How I practically handed my gym money for free

Today I actually have two stories to tell.

Story no.1

When you surf through my LinkedIn profile you'll notice that I have worked in a number of places for a relative amount of time. What you won't see there is that I have been working for as long as I can remember. When I was back in Africa, about 14 years ago, I used to work at a farm in a small village that no one would know unless you've been there. In that Village, farming was the best (and predominantly the only) way to survive. I HATED it. working hard wasn't the issue. It was having to wake up nearly every day to do it before anyone else in the was up. This was the case, especially on the days we had to go to school afterwards. Moreover, I wasn't quite good at it. We had these manual hoes (not the type you might be thinking, Google it) that we used to dig the ground so we could plant our crops. Let me just say this, these hoes were very deadly, so much so that I'd nearly cut off my toes on more than one occasion. There was barely ever a day I went home without any bruises.

Story no.2

Last year around July, I had settled in to my new job and I thought to myself "I should join the gym". Now I am a real "lad" when it comes to these things, so the motive was this: "I am skinny, I need to get a gym membership, I need to get big, simple". Not quite. So I thought I may as well just close my eyes and just pay for the whole year and just get it over with. I knew exactly what I wanted and the vision couldn't be more vivid. Fast forward to today, it is now up to 8 months since I signed up. I am not any bigger than I was since I joined (aside from aging "dad bod" that seems to be emerging) and I can actually count the amount of times I have been to the Gym and I am not sure if they sum up to a full month or 2, out of the 8 months. I recently started going back again and I started trying to recall what distorted my vision along the way. I realised that I had a few minor injuries here and there that didn't even last a week. As time went on, it just got harder to go back and I started blaming the equipment there and I started complaining about not being able to "work out right" like that was even a thing. As I dug deeper I realised something I hadn't thought of.

I actually handed my money to the gym.... For free!

There's always a lesson though. Initially, I learned that the equipment was obviously never the problem. In my first story I recall a time where I hated farming simply because I kept hurting myself. Can you believe that, I hated doing the very thing that was helping me to survive! Even at that, sure I hated it, but If I had just learned how to use the equipment properly, I wouldn't have complained as much. The same applies to my second story. My thoughts were all about "Get big, all about the gains" or whatever gym heads are saying these days. However, I actually didn't take time to learn about each equipment and how I can use it effectively. I mean, I knew how to use it..... just not effectively. I didn't take time to talk to the constant "Gym gurus" about how to get the best out of every work out.

Secondly, I've come to learn that this applies to a lot of us, especially to those who are either seeking for employment or are in one. Think about it. As a job seeker I've applied for so many jobs in the past, even to the point of desperation. I used to always think everything was by luck. I even got so desperate that I nearly paid for LinkedIn's "premium features"- you know, the ones that say something like "be one of the first applicants to be seen...." and so on. While there's no problem with boosting your chances of having your CV reviewed, what good is it if your CV doesn't contain what the managers want? Nobody will ever say "Oh they paid for premium features, let's hire them". All they care about is the content in that CV! As an employee, I have either complained or experienced a lot of complaints. My Personal favorite ? "This system is not working, it's so outdated!". Yes but do you know the system though? I've actually experienced a lot of people (including myself) actually losing the zeal to work due to the fact that they didn't like how a piece of software "looked". While I am for eye capturing software, they are nothing if they don't contain the necessary tools that help with our job. Sometimes, it takes having to look past the "first glance" and moving on to dissecting how to use every part of your tools in the most effective way.

So I leave you with this, in most cases, the tools are never the problem. The chances are, you're not using them correctly. I think this is something you might have to think about. As for me, I am heading to the Gym.