kick for my school football team and the pressure was unreal. A few parents and a man and his dog stood on the touchline as I put the ball on the penalty spot. The weight of the team’s expectations felt heavy on my shoulders. I missed. I wasn’t a natural goalscorer, but I tried.
Other moments of notable sporting anxiety was when I did my first ever ‘fat loss’ class as an instructor at the gym. 30 people stood waiting for my instructions as I waited for the music to kick in. For all of my knowledge and everything I had learnt in instructing a fitness class, I could hardly remember any exercise except for a squat. Nerves are great, it gives me that buzz, but sometimes if they are out of control it doesn’t help for clear thinking.
I also recall my first day at coaching 20 kids on their summer sports activities. I wasn’t a natural like some of the other coaches, but I knew from experience of being a dad that if you demand respect and make something fun and act a bit silly, a bunch of kids will love whatever activity you do. In fact, come to think about it the adults in my exercise class were exactly the same. I wasn’t the coolest, fittest, leanest or strongest instructor, but it’s amazing how far a few dad jokes will get you with kids or adults. We all just want to smile at the end of the day and, whatever is going on at home outside of the gym or summer camp, we remember the moments that we smiled to get us through it.
As I was reflecting on my year so far I began to realise that I seem to excel when I start to feel the adrenaline. I’m at my happiest. It doesn’t always mean that I’ll be the best at something. The penalty kick and my first ever fitness class are examples of that. But had I not put myself forward for these things, or to put it another way, had I not been willing to come out of my comfort zone, then great things would not have followed.
I couldn’t have been a successful personal trainer without that first ever fitness class and I wouldn’t have enjoyed a few seasons at the kids summer sports camp without that awkward first day. Even the missed penalty showed that I was willing to stand up and be a leader. It didn’t do Stuart Pearce or Gareth Southgate any harm.
This year I’ve been interviewed for UK TV about my recent move to Portugal. It will be available to watch in January. You might see that I’m not a natural in front of the camera. And I’ve often been asked about what motivated me to apply to be filmed during such a massive move for me and my family. They don’t pay us for making the show, so it wasn’t money. And the days that they are here can be time consuming as we set up the microphones for interviews. So why do it?! Well, it’s the adrenaline thing again. I work best under pressure. I’m happy to be filmed being challenged with budget difficulties, language barriers and building works. I have to step up and take that penalty again or enter that fitness studio for the first time. It can only improve my character.
Years ago I was talking to a friend who was having difficulty finding employment. He was a hard worker and desperate for work. He told me that he had had many interviews but never got accepted. The main reason for this is that he would clam up and be extremely shy in the interview. I know that he was shy and he found it difficult to hide. Even talking to friends he would sometimes go very red in the face.
My advice to him was to let the interviewers know as soon as you sit down. Explain that, ‘I am very nervous today so please forgive me. I’ll take a deep breath and do my best.’
This will put you and the interviewers at ease and it will also show self awareness, honesty and determination to get past it. He got his next job that he applied for.
Being honest with yourself and those around you is important. If you can enter difficult situations with transparency then the confidence will grow and important skills can be had. But without that first honest step out of your comfort zone then you are not allowing yourself to grow.
Actress Jessica Williams said,”Get more confidence by doing things that excite and frighten you.”
Having already experienced two popped tyres and a mechanical breakdown with our cars in central Portugal, it occurred to me how heavily I relied on the AA in the UK. Sure, there’s breakdown services where I live but in the mountainous countryside of the interior of Portugal it is something that you could be waiting a while for. It isn’t a ‘fourth emergency service’ here.
Seemingly, cars are older than in the uk and in part this is because they are looked after rather well due to just about everyone knowing car maintenance. Everyone is a mechanic, everyone is a farmer, everyone is a builder and everyone can drive a tractor.
So, I need to change. I need to know these things too. And not only for me, but I need to teach my kids.
There’s a reason why the people in our community can do these things and it’s because they have to. They need to know how to fix their cars because of the time and money involved in them not knowing. The nearest garage is miles away and there’s a price to pay if you need a car towed and fixed by someone else. Same with building work and farming. From being youngsters the people in my community have acquired this knowledge through having to do it for themselves.
I learnt to drive at a fairly older age. I was around 30. That’s because a bus would drive along my road every ten minutes to practically anywhere in Leeds that I wanted. Why did I need the cost of a car? A weekly bus pass was about £10 back then! I was also conscious of the amount of cars already on the road. But then I kept moving to more remote areas of the UK. I had to drive.
I began a Building and Construction NVQ when I was 18 in the government’s attempt to get young people gaining practical skills, experience and qualifications in work places. I passed the course but I hated it. Not so much the work, I liked working outdoors, but I didn’t like who I had to work with. I didn’t fit in with the wolf whistling men who would talk mostly about the pictures in The Daily Sport.
And, on a side note, it’s interesting how many men get offended by a rainbow in Pride month and say ‘why do they have to shout about their sexuality?!’ when men have literally been able to intimidate women on the street for decades in their attempts to show how much of a manly heterosexual they are.
Anyway, back to the point!
Since leaving the building trade I haven’t laid a brick. To say that I’m a little rusty would be an understatement! However, just like the locals, I’m now in a situation where I have to wind back the years (25 years to be exact) and do things for myself.
We employed builders to renovate our AL rental accommodation, but we’ve blown the budget on a number of unforeseen expenditures with drainage and a bore hole being the biggest expense. So now it’s down to us!
Lou has a good understanding of building work. From the preparation, materials needed and the technique, she has obviously watched and listened to her dad, who is an expert. So, together we are continuing our project. Learning new things and doing it as a team.
But we won’t miss the opportunity to show our kids how to do it. At 18 I want them to be driving and starting building projects around the property even younger. It’s one of the reasons for the move. So that the kids could learn more about life and the skills required to survive. They’re already learning the Portuguese language at school, so having a second language is a tick in the box. Forest cleaning is another one, something that they will get very used to in order to stay safe from wild fires.
We are still in the early stages, but I think Lou and I are managing to show them that there’s life after Fortnite after all.
Preparing to repair the old wall of the property Repairing the area that will, for the time being, be my outdoor PT areaMe with the smallest paint roller in the world. (The bigger roller didn’t cover some of the dimples!)Finlay jet washing the wall
Despite an easier VISA process to live in Portugal from the UK there were many factors why Portugal began to be a very attractive country to live in.
There were hours and hours of research done by my wife and I to discover the cost of living, how good the education system was, we wanted to know more about the crime rates, the policing, the government structure and the tax system. We especially wanted to know what the quality of life could be expected for our young children. What is Portugal like to grow up in and to become young adults?
And yes, Rishi, we wanted to know if National Service existed in Portugal. It doesn’t. That was important to us. You see, my idea of a country expecting their young citizens to serve mandatory time in the armed forces strikes me as a country with a social problem often brought about by a lack of funding to those who need it the most and, crucially, who the wider society depends on. The youth. They are, after all, the ones who will be taking that particular country forward. Therefore we need to create well rounded young people with opportunities to develop.
Yes, the armed forces can get a great opportunity to learn many skills, but only if that person wishes to enrol in the first place.
So, after our conclusion that Portugal, albeit not perfect (which country is?!) gave us good vibes, we decided to move there.
One thing that caught my attention during my research was Portugal’s drug laws. Since 2001, drugs have been decriminalised. This includes cocaine and heroin. It was the first to do so in the EU. So although it is an offence to carry drugs it is not punishable by imprisonment, it does not result in a criminal record or lead to associated stigmas which may affect the ability to find work.
Instead, drug abusers are treated as patients instead of criminals. Those who remain clean from drug use are given incentives to reconnect with society. The government set up job creation schemes and loans for small businesses, directly intended for an individual to focus on getting their lives back on track and away from drug use.
Portugal had one of the highest number of drug related HIV cases in Europe prior to 2000. It has seen a reduction in new HIV cases by 17%.
Portugal’s drug related death toll is 3 people per million compared to the EU average of almost 18 per million people.
The street value of these illicit drugs massively decreased. Courts and prisons became less crowded. The number of adolescents using drugs declined. All because the government at the time decided to invest in tackling the problem.
A series of experiments were conducted in the early 20th century where they would put a rat in a cage with two water bottles. One was water and the other was water laced with heroin. Almost every rat would keep going back to the water laced with heroin where it would eventually overdose and die.
Then came along a professor in psychology, Bruce Alexander who noticed that, if the rat had nothing to do other than choose from these two bottles then maybe it is an unfair experiment. So he set up a Rat Park. As well as the two bottles, he introduced several rats into a cage so that they could play together, have sex and interact. He placed tunnels into the cages, food and climbing frames.
Professor Alexander
Professor Alexander noticed that the rats hardly ever went to the drugged water. It didn’t interest them. It went from 100% overdose when they were isolated and 0% when they had happy and connected lives.
What if addiction isn’t about our chemical hooks but instead about our cage?
If we can surround ourselves with a supportive network of people, be excited by a safe and happy future, eat well, exercise, laugh, love and play, then surely our cage is worth staying around for. And the need for turning to the drugged water is less attractive.
And I can say with some experience that it is only when I found a purpose to my life did I stop routinely taking cocaine, ecstasy and steroids.
Much like the rats in the Rat Park I found friendship, pathways, exercise and reasons to live. I also found Blair’s New Deal which got me off of my arse to learn a trade. I gained NVQ level 2 qualifications in bricklaying and construction for £50 a week. Not bad at the time.
Maybe if we change our cage, we can all find happiness. And with upcoming elections in the UK looming, its citizens have an opportunity to vote for who will help them find their cage.
When you want to begin a personal fitness journey it is a totally natural thought process to consider what the person next to you is doing.
For the past few months, you might have heard Janice in the office talk about how much weight she’s lost at Slimming World and, naturally, you become intrigued about what recipes she is using and you peek over her shoulder at lunch break to see what’s in her lunch box.
In the gym you notice that the guy who usually trains when you’re there has bulked up a bit and he is filling in his T with some decent looking pecs these days. You’re only on nodding terms so you don’t ask outright how he has managed it, but you keep glancing over to see what he is pushing on the bench press or see what protein shake he’s drinking.
It becomes a slight obsession. I’ve driven myself insane before by observing the Hulk Hogan of the gym bicep curl a couple of 8k dumbbells while I’m trying to squeeze out the 20k’s to look like him and I’ve seen a guy much slender than me deadlift 200k without breaking sweat.
That’s when it doesn’t become my race anymore. And, whilst running this race, in watching how everyone else is running I’m tripping up.
I begin to change my pace and my breathing technique. I’m not looking at my own path, instead I’m trying to keep up with somebody on their path. I am not running my own race.
It was a quote from a football manager that inspired me to write this article. Without boring those who do not follow the English Premier League, I will keep this background story short.
Ange Postecoglou is the manager of Spurs. He was employed by them to at least qualify for the Champions League this season. However, in the penultimate game of the season, a number of Spurs fans wanted to lose a game and celebrated once they had lost. This is because it meant that the winning team, Manchester City, could overtake Spurs’ bitter rival Arsenal to have a greater chance of winning the league, resulting in Arsenal missing out! City ended up as Champions, Arsenal came runners up and Spurs missed out on a Champions League place, meaning that they only qualify for the less attractive Europa League competition.
Postecoglou was pissed off as he saw pockets of supporters in the stadium celebrate their own team conceding goals. And he even eluded to Spurs staff members being desperate enough to see Spurs lose and Arsenal miss out on the title. How far down the chain did it go?! Did the players on the pitch really want to lose also?!
After the game an angry Postecoglou said,”…we have got to worry about ourselves. Don’t worry about anyone else. If you run your own race then when you get to the finish line, have a look around and see where you finish…. don’t be obsessed with what anyone else is doing…you want to stop another club winning the trophy? Then win it yourselves!”
As human beings we can often get distracted by ‘keeping up with the Jones’. With their neatly mowed lawn, new 4×4 that they take their exceptionally behaved children to school in and their exotic holidays that they go on a few times a year.
But maybe we’re not seeing the debts that they’re in, how Mr and Mrs Jones hardly speak to each other and how their son is about to get expelled from school for selling weed to his mates.
But people will rarely let you see that side to them. Do you think that Janice in the office will share her most vulnerable side on Facebook such as moments before a ‘weigh in’ or when she can’t enjoy a meal out with friends because it doesn’t fit in with her ‘points’ for the day?
And the Hulk Hogan of the gym wants to show Instagram his changing room flex after a workout, but he’ll never film himself injecting steroids or standing in front of the mirror feeling ‘bloated’.
My eldest boy, Jonas, is facing exams this year. He is understandably nervous about this but his teachers and my wife and I are telling him not to worry. It’s his first exams in Portugal and it will be in Portuguese. This in itself is a massive thing to overcome but also he didn’t face exams in England. Apart from a spelling test perhaps, this is his first experience of being graded on what he has learnt. His classmates are more advanced. Not only are most of them older, but their first language is Portuguese. He cannot allow himself to be compared to what they might achieve in their exam results. Jonas, simply, has to run his own race.
So ‘running your own race’ isn’t just something to remember when embarking on a fitness journey. It can be a good reminder of how to be in other aspects of our lives too. After all, it’s the difference between a glitzy Tuesday night at the Bernabeu or a drizzly Thursday night in Aberdeen.
I get time to think when I’m ‘cleaning’ the forest. The cleaning has to be done. Take away the building plots and we have around 19,000 square metres of pine forest. In Portugal this is a tinderbox. A thoroughly cleaned forest will limit the chance of any wildfire and this week with the weather a little cooler is the time to do it. We moved into the property in January so we have missed out on a full winter to clean and, as first timers to these shenanigans, we have felt the pressure.
My sleepless nights had me wondering if I should brush cut the whole land and then rake the loose wood, heather etc at the end, or should I brush cut a bit and then collect little piles from time to time. Should I rake the cut pieces into piles or collect lots of the forest onto a tarpaulin to drag roadside for the tractor to collect? Maybe I could use the cart to bundle as much forest into it and then wheel it to the roadside?
My first day with the brush cutter. All the gear, no idea.
Today my method was the tarp. And it got me thinking, is this the best method? I dunno, I didn’t have an answer. It just felt like today it was.
Today’s best method? The tarpaulin.
I’m not unfamiliar with that question. “What is the best method?”
It is one of the most frequently asked questions given to me as a Personal Trainer. The best method for weight loss, the best method for muscle build, the best method for a certain injury.
I have answers, but there isn’t a defining one answer to give for each question. It’s a little bit more complicated than that and that’s why a good PT needs to charge what they do. Anybody can shout at someone and tell them to give them 50 pushups or run 5 miles. But a good PT will not only find the right method for you, but will adapt each day to fit your own personal needs.
Forest clearing, as I’ve discovered, is quite the same.
The forest has a goal. It doesn’t want to set on fire. My aforementioned methods of forest cleaning are all relevant, but I must not allow myself to become bogged down by which one is the best way just yet. After all, I’ve just met the forest. It has some wide, open spaces but some areas are dense with pine trees and woodland. Some areas are flat, some tiered and some sloped. Other characteristics of the forest are rocky, wet, dry, microclimatic, tall trees, short trees, fallen trees, sensitive areas due to wildlife and coloured with beautiful wild flowers.
Every square metre must be dealt with differently depending on these above characteristics but also on the weather, my mood, time and how strong my back feels at the time (it’s very physically demanding and if I put my back out then the forest won’t get cleaned at all).
But to know of any kind of method at all it is important to point out that I asked questions. I asked locals who had experience in dealing with this sort of land. The forest has an important goal. If I pretended to be Billy Big Bollocks who thinks he knows it all, the forest wouldn’t reach its goals and that has serious consequences.
People that I have worked with in the gym all had goals that they wanted to reach. And, just like the forest, us humans have complexities that cannot be dealt with by a ‘one size fits all’ method. We must approach our goals with an open mind and experience a variety of emotions, movements and outcomes to know what is best for us and our individual goals.
So I am convinced that structuring our lives around a healthy lifestyle with gym/fitness goals actually enables us to make better decisions in other aspects of life such as decision making and planning.
And the forest has just given me an example of that within my own life.
A part of the forest from the AL rental accommodation
Never Give Up PT 