Have you ever heard that old saying about not being able to see the forest for the trees?  (Or is it the trees for the forest?  Either way…)

Sure you have.  We all have.  But have you actually experienced it?

I have.  And when you do…if you’re smart…it changes your life.  My first one did mine.  And I’ve actually had it happen a time or two since then.

I call it my “WTF Catharsis”.

Dictionary.com defines catharsis as “the purging of the emotions or relieving of emotional tensions”.  Or in other words, it’s when you finally just let shit go.  Personally, I’ve always found it to happen most often when I’ve come to a realization of some sort.  You know – say you’re stuck trying to find the solution to a problem, and when you’re engaged in some other type of activity, a solution just ‘hits’ you, and when it does, all the pent-up frustration just goes totally away?

Or it could be the other way around – you could be otherwise engaged, and as a result, lose all the pent-up frustration, totally clearing your mind, thoughts, and emotions.  And when you do, the solution becomes readily apparent.

That’s how I see a catharsis.

And…well…we all know what WTF means.  ;-)

My own WTF Catharsis happened back in April of this year.  I was actually on a mini-break – the kids and I had hopped down to the Myrtle Beach area for the weekend.  (If you know me, you know this is literally my most favorite place in the world.)

It was a Saturday night…pretty late.  The place we were staying (the same place we almost always stay) is right on the beach.  I was sitting on the balcony, sipping on a beer.  The kids were inside doing something – I don’t remember what.  I had my favorite Myrtle Beach classic rock radio station playing in the background.  As I sit there, I traded texts with a few friends of mine.  Nothing overly important.

I actually got to talking business with one friend of mine, and we were just tossing a couple ideas back and forth.  As we did, we started a sort of stream of consciousness that led me to a certain idea that I thought I could implement into my business.  There was a part of this strategy that was dependent on some marketing info I had, so I came in off the balcony and hopped on my laptop to go through some of my courses and information.

As I did, one thing led to another to another to another to another.  I looked up various courses I had, ebooks I’d downloaded, notes I’d taken, then emails I’d traded with various people.

And then I came upon an email I’d actually written myself…some 4 months earlier.  And I was shocked at what I saw.

As I sat there and read that email, I read where I had basically outlined the same exact idea I was having then…only I’d done it 4 months earlier.  And when I say ‘the same’, I mean down to a ‘T’.

But here was the crazy thing – I didn’t remember having this idea before!  How could I have had this same line of thinking months beforehand, and not remember it?

But more importantly….WHY HAD I NOT DONE ANYTHING ABOUT IT??

I sat there in a sort of stunned daze…totally baffled.  The whole thing was totally surreal.  I mean, this coulda been a scene out of a science-fiction movie or something.  Here I am, having what I think is an original, cool, and kickass idea…only to find out I myself had already been down that thought path months before.

Weird.

I grabbed my beer and went back out to sit on the balcony.  Very somber.  Very quiet.  I was just kinda trying to understand what had happened.

As I thought back, I remembered writing that email.  I remembered all that was going on in my life at the time.  I even remember what led me to come to those conclusions.  (The same ones I was coming to now.)  The thing I couldn’t figure out, was why it seemed so new now and why I still hadn’t acted on those conclusions yet.

I started to think about everything that was going on in my life since then – business, training, the kids…lots of stuff.  It all played in my mind like a sort of montage of the past few months.

Then…it hit me.

The reason why I hadn’t done anything about these exact same conclusions yet…was I just simply let other things get in the way.  I never got off my ass and made it happen.  I never decided, “Hey – dammit – this is getting done.  I don’t give a shit what else is going on, this take priority.”

I had let myself get distracted with, what was in hindsight, a lot of small, unimportant, petty bullshit.  In this one area, I had failed to keep my eye on the prize.

And when I looked at what it was I had let myself get distracted with…what I had let myself focus on instead of something I should have been focusing on…all I could say to myself was, “WTF WIGGY!?!”

Hence, the “WTF Catharsis”.

Lemme ask you this – are you:

• as strong as you wanna be?
• as muscular as you should be?
• dropped the bodyfat you should have?
• dedicated as you should be?
• working as hard as you should?
• doing the cardio you know you need to do?
• implementing prehab and rehab to be healthy like you should be?

(This list could go on for a while…)

If the answer to any of them is ‘no’…then maybe it’s time for your own ‘WTF Catharsis’.  Maybe it’s time for you to take a hard look in the mirror, and admit to yourself you’re not where you want to be…where you know you should be.

And then maybe you need to admit to yourself what you’re letting yourself get distracted by…and is it really that important?  (HINT – the answer is ‘probably not’.)  If you’re anything other than the physical badass you know you can be…maybe it’s time you took a step back, and figured out why.

Then when you’re done with that, maybe it’s time you had yourself a ‘WTF Catharsis’ in every area of your life…

Train Hard, Rest Hard, Play Hard-
Matt “Wiggy” Wiggins
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