These are the facts.
The more one lifts, the better one becomes at shifting increasingly heavy weights. The more one runs, however slowly at first, the better one becomes at covering great distances in shorter intervals of time. More stretching will, invariably, lead to flexibility. Exercising vigilance over one’s eating habits yields a healthier dietary intake. Dedication to one’s training program, despite temporary setbacks like illness, boredom, or plateauing, yields a quicker route to breaking through a training ceiling and pushing onwards to new milestones.
The more disciplined one is, the easier it becomes to cultivate beneficial habits. The more rigorously one applies their energy to a given task, the easier it becomes to execute similar or more challenging tasks with the minimum of distraction. The more complaining one does, the more ingrained and second-nature the grumbling becomes. The more one tries, the better one becomes at persevering—cynicism begets pessimism. The more one stops, the better one becomes at quitting. The more generosity one practices, the more kindness one encounters—and the more hope one cultivates.
There can be no strength without first braving weakness; there is no endurance without first encountering fatigue. Focus cannot grow in the absence of temperance—an iron will is hammered into existence a bit at a time, one day at a time.
There are no morning people, only those who have steeled themselves to face whatever each new day holds. Quick fixes, shortcuts, hacks, cheat codes—all of these are, in the long run, detours that lengthen the duration of any project or journey.
Fitness, like any other skill, is earned. Fitness practitioners, like any other craftspeople, must learn their trade. No one is born, everyone is made and remade. Slowly. Eventually.
That which is done most becomes that which is done best.
Rémy Ngamije is an award-winning Rwandan-born Namibian author, editor, publisher, photographer, literary educator, and entrepreneur. He is the founder of The Forge.