A flywheel is a heavy, spinning wheel that gives a machine greater stability and reserved momentum. It can keep things running smoothly when you hit a bump or the power falters.
Sleep, diet, and exercise are your body’s flywheel. By neglecting any of the three, you rob yourself and others (primarily those closest to you) of your fullest being. Of what you’re capable of becoming.
Like any flywheel, it can be difficult to get things moving. You’ll fight yourself constantly. You’ll conjure spectacular excuses. You’ll fuck up, fall off track, restart, stumble, start again. This is normal. Spinning the flywheel often demands showing up when it’s inconvenient, uncomfortable, messy, and exhausting. The magic isn’t in doing it perfectly, but in sensing when the flywheel is wobbling and choosing to pay in.
- Sleep is a sanctum. If you find a routine that works, protect it. Believe that a great night of sleep (or even your best attempt) can reset your brain. Know that intentional sleep debt compounds worse than credit card debt.
- Diet is impossibly personal. Eat clean and not too much. Avoid stuff that has been prechewed, predigested (sapped of nutrients), or otherwise processed, especially to improve palatability, shelf life, or appearance. Eat excessively or recklessly only if it will help you savor a moment in life. That hole-in-the-wall pizzeria, your friend’s admirable first attempt at frying chicken, a slice of someone’s birthday cake.
Exercise is the closest thing we have to a panacea. Nothing else offers such a spectrum of physical and mental goodness in such a concentrated package. It can improve your health, energy, appearance, emotional stability, resilience, discipline, self-esteem, and more. It’s a way to overcome limits and prove you can do increasingly hard things.
Prioritizing these three aspects of life will teach you that self-accountability is the root of self-respect. It’s a tangible way to pay love and trust forward to yourself. And you deserve that.
“Everybody wanna be a bodybuilder. Don’t nobody wanna lift this heavy ass weight… I do it though!”
~Ronnie Coleman, Bodybuilder
“Ain’t nuttin’ but a peanut!”
~Also Ronnie Coleman
