Finish: Give Yourself the Gift of Done pdfdrive com

If . . . Then
Speaking of heavy lifting, few things are as funny as the noble obstacles used by
guys who tell me they don’t work out because they don’t want to get “too
bulky.” They haven’t lifted a single weight and are already worried that they’ll
have to start wearing those bodybuilder sweatpants from all the raw muscle they
put on their frames. “I’d get fit right now but I can’t afford to buy a new
wardrobe. I would be drinking so many protein drinks like Fight Milk that my
fast-twitch muscles would be through the roof.”
These guys are deploying the second kind of noble obstacle. Instead of
saying “until,” they say, “if . . . then.” They claim that if they pursue their goal
something bad will happen. Maybe the finish will turn them into a monster.
Maybe they will turn into a bad person. Either way, because they’re wise and
good guys, they just can’t pursue their finish.

---

Often, the second kind of noble obstacle shows up in finances. You might
decide to avoid eating healthy because if you buy healthy food you’ll be poor.
Everyone knows Taco Bell is a lot cheaper than anything grass fed or cage free,
so because you want to be wise with your finances, you stop moving toward
your goal. Or if money isn’t a factor, you can always claim humility as a noble
obstacle: “Pursuing a goal is a solitary activity and therefore a selfish use of my
time.”
You know you’re employing an “if . . . then” noble obstacle if you are only
offering yourself two extreme options. Either you don’t work out at all or you
lose so much weight you have to buy new jeans and constantly take photos
standing in your old ones with the waist pulled out to show your progress. Either
you don’t start a business or you develop a wicked coke habit in order to stay up
for twenty-two hours every day working. Either you don’t sell your product or
you become the most obnoxious vacuum salesperson I’ve ever met. Either you
hold a complicated thousand-item garage sale or you don’t sweep your garage
floor at all. There is no in-between, just two extremes. That’s the land of noble
obstacles.