How Introducing Challenge Gives Your Life Purpose
Seek Out Challenge Rather Than Safe Spaces
“Only those who risk going too far can find out how far they can go.”
- T.S. Eliot
This weekend I ran another Spartan Race in the mountains of North Carolina. 7 miles in 90 degree heat, 29 obstacles and a shocking amount of hills to scale. I’ve become addicted to these races.
My adult life has been missing something competitive and challenging. As a kid, I faced challenge and competition through football, track, and basketball. Since graduating, I have found all sorts of hobbies, but nothing fit the bill. Recreational softball leagues weren’t competitive or challenging enough.
Finding Purpose Through Challenge
Staying in shape was always a struggle. Finding the motivation to push myself in my workouts was always difficult. I wanted to work out to look good. But I didn’t have a real reason to push myself and test my limits.
But then one day, I discovered Spartan Races. A friend invited me to train with him and run a Spartan Race. We had 6 months to prepare. I was overweight, “not a runner” and my diet was mediocre. These races have 20+ obstacles in them and I feared being able to complete most of them. Climbing a rope and crossing the monkey bars felt impossible at the time.
For 6 months I trained with the discipline of a professional athlete. My friend helped keep me accountable. I was in the gym 3 times a week. Running as much as I could stomach on the weekends. I cut beer and sugar down to a minimum. Every day, I made sure I was getting my steps in. Even on my off days, I would make sure I was walking around enough.
Most men lack motivation in their lives. Men lack purpose. Spartan Races can give you both.
When you have a race on the calendar, suddenly you’re skipping that night out at the bar. When you feel like snacking on that junk food, you remember how hard it is to hang from the monkey bars. When you want to skip the gym today, you go anyway, because you want to be at peak performance for your race. Scheduling a race is a complete gamechanger for your workouts.
“If the monotony of our days has become a practice of our futility, it is a good sign we need to take measures to introduce novelty into our life.”
- Friedrich Hölderlin
For years, man ran outside, overcame natural obstacles, and conquered the elements. Today, the average man struggles to walk up a few flights of stairs. We are meant for more than what modern life demands. Our bodies crave activity. Our minds crave challenge. Our soul demands purpose. Men everywhere are desperately searching for a better way to live.
You weren’t meant to spend all day stuck inside. If you work under fluorescent lights all day and come home to play video games or watch Netflix, you’re going to be miserable. Outdoor exercise is a natural antidepressant. The sunshine increases serotonin, a hormone that affects your mood. And exercise produces endorphins which boost your mood and reduce pain.
Even going to a gym can leave you wanting more. When you’re working out in the outdoors, it feels more like play and less like a traditional workout.
This change was the catalyst that helped me go from Doomer to Bloomer. When I started going on morning walks, weekend bike rides and ultimately running outdoors, my workouts became consistent. Instead of feeling like a struggle, my workouts began to feel like play. I looked forward to them. And on days when the weather was nice, I’d be itching to get outside to go on a run.
Embracing Discomfort
Spartan Races and exercising outdoors requires you to challenge yourself. The elements are always changing. In a gym, it’s always 72 degrees with no elevation. Outdoors the temps can range from freezing to burning up. It might be windy that day. The terrain will provide interesting challenges. Where the gym is sterile and safe, the outdoors is exciting and constantly changing.
Most seek comfort, even in their workouts. Tell me if this makes sense to you. You get in your air-conditioned car and drive to the gym. You pop in headphones while running on a perfectly flat treadmill. And you think this is the key to becoming tougher, stronger, faster, and harder to kill?
Your ancestors ran in the woods. They sprinted up hills. Lifted heavy quarters of meat and carried them for many miles. If you want to be harder, better, faster, stronger, then you’ll need to embrace discomfort.
You need to push yourself and risk going too far if you want to break your limits.
If you’re ready for a real change, then you need to change your workout strategy. Stop saying you’re going to start working out, start going to the gym or lose weight. Start saying you’re going to run a Spartan Race, a 5K or even a Marathon. Find a race and schedule it. Put it on your calendar. And instead of working out in the gym, begin training outdoors.
“If it doesn’t challenge you, it doesn’t change you.”
- Fred DeVito
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Why We Run
We don't run to lose weight. We don’t run just to work out. Sure, those are benefits, but they’re not the reasons we lace up our shoes and hit the pavement or the trail day after day. Running transcends fitness goals and calorie counts. It’s not about shaving seconds off your mile time or staying in shape—though we all want those things, too. Running is about something deeper, something that goes beyond the physical.