Jhayography

Lesson from one of my mentors: A breakdown is a good thing.

“Remember working out so hard in gym where you can no longer move and it literally hurts standing up? It’s the micro tears in the muscles. There is destruction, that when it heals, it grows stronger.

If you want to create bigger muscles, you need to destroy the current version you have in order to create bigger and better version, for it to come back stronger. One way to do that is to lift and lift until you can’t lift anymore, reaching the maximum capacity of the muscles. Is the muscle destroyed forever? No. It will rebuild itself, and it will rebuild stronger. If you lift over and over again with the same weight, there’s no growth. You have to go heavier and heavier, more weight, and eventually break yourself down. Then it should be followed by rest to give time for muscle to grow.

This is where we are at when we have breakdown. That point is the most important point in your life. It’s a point when a version of you need to break down in some sort of way in order for you to grow into a better and stronger version of yourself.

If you find yourself feeling confused, feeling the chaos, this is a good thing. Because you found what your current version is capable of. And if you want more of yourself, if you see more potentials in you, there needs to be a break down of something that needs to go, something that you need to get rid of, in order to make way for something better — for better habits, traits, qualities, and aspects, to have a room to grow, for a new version of yourself. But most people are not aware of this. They only feel “holy crap, this is bad thing”. “This is too much, I need to back off”. Our brain is designed to protect us from danger, but there’s no danger in this stage, you just reached a point of breaking down. That’s why a breakdown can be good.

It’s hard and it gets even harder as you push yourself forward and beyond. It will reach a point where you wanna quit. In fact, you should reach a point where you want quit everyday. But you got to be way past your point of comfort. It’s not hard for who you are going to be, it’s hard for your old self to let go of that comfortable but weak version of you. And in order for you to grow yourself, you need to “break down” parts of your self that are not supposed to be there anymore: the fears, limiting beliefs, lack of action, whatever it might be. And if you break that old parts over and over again, that massive action starts to become normal. So what was once completely out of your capacity, in your mindset now becomes normal.

Discover another level of yourself past the breakdown. Will there be confusion? Of course. Will there be strong resistance? Absolutely. Will there be breakdown from old version of self that has to die off? Absolutely a hundred percent.

If you’re constantly pushing yourself and growing, there should be moments of your life where you realize that the person you were few years ago could not do what you can do today. You’re that same human, same name, but completely different person. Look at the version you have 5 years ago, can it handle what you are facing now?

In the same way we ask, “Can your present self handle your life 5 years after?”

No.

That’s why a constant break down and rebuild can be a good thing.

You just have to remind yourself that “this is an important stage in my life and I gotta push through past this stage”. Constant expansion of who you are, that’s how life needs to be. We all don’t want to be the same person 10 years from today that we are now. But if you will get into an uncomfortable point and back away, you will be the same person.

Find your edge and push though. Usually that edge feels like confusion, “I don’t know what I’m doing”, “I don’t think I can do this”, “wth am I doing?”, “there’s no way I am going to get past this”. It usually feels like break down. That point is where you have found the capacity of your current self, push just a little bit past it, push just a little bit further. This is the point where a lot of people tend to give up. Have the mentality that “when I get to that point, I will push past it”.

Growth doesn’t come from just reading books, from just doing what’s easy, it comes from pushing yourself past your uncomfortable breaking point. It’s just like a muscle, it’s gotta burn, it’s gotta hurt, its gotta be uncomfortable, but remind yourself over and over again: you gotta push past it.

Most people will give up, most people will tell you to give up, most people will support you in giving up, but if growth is the absolute focus for you then you must understand that at the point of break down is the point of massive growth.

When you’re at the end of gym workout and you’re literally struggling to finish, that last set is the most important set of your entire workout. The entire workout is just preparing you for that very last set where you destroy the muscles and break it down to rebuild themselves bigger and stronger.

When things are hard, it’s a good thing. Remind yourself this. Eventually, you get to a point where the uncomfortableness feels like “hey, here we are again, we know what to do, lets keep going!”. That’s what we all want, to build ourself into a person who is not afraid of discomfort and break down. That’s the only way to be completely different person years from now.”

Dedicated to the people who made me strong and at the same time the strongest people I know~