Keagan’s World

I’ve been meaning to post this since like Sunday, but between Christmas with the family and the marathon I ran yesterday it’s been busy.

Yeah don’t worry we will get into the latter later today.

New Website Feature!

I added a countdown clock for my trip! It’s on the home page of the site so if you’re curious give it a look. Great idea Carolyn and Tim!

The meat and potatoes

Anyways, my alma mater high school hosted the first Alumni Hockey game this past Saturday right before Christmas. As many of you know, I played hockey for like 14 years growing up starting at the age of like 4.

What most people may not know is I haven’t played in any organized game since I graduated 4.5 years ago, and I’ve maybe touched a stick twice. So to say it has been awhile is an understatement. To make matters worse, someone at Byron Hockey (I’m looking at you Dad…) thought the event was worthwhile enough to tell people following team socials to come out for the game… If you were one of those people who fell for that, I’d say I’m sorry, but you probably deserve it for being that gullible.

When you’ve put your time, effort, and emotions into building yourself in some capacity, you get good at it. Simple. You look at where you started and where you got to, and you recognize how crazy that transformation is. You know when you’ve gotten good at something. Playing hockey for 14 years was one of those things.

But sometimes, you slip. You’re no longer what you used to be. Maybe you slacked off. Maybe life changed and you didn’t need to do it anymore. Maybe it was something else. But regression happens.

And it’s so hard to admit.

Especially when you put time into it. Especially when you know you were good.

Now you’re probably expecting the next part of this monologue to peel back to hockey. I’ll talk about how I expected to be great, hopped on the ice, sucked, struggled to believe I sucked, then eventually accepted that I sucked.

Nah.

I knew exactly how the alumni game was gonna go and here’s why:

1. I’ve been skating every weekend reffing so that wouldn’t be a problem
2. I already had stone hands when I used to play so that wouldn’t be new
3. I didn’t even have my own stick – I just found one in the garage an hour before leaving to share a couple beers with the guys ahead of the game
4. We all collectively knew we sucked

I knew I could skate just fine, but I may as well not even bring my stick on the ice because it was going to be a greater liability than it was a tool. That’s exactly how it went.

So maybe the game isn’t the greatest example. You may be asking “Why the heck did I just read all of that then?”. Well, (1) this blog is called Keagan’s World and I found it entertaining (2) you wouldn’t have that young stud photo of me above if I hadn’t (3) it’s what got me thinking about this idea of admitting personal regression.

An Anecdote on Admitting Personal Regression

Let’s talk about a more relevant experience with regression: fitness.

Working out is tough. Whether you’re trying to lose weight, gain weight, get more athletic, get stronger, get healthier. It’s a journey.

I had my first hardcore gym phase during the transition period of high school to college. And I mean HARDCORE. Like as in I was so dialed in on my healthy-bulk that it was unhealthy. What do I mean by that? I was lifting 6-7 days a week. I would deadlift, barbell squat, and leg press to failure on the same day. I was eating 4500 calories… and not gaining weight. Oh and those calories consisted of like 6+ meals every 3 hours containing one item from each of the following categories:

• Protein: Boiled chicken breast (10+ oz), 8 oz ground beef, 8 oz salmon, 5 eggs
• Carbs: 1 cup of brown rice, 2 slices of dry Ezekiel bread, 12 oz potatoes
• Extra: 1.5 cups of milk

_{*Naughty language was removed expressing my displeasure at getting up at 5:30am for college orientation*}

The kicker? I usually ate it cold. I knew it was bad when I’d wash the rice down like pills because I couldn’t swallow it otherwise.

Now that you have that lovely visual in your head, I eventually realized I hated what I was doing and stopped. But I like hard-stopped rather than dialed it back. Over the last 2-3 years of college I tried to get a consistent workout schedule going, but I always lost motivation quickly. I got a bit flabby and unhealthy in general. But with my gap year I kinda ran out of excuses to not go. So I started again.

Everyone knows that when you haven’t done something for a while you’re not gonna be the same. The problem was I didn’t realize just HOW far I’d fallen off. For the first couple months, I convinced myself I was able to do all these weights and volumes I just couldn’t. Every rep was a cheat rep. I convinced myself I was doing something.

Newsflash: I wasn’t

After two months, I had like zero progress. My weights weren’t getting better, the scale was stagnant, and I was irritated. I would give up on workouts early when things weren’t going my way and sometimes I just didn’t want to deal with the disappointment at all.

I can’t remember when I did it, but eventually I had the come-to-Jesus moment that I needed to start over from scratch. I had to treat it like I was a newbie again.

And that was so tough.

We always talk about how trying something new is hard. But admitting you need to act like you’re new to something that you were once good at is 10x harder. It’s even worse when others that know what you used to be able to do see you in your current state. Feels straight up humiliating.

Early on after starting from scratch, I’d run into old acquaintances in the gym and try hard not to make eye contact. I’d imagine them seeing at the numbers I was putting up and silently judging. Or in some extreme cases, going as far as to put the pin to a larger weight on the machine before moving on to my next exercise just in case someone was jumping on it right after me. Borderline psycho of me I think sometimes.

But no one gives a damn. It was all in my head. After all, that’s what the Spotlight Effect is all about.

When you think about it, it all comes down to ego. Thinking I could consistently throw around heavy weights again. Outsized ego. Quitting on workouts because they weren’t going how I wanted them to. Hurt outsized ego. Hiding from people I knew at the gym. Hurt fragile outsized ego.

Our ego holds us back in so many ways when not kept in check. It goes beyond just rubbing people the wrong way from acting like hot stuff. It hinders you from recognizing your flaws and having the maturity to better yourself. Yeah it’s gonna hurt when you admit to yourself you’re not where you expect, but you’re gonna be happier in the end. You’re going to become what you only thought you were when your ego was in the way (Check out my completely data-driven graph below. Also time is implied on the x-axis – definitely wasn’t just a lazy mistake by me).

But checking your ego doesn’t mean only focusing on your flaws!!!

I’m a huge fan of being confident in yourself. But you can be confident in yourself and still recognize where you can improve. When you’re honest with yourself, you can be proud of the progress you make because you know it’s real and you know where you started. Checking your ego and self-honesty actually enables you to be more confident because, let’s be real, when others check our unfounded bravado, we get defensive – deep down… we know the criticism it’s true.

—

Today, I’m, in some ways, in the best shape of my life. No, I can’t toss around weights at the levels I used to, but it’s better than it was two months ago. I’m more flexible, more functional, less stiff, and down 10 lbs. But, if I wasn’t honest with myself this summer I sure as hell wouldn’t be. And I’m proud of myself for that.

How does this apply to traveling? Well I took Spanish for 7 years. My goal is to leave South America fluent. But I haven’t taken a class in 4 years. I gotta realize I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. I gotta act like I’m new again. That way, I’m ready to actually learn and grow from Day One así que yo puedo volver a los Estados Unidos fluido en Español 😉

Don’t let yourself be the reason you’re not reaching your goals.

Choose temporary pain for long-term happiness.

I mean for the happiness of course. Not the pain.