#54 Everyone Messes Up

You want it.  You don't just kind of want it, right?  But maybe you're just having a hard time staying on track.  Listen, it happens to everybody.  That's why you have to get these things in place.  That's why you have a system of checks and balances.  That's why you have to have guidelines to follow, because everyone's going to slip up.

Short Term Memory

If you listen to me, you do the lunges.  You make sure you eat the way you're supposed to.  There's not going to be such a hard fall off to where you can't recover.   

You also have to have a short memory.  I tell my kid, who’s a pitcher all the time, “Bro, if someone knocks one out of the park or you mess up a pitch, you have to have a short memory.  You have to have a short memory because beating yourself up just doesn’t work.”  A lot of people do just that.

Think about someone eating something that they weren’t supposed to eat.  I cheated?  Whole day's off.  Fuck it.  We all can identify with this one, right?  You’re at an event with your homies or a family function, and you screw up.  You may think to yourself “You know what? The whole fucking day is fucked up.  I'm just going to eat everything."  Well, they eat everything, all bets off.  Then it takes you a week to climb back into it.  

Brush It Off

This is why it’s imperative to keep a short-term memory.  No big deal, brush it off, and keep it rolling.  Everybody messes up.  I've had streaks of time where I just couldn't get it together.  Messing up Wednesday, out to eat somewhere Thursday, cheated big on Saturday, and had one drink on Sunday.  You get back to Monday thinking, “Fuck, can I just get it together?”

Why?

Why don't I want to get it together?  What isn't right for me right now?  Do you have something on the calendar coming up that will help drive you?  Do you have a vacation in a few months?  Do you have a competition?  What is holding you back?

One time I did a bodybuilding show a long time ago, and I was still eating the six times a day, doing 45 minutes of cardio, fasted every morning before lifting, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.  I had done a bodybuilding show, but I also hosted a show.  When I hosted bodybuilding shows, we had a concession stand.  Well, I had bought all these Snickers bars because a lot of bodybuilders want to eat some sort of chocolate.

I didn’t end up selling about three boxes of Snickers, so I took them to my gym.  They began talking to me because I knew they were there, right?  At this point I was damn near about to chew off my arm between meals.  I didn’t have a system set up at all.  I would keep going in there and be like, “Yeah, I’ll just eat one here or there.”  Before you know it, I had downed three or four Snickers bars.  Within 10 days, I looked so much softer and was so fucking pissed at myself.

Be Smart

Why I didn’t throw them away or give them away, I have no clue.  Look, the reason why I don't eat cashews on Anabolic Fasting is because I'll eat the whole bag.  I know that about myself.  So, sometimes you have to keep yourself from yourself.  

I try to keep myself out of the situations with certain foods that I can't police.  If I know I really need to not cheat on a Sunday, I'm probably not going to go to my favorite restaurant where it has the rolls I can never not eat.  You see what I'm saying?  Take yourself out of the situation.  When you do screw up, don’t go overboard and backtrack two weeks.  Don’t binge and cancel your gains you made.  Move onto the next meal as if nothing happened.  Have a short-term memory.

It Happens

Everybody slips up.  Prepare yourself, establish a system, and keep out of difficult situations.  When you mess up, don’t go off the deep end.  Take it for what it is, climb back on the tracks, and get back to your plan.  We’re all human and we’re all going to mess up, but the key is to not let it go completely and beat yourself up.