The Easy Way to Get to the Gym Everyday in 2014

You want to get fit? Want to build up strength and endurance? So, you went and purchased a gym membership, with the new plastic membership card taking pride of place in your wallet. Well done!

Thing is, getting to the gym can be a bit of a process, can't it? It's cold/raining/hailing/blowing with gale force wind outside. You're hungry/tired/stressed/looking forward to watching your favourite television show. There are 1,001 things you could do rather than go to the gym.

The buyer's remorse sets in. You've signed away £40/£50/£80 a month for the next year on that gym membership. If you don't use it, you're wasting resources. You won't get strong. Most importantly, you won't be caring for yourself in the way you intended.

But you're in luck! I have learned the secret to getting yourself to the gym every day. What's more, it's easy! You will wake up in the morning looking forward to getting to the gym. The weather won't matter. What's on TV won't matter. You'll find yourself thinking about the reasons to go rather than the excuses not to go.

The best part - I will share my method with you completely for free.

The easy way to get to the gym every day in 2014 is to have a shower like this in your home:

Enter the shower

First, you need to build it where there is no heating, and with single pane windows that face directly onto a wide open surface. There should be nothing between the outside and the glass to break the wind.

The tanks... basically glorified pressure washers

Then, have no running water. Don't plumb that shower in! Instead, make it a process, where you need to boil up hot water to fill the tanks. Once full, you need to pump them to build up enough pressure.

The 'shower head'

Finally, use no fancy shower head attachments. A large aquarium cleaner head will do!

Once you have constructed your shower, the gym instantly becomes a magical place. There's hot running water you can use, hands free. There's central heating, meaning that you don't risk pneumonia every time you wash and then stand in a freezing room soaked from head to toe. And the shower can last for more than 4 minutes!

Using the easy way to get to the gym everyday in 2014, I've already gone everyday since December 1st, with the exception of Christmas Day and Boxing Day (when I got just a little bit ripe). That's all there is to it.

You'll find that going to the gym becomes as much a part of your day as taking a shower.

My Minimalist Birthday

I've been trying to write all weekend. My mind has been bursting full of ideas - generating stubs and threads and interesting points of discussion.

These will follow as proper posts before long. But to clear the block and to clear my mind, I first need to give a voice to the weekend just gone.

My birthday was yesterday. December 22nd is a funny day - everyone has Christmas on the brain. Everyone is strapped for cash and for time.

I used to take quite a materialist, scarcity-based view of this day. More stuff going on in the lives of others meant less time for me. Fewer gifts for me, I thought, meant less love. My birthday often made me feel empty and uncared for, forgotten in the hubbub of the Christmas season.

This year, I travelled to Brussels, where a small group of some of the most interesting, beautiful, and achingly cool people I know live. I went into it with the aim of enjoying this company. And, if it all went tits up, there was always the best beer in the world as a back up plan.

How did it go?

I swam. I went to an improv battle in French, and understood most of it. I went to an underground club and danced with abandon to Belgian 80s classics. I stayed up all hours discussing life and programming languages. I met a friend from my high school exchange year in Finland. I drank mulled wine in a Christmas market. I felt like the richest person alive, all for less than 50 Euros.

The time we choose to share with others is our most profound and valuable gift. A few hours snatched out of the day to tell our stories, a message sent from half way around the world, the enthusiastic sharing of our normal lives - this is what actually matters.

Celebrating others has nothing to do with things or organized get-togethers. There was no formal party. No sitting in a circle receiving gifts. No obligation or pressure on anyone to show face. Instead, those that chose to spend time with me in this place were showing that they were happy that I was born because they are happy to be with me now.

As Christmas nears, the best thing any of us can do to show our love for others is to spend time rather than money, and to do this often throughout the year.

Who can you reach out to right now that you care for?

3 Simple Ways to Care for Yourself

When you are setting your priorities in life, how do you make sure to look after yourself everyday?

Blogger Minimal Student writes a thought provoking piece on persistence, a lesson she learned over time through running. It is an excellent article, but perhaps the most profound snippet is found toward the end:

I had neglected my body for years, but now it was one of my highest priorities. Being healthier became a part of my daily life, rather than something I begrudgingly tried to fit into it.

Why is caring for ourselves something that we try to 'fit in' around everything else?

We see around us global epidemics brought about by poor lifestyle. Obesity is outwardly visible, and stress, anxiety, and depression are hidden. Both are precursors to more serious conditions, like cardiovascular disease, hypertension, and stroke, among others.

These epidemics have their roots in a failure to prioritize self, in favour of prioritizing the external. I understand why this happens - if we aren't deliberately focusing on our well being, it is easy to get distracted by the life going on all around us, rather than the life we are living.

So what can we do about it? Here are 3 simple ways to start caring for yourself today:

1. See caring for yourself as a part of your day. If you conceive of self care as naturally as waking up, getting dressed, or brushing your teeth, you will do it. Adopt the mantra - Taking care of my self is part of my day, not something that I squeeze in. 
2. Do it for yourself. Don't lose weight for your partner. Don't stop smoking for your kids. Don't start eating healthy to be on trend. Do these things for you. Know that you are doing them for you, as a way to show yourself love. Don't share that gift with anyone else. When you regularly care for yourself, you will be a better partner, parent, and friend just by being yourself. 
3. Stop rushing and start planning. By now, it's clear that self care is pretty damned important. What do we do for important things? We plan. Take time today to plan for self care tomorrow. Pack your running gear tonight. Make a shopping list for the ingredients that you need to pick up tomorrow. If you go into self care in a rush, you will carry that negative feeling of rush and stress with you.

These 3 simple ways to care for yourself can be applied to anything you would like to do to show yourself care - it's the same whether you are looking to take exercise as much as if you are wanting to meditate. 

Do those things every day that will help you to be the best you. You owe it to yourself.