When Going with the Flow Ends Up in the Ditch

Top of the Annum, to one and all!

We deliberately stayed out of your inbox over the New Year/New You barrage (which at this late date, also includes the anti-New Year's marketers telling you exactly why resolutions don't work–and what to do instead, plus the Power of Atomic Habits folks suggesting that actually, they do work, if you only follow these BF Skinner behavior hacks like putting your barefoot running shoes beside the bed).

But really, that's not what we're here to talk about today.

What's to follow is one Ebenezer Scrooge–like confession.

Plus a couple of real life observations that might click for you.

Ending with an invitation to do something about all of 'em.

12 Days of Christmas 🎄

The most unpleasant and valuable thing I've experienced in ages happened over the holidays. It more or less began on the Solstice, and had pretty much wrapped up by New Year's Day. But it absolutely sucked in between.

(BTW, for those creating or reviving family holiday traditions, I'd highly recommend shifting your Twelve Days of Christmas back a week. The traditional dozen begin on Boxing Day (26th) and end on the Epiphany on the night of January 5th/6th (when the wise men finally post up at the manger. That's the "Twelfth Night" that Shakespeare was on about).

But if you kickoff instead on the Solstice on the 21st, not only do you get to indulge your inner tree-huggin' dirt worshipper and burn a Yule log on the darkest night of the year, but you also extend the anticipation for Christmas morning so it doesn't come and go in such a flash of sugar, tears and wrapping paper.

Thus adjusted, your Twelfth Night becomes New Year's Eve, and you get to kick off the new calendar feeling fresh and complete instead of facing back to school and work with a bunch of leftover holy-days to sweep under the rug.

Back to my scary visitation...

Not sure what invoked the Ghost of Blissmas Present, probably a lingering bout of RSV, a general softening of fitness and spark, the utterly dismissive tone of uppity college kids coming home for the holidays, and some startling successes by peers who had done more in the past twelve months than I had knocked out in the last twenty four...

All conspired to leave me wondering "WTF fog have I been in for the past three years??? It's feeling like a slippery slope to the grave from here and I am level-headed damned if I'm going gently into that dark night!"

I felt like I was coming out of a coma.

It wasn't so much that I was Ebenezer Scrooge, forced to reckon with his rat-bastard ways. It was more like Ebenezer Groove forced to examine my relationship to Flow states, to what makes me come alive, and where I might've lost the plot.

Because here's the thing: when the Ghost of Blissmas Past showed me my life over the past few years, the highlight reel absolutely kills.

Surf trips to Costa Rica and the Surf Ranch. Kiting in Baja. Heli-skiing in Alaska. Adventure courses in the Utah canyons. Giving talks on the Aegean Sea with heroes and exploring ancient ruins. Hosting Glamping Summer Camps in the mountains of Aspen. Live music with dear friends. Desert festivals. Epic times. Real and meaningful work, free and fearless play. (if we posted our personal life on social media, this is what we would be expected to showcase, but we don't because it's our actual life, not virtual content. And we'd like to keep it that way).

If I stopped there with the highlight reel, I could've reassured myself that all was still going #bestlife swimmingly. That maybe I was just a little hangry and should go easier on myself.

Except the Ghost wouldn't let up on me that easily.

Instead I was forced to review my life in between all those peak experiences. 

Gear bags and backpacks left half unpacked in the shed. Mornings spent reading news articles that stretched from 30 minutes over a coffee into two or three hours of increasingly less-focused browsing. Workouts delayed and then postponed and then forgotten in the crush of the day. 

Toasted Ciabatta with salted butter and German spun honey (crumpets and English muffins have nothing on this) instead of a super green smoothie. More time scanning articles instead of reading (or writing) books.

Or spending time with my partner, or making music or art. 

You get the picture.

After spending time with the Ghost of Blissmas Past and Present, I couldn’t miss the pattern. The single weak link that had allowed the rest of my life to come undone.

It was Recovery.

In the stark raving shitshow of the past several years, in the recurring cases of viruses, and mid to long-haul recoveries, of uncertain plans and unhinged friends, of grief and death and loss, of climate weirdness and culture wars, my pilot light had pretty much gone out.

I kept waiting for it to come back on its own. It always has. In fact, that's literally the original insight we founded FGP upon. "I am a lazy bastard when it comes to Stairmasters and Fitbits, but put me on skis or a bike and I will bust ass to see the summit at sunrise. Let’s harness that, and help others do the same.”

That's what's known as autotelic drive which basically means "so compelling we do it for the sheer joy of it." No oughts and shoulds. No calendar reminders. No accountability partners. Just the love of life, play, exploration and novelty fueling our lives and filling our days.

Long after vanity, guilt and grit wear out (and they always do), Flow remains a bubbling spring of inspiration.

The Only Real Way to Grow 🌱

But like I said, my pilot light had plumb gone out.

As I waited for my spark to return I kept telling myself "huh, guess today's just not yet the day either, old friend. Maybe tomorrow. Definitely tomorrow."

Except as many of you will guess, tomorrow was a long ass time in coming.

In fact, had I not been slapped with the inescapable realities of my own sagging scoreboard, I'm not sure it ever would have.

We are remarkably efficient creatures, humans. And despite all of our glad handing and cheerleading about personal growth, we avoid it at all costs.

In fact, there's really only two drivers that ever motivate us to grow. Excruciating pain, or a compelling goal.

Really, they're the same. A compelling goal that you just can't let go of no matter how much you try, becomes excruciatingly painful if left unmet. So really, it's a matter of degree. And timing.

We only grow to avoid pain.

Because I've been blessed with an unusually high autotelic drive my whole life, I had underdeveloped my love of structure and accountability.

Kind of like a tennis player who has such a booming serve, they never develop a backhand.  Probably something to do with rebellion from a starchy British military upbringing, ladled with oughts, shoulds and "what one does". Regardless, I was a bit of an anti-authoritarian "you're not the boss of me" type.

I really should've figured that shit out earlier, as we now have two exceptionally feisty children with the same MO. Can't get them to do anything their dear old ma and pa suggest, even if we're occasionally right!

Sure, in our FGP programs and trainings we share all sorts of helpful steps and structures for folks to apply to their own lives. But they're reverse engineered to systematize a route up the mountain that was initially much more fluid and exploratory.

That's the instructor/mountain guide in me, sharing detailed route beta to be helpful. It's less true when I go on walkabouts on my own.

But looking forward, with the Ghost of Blissmas Future, I think there's a pretty solid route that's going to work for me, and hopefully for anyone else who's looking to shake off the cobwebs of the past few years and double down on what matters.

With joy and curiosity. Without guilt, grit or vanity.

To that end, we've revisited and revised our Daily Power Hour planning (the 60 minutes a day we dedicate to rocking the rest) and our Hedonic Calendar (how to map daily, weekly, seasonal and annual practices to optimize for growth, stoke and novelty without getting hooked on the highs).

This is what we've been fine tuning for the past month and what we're committed to as the foundation for our new courses this coming year. We've taken the #DotheObvious stuff (like sleeping deeply, moving often, eating cleanly, getting outside, making love, being grateful, grieving fully) and turned them into super detailed, simple and sticky protocols.

We refuse to teach stuff that we don't do ourselves, (like sitting meditation or Olympic powerlifting, or Zumba). So this is a list of stuff that hits that sweet spot for someone seeking to live a Flow-filled life, who's suspicious of excessive #grind culture, but also craving a level up that their current habits might not deliver.

Going with the Flow can end in the ditch, just as often as it leads us to the peaks.  Gravity and entropy beckon.

The solution? Split the difference. Keep it tight, but loose. Find the intersection of discipline and surrender. And live into a life you love, one deliberate step at a time.

Because at heart, we at FGP are Stoic Taoists.

That means "go with the Flow" wherever you can. And dig like a sumbitch when you must.

Map Your Year, Rock Your Life 📆

If you'd like to hop on this train, you're welcome to join us for a Hedonic Calendaring workshop Thursday, January 19th at 12pm PST / 3pm EST. 

It's free for anyone in this community and you're welcome to bring along a friend (especially if you want a training buddy this year). We're going to share a whole bunch of new stuff on nailing our daily and weekly routines.

Like:

• How to live like a Purist six days a week and a Hedonist one day a week 

• The tips and tricks to integrate substances without cravings

• Why time isn't linear and how to prioritize your Magic Hours

• Sleep, screens, attention management, and all the rest.

Plus, how to set thrillingly ambitious Bucket List goals for your annual challenge that have no greater than a 50% chance of success. And committing to periods of abstinence that allow you to Send It the rest of the time.

–> Confirm Your Spot for the Hedonic Calendaring Workshop

In this day and age, we are drowning in information. There are more factoids per hour on the podcast and social media circuits than we know what to do with. 

But we're still starving for transformation. Actual durable change.

After the dust dies down, we're left huffing and puffing on our breathwork app, jiggering and rejiggering our supplement stacks, flitting from cold plunges to hot saunas to luke-warm relationships. 

And we're still craving the simple and obvious:

How do I become what's in me to be?

That's the jam, this is the invitation.

God bless us, (and make it fun,) everyone.

Jamie

P.S. And for anyone that this story of end of year redemption resonated for, here’s the After Action Review/Fearless Inventory that came from it. We just did a deep dive with our FGP coaches and Guide Cert trainees, and it was a ton of fun. Feel free to grab a friend or spouse and sit down to review, “how did we do? What might we do even better?” 

Score 1-5. 

• 1: “I totally fell off the wagon”

• 3: “Same as it ever was”

• 5: “Absolutely nailed it, lifetime best”