This is my favorite tweet so far this year:
My dad died when I was 8. Every week a few of the dads on my hockey team would offer to tie my skates. Not in a big showy way, in a quiet kind way. They filled the gap. Find a way to fill the gap for someone. It’ll make you both better.
— Jonathan Torrens (@TorrensJonathan) March 16, 2021
I’ll explain, but first: How are you doing?
Feeling good? Or has it been one of those weeks? Or even months?
I have clients rate the previous week on their check in forms. Granted I’m coming from a diet/exercise perspective but there’s TONS of overlap.
If you have a lousy week on the work or home or even the weather front, odds are your diet and training are gonna feel it.
After all, everything is connected.
Now, the question is, how do you bring yourself back up?
The easiest (and most common) answer is, you don’t. You wallow like a human Eeyoore, Winnie the Pooh’s grey, gloomy, anhedonic, half-empty homie.
If that’s you well, that sucks. Hopefully you already have a Winnie-the- Pooh in your life cause it ain’t gonna be me. Lets just say I’d rather not go for tacos with you.
Next is you force it, either “faking it til you make it” or filling your head with hyper-positive propaganda and podcasts.
But if “awakening the giant within” doesn’t work, you can try the reality check method, aka counting your blessings.
This was always my thing and it certainly helped keep me grounded, but I came to realize a HUGE flaw:
You measure your problems against someone much worse off than you — which trivializes you & your problem and uses the other person in a really empty, selfish way.
You even give yourself a nice dose of guilt AND your problems are still there. Great job!
Now my favorite bad week remedy is the message conveyed in the tweet by @TorrensJonathan
Fill a gap.
Help someone who may not even realize they need help or who or how to ask.
Just not in a big over the top or “shareable” way. In a real way that matters.
Maybe you have a friend who needs a pick up or just someone solid in their life. That’s what I try to be.
Or maybe it’s something more actionable, like coaching or mentoring or just helping a young kid not blow out his back squatting for the first time.
Point is the best way to get out of a funk is to help someone else get out or stay out of one.
It doesn’t always work, of course, which is where professional help comes in.
But even when ineffective, it’s a far more productive, empathetic, and honest way of traveling.
Screw faking it. The world has enough of that shit already.
#Fillagap
– Bryan