Post Malone is a weird cat.
He’s weird on another level. He has arbitrary face tattoos and wears some of the weirdest clothes. We can’t really define his music; hip-hop, rap, folk, pop… somewhere in there. I have no idea where to start. He recently did a hilarious interview with Jimmy Fallon, and from here you get a taste of what I mean.
I will say that for some reason, I like a lot of his music. He has catchy lyrics and knows how to get people to sing along. I won’t even lie about that.
The point I’m making is that Post Malone does a lot of stuff that has you shaking your head, wondering, “What the hell?” But, he seemingly does not care and does not appear to look for validation from others; and in some ways, many people can learn from this lesson.
Follow me closely as I take you on this strange journey.
Many people suffer from the idea that they need to be “up to par” with the rest of society. For example, this ridiculous piece of media on the right, basically hooking people and telling them they need to lose weight to feel good about themselves. Most of these trash magazines should end up in the... trash. This of course means, that we are constantly sizing up ourselves against everyone else. I’m not sure if there is a scientific term for this, but in any case we could call it, “Self Comparison Syndrome.”
From a survival perspective, we do this subconsciously. If we see a bigger and stronger, dangerous looking person, we decide if we should strategize away from them. In the woods, if I see an animal that looks threatening (all snakes), I will avoid it all costs, including yelling and screaming like a 5 year old.
However, due to constant media attention from new products and technology, we are always faced with the comparison question: How do I stack up?
How are we remotely supposed to accept ourselves as living, breathing, conscious humans when this is expectation that we are faced with when we are buying our groceries?
Something that fascinates me about Post Malone is how he is able to continue making his music, be himself, and disregard others’ opinions. With fitness goals, much of this debate we have internally shows itself in external ways; our performance, interactions with other people, and self discipline. For example, if we don’t feel good about ourselves and accept who we are, we will always seek the approval of others to find a source of positivity. This can be one of the powerful benefits of having a coach, a mentor, or a supportive spouse. They can fact check your thinking, and provide you with what you need to hear.
When we constantly compare our own status to others, we never get a sense of true happiness about who we are. With that, we are telling ourselves that we are never good enough and we can never reach satisfactory levels of improvement. This is the game that social media plays on us, because we only see people doing awesome stuff. Rarely, we see people actually being real humans and dealing with everyday challenges; the internal conversations we have and why we want to be more.
Post Malone is interesting because, in a world where he may be outcast as a “weird” dude, he just does his thing and is happy to stay true to who is. Being fit is just as mental as it is physical. We can be in shape, but if we constantly feel the social pressure and weight of it; our goals are not intrinsically motivated and that doesn’t give us a sense of personal accomplishment. It’s no wonder it’s can be incredibly hard to make health changes, especially when the goal is outside of our own design.
I know that this concept is a little out there, but I hope it gives YOU some validation in that even though you may be striving for new fitness goals this year, you are good enough and you can still be yourself. Self improvement starts when we are able to discover what we want to change, while accepting who we are.
To wrap up…
Be true to who you are, even if it means making sacrifices along the way.
Don’t try to meet the goals of others and define your own set of expectations with fitness.
Work tirelessly on yourself; physically, mentally, and emotionally.
“Like waking up from a bad dream, when we can see our prison, we also see our potential.”
- Tara Brach
Cheers everyone and Happy New Year.
Ryan