Building a Life Worth Living with Rory Buck Rory Buck

You don’t follow through 90% of the goals you set yourself. Doesn't that frustrate you? 

Do a dive into Goals and you'll find endless loops on SMART goals and systems and tips and hacks. 

You've tried them. 

So have I. 

Still hasn't guaranteed help my success percentages. 

But I realized something this week that has changed the way I see my goals.
It may even become how I start setting my goals. 

The way I see it, I can approach my life from two different directions: 

I can decide now what is and isn’t possible. Projecting my current abilities forward. With limited insight and ample preconditioned nurturing, I can decide what I am / am not capable of. 

And then spend the rest of my life finding evidence to prove myself right. 

Or I can accept that I don’t know what I'm capable of and may never know, but spend the rest of my life in the curious pursuit of finding out. 

I want to be curious.  But, it's not that easy. 

The arguments and evidence for a limited existence are justified, there’s plenty of valid, real life evidence to prove all of the ways I, we, all of us are inadequate and limited. 

My relationship with failure is complicated.

What is your relationship with failure?

It’s not l something you’re likely to sit down and think through.

But for one reason or another, I’ve spent a good deal of time on that exact question this week.

And my answer is; it’s complicated.

The upside of failing is undeniable. And yet I’ll openly admit I’m not exactly keen on running directly towards the next failure.

Here's how I'm working to reorient it. 

~ Rory

Two things I've learned in January 2023 I wish I'd learned 20 years ago. That's what I dig into this week. 

In a nutshell:
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1. I'm Never Going To Get EVERYTHING Done. Neither Are You. ⁣
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“The day will never arrive when you finally have everything under control. ⁣
⦿ When the flood of emails has been contained. ⁣
⦿ When your to-do lists have stopped getting longer. ⁣
⦿ When you’re meeting all your obligations at work and in your home life.⁣
⦿ When nobody’s angry with you for missing a deadline or dropping the ball. ⁣
Start by admitting defeat: none of this is ever going to happen.”⁣
- O. Burkeman.⁣
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2. You can still live a happy & content life despite not getting everything done by:⁣
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{a} Listing then ranking (in order) what’s most important to you. This allows grace & understanding when you “don’t have time” for something that falls lower on your priority list.⁣
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{b} Appreciate the the concept of “Enough”. Acknowledge that the incessant desire for more is not the path to happiness. It’s actually a path to discontentment.⁣
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Two simple lessons. ⁣
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Simple isn't Easy. ⁣
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It takes courage to rest when you know how to work.⁣
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And for a few years I’ve lacked that courage.⁣
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But in December 2022, I enjoyed a proper off season after 70.3 Tiberias. Without being forced into one. ⁣
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I knew how valuable it would be. But it still took a lot of courage.⁣
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Because I hate losing fitness. ⁣
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Equally, I don’t enjoy rebuilding momentum or routines after the time off.⁣
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Learning  to rest is critical to my long term success as an athlete. It’s  critical to anything that you want longevity & success in.⁣
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But as I learn to rest, I have to learn to rebuild momentum, in equal measure.⁣
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Rebuilding momentum is a necessary & complementary skill to resting.⁣
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The more strategic rest periods I build in, the more often I’ll have to build momentum when I come back again. ⁣
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The  better I get at building momentum, the less I will fear resting. And  the more comfortable I will be leaning into strategic breaks from work  & training.⁣
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The skills of rest and momentum complement each other. ⁣
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Develop both in equal measure. ⁣
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