What Bodybuilding Teaches you about Success in Life

 

Bodybuilding is not just a leisure activity. To an outsider,bodybuilding may be just about lifting weights and getting big.But,there’s much more to bodybuilding.Bodybuilding can teach you, how to be successful in life.

A person is struggling with depression/drug abuse.Life has pushed him to rock bottom.He is finding it tough to cope with life.Then he stumbles onto bodybuilding.Slowly he builds himself back again.First,he starts succeeding in bodybuilding,gaining muscles.Soon you find the same person kicking ass in life.

We have all stumbled onto such success stories.What’s it about bodybuilding that transforms peoples lives?

Bodybuilding has an enormous power to transform a person,both physically and spiritually.Once you succeed as a bodybuilder,you just have to apply the bodybuilding lessons in life,to succeed.

Here are the 7 lessons that will help you succeed in bodybuilding and in life :

 

1. To succeed you have to be willing, to pay the price each day : 

 

Success in bodybuilding requires you to be regular in your training.If you want to achieve your goals in bodybuilding,you have to be consistent with your diet. No matter how are you feeling on that particular day,you have to train with intensity ,eat the food you are supposed to eat.

In order to be successful in life,you must make sustained efforts to reach your goals. You have to be willing to pay the price each day to succeed.If you want to succeed in life,you have to put in consistent hard work. You have to leave behind the people who hold you back.You have to feed your mind with the right thoughts,daily

Don’t quite feel up to the mark today ?No problem,put your head down and work.Focus on completing the first set of your exercise.Focus on just writing the first 100 words of the article.First you act and then inspiration follows!

Success is all about discipline!

    “We don’t have to be smarter than the rest. We have to be more disciplined than the rest.”-Warren Buffet

 

2. With Team Work you can achieve a lot more : 

 

Bodybuilding is considered a solitary endeavor. All exercises you have to perform yourself. But having a training partner can help you immensely. A training partner can help you stay motivated,improve your performance.

By training with a partner you can challenge each other. A well chosen training partner can push you, beyond your comfort zone. A good training partner can motivate you on days when you don’t feel up to the mark.A good training partner can help spot your imperfect form.Thus, by working out as a team,you can boost each others results.

In life,if you really want to be a high achiever,you have to have a good team with you.All those who are successful in life have a solid group of people around them. A good team may consists of the following elements: A supportive family,a group of friends that motivate you to be better,a team of work associates that complement your skills.

“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” – Helen Keller

3. You set your own limits :

 

Consider a situation where you are running on the treadmill.Breezing through your cardio,and then you decide to have a glance at the timer.Soon,you start panting ,your feet start feeling heavy.Why is that so ?

This is because, earlier you had not set any limits to yourself. Since the mind didn’t conceive of it’s limits,your body didn’t knew about it either.Mind fails before the body does.

In college ,we all have been in situations where we found an assignment too hard to tackle.A subject too tough to understand. We keep on delaying it, till the time we can’t delay it any further . Once we decide to take the plunge,the task starts feeling doable. The subject which once sounded Greek , starts to appear as comprehensible.

In bodybuilding and in life,you set your own limits. That’s why it’s so important to have big goals.There’s no limit to what you can achieve,if you are able to convince your mind that the goal is achievable.

“Think little goals and expect little achievements. Think big goals and win big success.”-David Schwartz

Want to kill each workout session of yours ?  We describe the process in detail here, How to be a beast in gym .

 

4. Learning to be patient pays off :

 

One thing that bodybuilding teaches you is patience. If you talk to any successful bodybuilder and ask him about his biggest secret,he would probably say “patience”. So many people fail to achieve their bodybuilding goals because of lack of patience.

People enthusiastically start exercising and eating the “perfect diet”. However, soon they find that the road is tougher than they expected .On seeing that their body isn’t responding to the workout as expected,they lose heart and quit.They start blaming their genes,lack of steroids for their stunted muscle growth.  They forget that “Rome wasn’t built in a day”.

In life,the difference between winning and losing is perseverance. Those who have mastered their art those, who have been successful in life,have done it through years of sustained effort in mastering their trade .

A man once interrupted Picasso at his evening meal. Pulling a napkin from his pocket, the man said,

“Could you sketch something for me? I’ll pay you for it. Name your price.”

Picasso took a charcoal pencil from his pocket made a rapid sketch of a goat. It took only a few strokes, yet was unmistakably a Picasso. The man reached out for the napkin, but Picasso did not hand it over. “You owe me $100,000,” he said.

The man was outraged. “$100,000? Why? That took you no more than 30 seconds to draw!”

Picasso crumpled up the napkin and stuffed it into his jacket pocket. “You are wrong,” he said, dismissing the man. “It took me 40 years.”

The angry man’s mistake was missing the invisible.Overnight success is a myth.

A study says that it takes 10,000 hours of work to master your art. Think about it,10,000 hours spent in the gym, in the soccer field, or programming a computer,makes you succeed in your respective field. Persisting during  moments of self-doubt and heart breaks,is what makes you successful.

 

5. A bigger target is achieved by aiming at smaller sub targets :

 

One of the biggest problem we writers face is, drawing a blank when you sit to write. The humongous task of writing an original article transpires into, you developing cold feet.

However,bodybuilding teaches you how to conquer seemingly overwhelming tasks. During your bodybuilding journey,there are numerous days when you don’t feel like going to the gym. There are exercises ,which you don’t want to do because you feel exhausted, but they need to be done! So how do you tackle them ?

You tackle such insurmountable tasks by going ‘one set at a time,one rep at a time,one breath at a time‘ .By breaking the bigger targets into smaller sub-targets ,we reduce the complexity of the task at hand.

That’s how tough exercises are conquered.That’s how seemingly impossible goals are achieved!

 

6. Success is a journey and not a destination : 

 

There are no certainties in life. You may or may not reach the goal you intended to reach. Goal setting is important,make no mistake about it. Having a definite goal, helps us get up from bed each morning. Having a goal helps us to stay focused .

On the pathway that leads you towards your goal ,you will face numerous setbacks. You will have to take detours. You will be tested over and over again during your journey.

Everybody who steps into the gym ,dreams of  becoming as agile as Bruce Lee, have a body like Arnold Schwarzenegger or be as big as Ronnie Coleman,someday.

It takes thousand of hours of hard work to reach the level of these masters. However,after putting a lot of hard work you may find that your bone structure would never allow you to look like Arnold , or an occurrence of a serious injury makes you unable to lift heavy weights again.

Bodybuilding teaches you that it is important to have big goals but its equally important to celebrate the smaller conquests on the way.

Set a new personal best ? Celebrate! Your arms grew by half an inch ? Rejoice ! Lost half a kg ? Congratulate yourself !

 

7. Sacrifices are necessary,but worth it! :

 

One thing a bodybuilder knows so much about is: Sacrifices.

Choosing to sweat it out in the gym when his friends are partying.  Sacrificing his favorite desserts to get that shredded look. Choosing bland but nutritious food over fast food.

But when you ask him,what would he choose:the respect and recognition he commands due to his looks or the life of any regular Joe,he’d happily chose the former.

Success in life demands nothing but the best from you. It means sacrificing your weekends to work on your business,it means sacrificing the old relationships that hold you back ,it means choosing to read a book over watching television .

“Success awaits those who steadfastly commit to any requisite sacrifice”
― Ken Poirot

Success is hard. If it was easy,everyone would have achieved it. But guess what,when you will look back at your journey,you will find your sacrifices worth it.You will revel at, how the journey helped you evolve as a person,physically,mentally and spiritually!

Want to start working out,but don’t know where to begin with ? Take a look at 5 Bodybuilding Tips for Beginners .

 

How has bodybuilding helped you transform your life ? Please let me know in the comments below,Cheers !