Episode #8 Choose your HARD

Every version of your life comes with a price.

Training is hard. Staying stuck is hard. Being consistent is hard. Starting over every Monday is hard. Changing your habits is hard. Living with the frustration of never following through is hard.

The reality is, there is no path where everything suddenly becomes easy.

In this episode of The Redefined Project, we go deeper than nutrition and training and talk about what it really means to choose your hard.

We unpack the difference between short-term discomfort and long-term regret, why constantly choosing comfort can keep you trapped in the same cycle, and how the small decisions you make every day slowly shape your identity.

Because this journey isn't just about losing weight.

It's about rebuilding trust with yourself.

It's about keeping promises to yourself even when motivation disappears.

It's about letting go of the version of you that keeps saying, “I'll start again Monday,” and becoming someone who can have a bad day, an imperfect weekend or a setback — and simply keep moving forward.

You don't need to completely change your life overnight.

You just need to ask yourself:

What hard am I currently choosing — and where will it take me if I keep choosing it for the next 12 months?

Then decide whether that's the price you're willing to keep paying.

Transcript

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And welcome to the Redefined Project. I am your host, Brett Carrington, and let's get stuck into it. So today we are going to be talking about like choose your hard. Okay, choose your heart. So every version of basically, you know, your life has a price. You don't go to choose whether life will be hard. You get to choose which hard you're willing to live with. And I think that's um something to be really uh to take into account as well, because you know, speaking to a number of you personally and kind of you know being on calls and stuff like that as well. Um, we know things are difficult as well, but there's always like two paths that you can kind of work with or walk through, especially from the health and fitness side of things. And this is something that's really important to me and um important to kind of convey across as well. So I mentioned you don't get to choose whether life will be hard, you get to choose which hard you're willing to live with as well. So, one thing to keep in mind, can you guys kind of read this a little bit or is that a little bit little for you? I might have to get a presentation. Okay, that might be a little bit better. Okay, so what you have to understand is that there is no easy option. Okay, there's no easy option. People are looking for the quick fix, they are looking for you know the the fastest solution, and we kind of uh painted this uh we're in the society these days where everything is very readily available, correct? Uber Eats, Instagram, TikTok, you know, YouTube, everything is in your is in your grasp. So when we look at it from that perspective of like um things necessarily in life are somewhat uh trying to become more efficient, but in our lifestyle, sometimes that does lead us into this passage that things are are much easier, but they're not, and you all know that as well, right? So there's no easy option. Training is hard, so feeling physically incapable is also hard, right? Planning nutrition is hard, however, feeling out of control around food is also hard, right? Getting back on track is hard, starting over every Monday is also hard. You can see there's always a double-edged sword, right? There's always a double-edged sword. You're already doing hard things. The question is whether your heart is moving you forward or keeping you stuck. And often the reason why a lot of people are stuck is because they often will choose the I spoke about this the other night. They'll often choose what feels most comfortable to them. They will fall into a default which actually feels most comfortable to them. However, in the scheme of things, that is actually making it harder for you to get back out of that particular situation, which is not conducive towards your health and fitness goals. Does that make sense? Everybody? Yeah, give me a thumbs up, cool. So let's talk about the two types of hard. Hard now, easier later, or easy now, harder later. Okay, so hard now, easier later, training when you don't feel like it, preparing your meals, stopping after one bad meal, being patient with slow progress. Who's kind of felt this recently or in the past? Right? It does feel a bit harder to be consistent, to get back from holidays and get stuck into things, to maybe even start your journey and start challenging that old narrative that is pulling you back to, you know, your old behaviors and habits. So the easy now, harder later, skipping that session, ordering takeaway again, avoiding the problem, saying, I will start Monday. If any of you, like, how many of you have put off that hard conversation that you needed with your kids or your partner or a work colleague before? And it just kind of like it, it never gets it. You just put it off, put it off, put it off, and then you eventually have it, and you're like, all that anxiety and stuff, you just should have had it like months ago. And it really does, you know, having that hard conversation now makes it so much easier later on, or having making those hard decisions now, right, does make it easier. So most of your life you want, uh, or most of the life you want is hidden behind short-term discomfort. Like I said to you before, we often will default to our safest um behaviors because if you've heard about your parasympathetic and your your sympathetic nervous system, right? Our flight or fight response, majority of us will choose to flight, um, which is basically retreating from danger. And it's and it's a physiological thing, and it's something that we've actually through hundreds and thousands of years to survive, we will always go for the safest option, right? To run away from the bear or whatever it's chasing us. That's what we're kind of scared of, and that's what we get kind of get pulled towards. But obviously, unless you're climbed into a zoo and you're in Africa, you're not getting chased by a bear or a tiger, we're kind of like avoiding a lot of that discomfort that we want because it seems but it's chasing us back to where we first started. All right, and that's something to be you know really mindful of. And this is where we kind of look at this kind of domino effect. So the cost of comfort, comfort isn't free. Okay, comfort isn't free. One skip workout means very little. We all know this, and we speak about this quite often, correct? One takeaway a meal doesn't mean much, it's very little. One weekend means very little if you didn't stay on track. However, repeated choices, patterns, habits, your life, they all stack up. And I spoke about it last night in my little podcast. I'm not sure if you guys have gone back and watched it, but think about your day-to-day habits and behaviors and think about them like receipts. Okay, think about them like receipts. So you stack receipts every single day with every single transaction that you do towards your health and fitness goals. And at the end of the day, at the end of the week, if you look at how many like receipts you stack towards the best version of yourself, the healthiest version of yourself, does that outweigh the receipts of the old version of you, the person who will give up? So it's actually like a really practical, it's kind of like the you know, pros and cons kind of like scenario you do in life sometimes. If you literally put things out, and this is why we look at your habits and behaviors when me, Jade, or Mary are going through your programs, like how many days have you actually been consistent with your nutrition? How many days have you followed it? How many days have you ticked off your steps? How many days have you got all your training sessions and all your weeks in? Because they stack receipts on who you are becoming. Does that make sense? Does that hit pretty hard? Yeah. Of course. So the hardest part isn't the diet, okay? The hardest part isn't the diet. Can I become someone who follows through? That's something that we have to be able to ask ourselves frequently. Every broken promise teaches you what I say doesn't really matter. Every kept promise to you, uh, every kept promise teaches you I can trust myself. This journey is about rebuilding self-trust. A number of you, when I spoke with you initially on our conversations and even in your success strategies, because you are all very successful, or majority, I mean pretty much everyone is, very successful in what you do, whether it's work as a parent, family, or whatever that is as well. Um, you all said that you just finally wanted to necessarily um, you know, follow through on something, or actually stick to something for a period of time, because I know a number of you have struggled with consistency before, right? It's not a motivation issue, it's not a discipline issue as well. But a lot of you would just say, I just wish that I could just stick to something and follow through on it and be proud of myself because that builds confidence. Again, if you can, you know, follow through on something, you said that you would, right? It builds trust, it builds confidence in who you are. Because how many of you with kids break promises to your kids? Probably not many, I hope not many, right? Because you'd never break that promise with a child that you know you'll take them to so-and-so for their birthday, or you'd, you know, take them here for Christmas or get them that birthday present that they've always been looking for. So we want to be able to create that same trust with ourselves around what we've um, you know, set our intentions about with our nutrition, meal planning, or getting our training sessions in or reaching our step goal, etc. as well. Because you are proving to yourself that you can do it. Because a lot of the time people will often say, I'm scared, like I would say a number of you would have mentioned to us that, you know, would say, Oh, how did you, you know, how did you feel? I joined the program. Nervous, scared, a bit anxious, excited, all those types of things as well. And as some of the ladies will say to us, like, I feel really nervous because I don't know if I will, you know, if if I can prove that I can do this. I actually haven't proven to myself yet that you know I can succeed, that I can follow through on things, etc. as well. But the thing is, if you as opposed to looking at that end goal where you want to get to, if you look at every single day and stacking those receipts, stacking those little wins, they all contribute to that you know self-identity, which I spoke about the other night, that version of yourself. And that's really important to kind of look at. And when we break it down like that, it doesn't seem so overwhelming. And this is what we look at each thing day to day. If the day today didn't go the greatest, all right, what are we doing tomorrow? What are we doing on our next meal? And as again, that builds that trust, it builds resilience, it builds grit. So you are voting for your identity. As I mentioned, your action is a vote. Train when you said you would, vote. Get back on plan after an imperfect meal. That's a vote for that. Ask for help instead of disappearing. That's a vote towards you, right? Cast enough votes and eventually you become that person. Right? Cast enough votes and you will eventually become that person. So what I want you to kind of look at is like stop asking, do I feel like it? Motivation asks, how do I feel today? Standards ask, what do I do? Because I guarantee for a fact, the majority of you like will not be motivated a lot of the time. Okay, but this is where standards come in play. This is where um you'll set those intentions for yourself. Right? This is where routine and structure comes into play because the less decisions that you have to make daily on what you need to do to get to your goals, the easier it is to be able to execute on that as well. Now there will be days when you're tired, work is chaos, the scales aren't moving, and that's where the standards matter because everything's gravy when like all your ducks are in a row. It's easier to be consistent when you know the wind's at your back. But the people that I see make the most success and see the most success are the ones who can navigate you know the struggles and that friction and those tension points most consistently. And it's not about doing it perfectly, right? Not about doing it perfectly, but it is being able to be able to hold yourself to a higher standard than you previously would, getting back on track quicker, being able to, you know, put your like immediate gratification aside for you know that longer term play, which is to be more organized later in the week. So your results can't constantly depend on your mood. Your old identity will fall back, and I and I kind of spoke on this last night as well. Um, your old identity will fight back. I'll start Monday, I've already ruined today, I'm just not disciplined, this is just who I am. You know, is that actually who I am, or simply who I've practiced to be? Right? That's a really good way to look at it. Is that actually who you are? Or is it something that you've just kind of casted? Have you just casted too many votes for that particular version of yourself? And now you have the opportunity every single day to start actually, you know, casting those votes towards the best version of yourself, and that's exciting because on the other side of that tension, um, that friction that you do have to go through, that uh motivation that you're kind of like looking for is the success and the growth, the version of you, and the self-identity that you will become and evolve into. So I kind of spoke about it last because it kind of like meets in the middle that you don't need to kill the old version of you. Your old version wasn't weak. They were doing the best they could with the habits, knowledge, and the coping mechanisms they had. But you don't have to keep being that person simply because you've been them for a long time. And I think a lot of people get who here, uh and I I speak about it quite often, is like when you look at um like the success that I often see with some people, they get to a point where they've lost X amount of way or they've you know achieved some goals, and then for some reason they just start self-sabotaging um like their results. Have any of you been in that position before? Right? Yeah, of course. And do you know why that is? One of the biggest reasons that we see that people self-sabotage is because it's safer, or the default is actually you start losing that old identity that you've associated yourself with for five, ten, fifteen, twenty years, and it's scary to actually start moving away from that person, you know, you you're you're outgrowing that person, and that can be scary. This is why when people in your circle start noticing you succeeding, they will often or may say things that may seem hurtful, they may say things that'll kind of bring you down, but the reason that is, is because they only see you succeeding, and the only way that they would feel better about themselves is by trying to bring you back down to your old level where they just felt on that same level, they feel intimidated by the success you're seeing, and that's the same thing with your self-identity. You kind of put your play, you put yourself in a place where you know you're seeing these results, and you're like, oh my god, I couldn't, I didn't prove this to myself. Like, this is very unusual, and you're like, oh fuck. So so you kind of start self-sabotaging because it was safer to go back to the default version, but we know for a fact that isn't. That's what's keep you stuck your whole life. So the messy middle, okay? All right, you're no longer the person you were, but you don't completely feel like the big person you're becoming yet. Does anybody resonate with that? I think this is something where something that people don't talk about like most, that they kind of talk about, you know, where they started, where they get to, and there's this messy kind of middle part where you're kind of like, you're not quite that older version, but you're not quite the newer version, you're just kind of in the middle for a little bit. Okay, so the novelty has worn off a little bit, okay. Motivation has dropped, you're wondering if it's working, and this is so common, and we say that health infinite, like you'll go in peaks and troughs, and it's very normal to be like that. You're not broken if you don't wake up on week three of our program, you're not motivated, you saw the scale weight's gone up, like, oh my god, it's happening again, right? This is where most people quit. Like, I've been doing this for 15 years. This is where most people quit. It's around about they they they start, you know, around week three, week four. This is where they kind of so when we see a lot of people here, like Marie, like Divya's been with us for well over a year now, Marie's been with us like close to six months now as well. Carolyn's been with us for over 12 months, you know, they all got past that point, right? And once you kind of get past that point, it's like you you will still obviously obviously have to go through that self-doubt and because obviously if there's 20 years or 15 years of you know where you were, it will take a little bit longer than you know just six months to build on that version. But as I mentioned to you before, you've you've stacked so many receipts, you've seen some such progress that you actually start believing on in the version that you're becoming as well. All right, not because people people usually quit because not because the process failed, because they stopped before their new identity had time to catch up. Okay, people quit because not because the process failed, but because they stopped before their new identity had time to come up. Think about like you know, um bamboo, right? Like how long does it take to for bamboo to actually sprout? I think it's like you know, years and years and years, and then once it does sprout, it just takes off. And this is what we look at from like a self-identity perspective as well. And the the other comparison that I really like is like an iceberg. Often a lot of people will only see um you know the tip of the iceberg, but below that iceberg is all this work and success and stuff. Then when that water pulls down, you actually see so much that you've built on top of it, and that iceberg is fucking huge, and that's your new identity that surfaced. So when we look at a bad day, a bad day doesn't require a bad week. You've overreaten, maybe you missed the training session. We were just talking about that before, uh, Silvia, as well. Had a terrible day, and now you have two options. Option one, accept it, take responsibility, and get back to normal. Cost you a moment, maybe. Option B, avoid discomfort. I'll start again Monday, can cost you another week. And again, so which which identity keeps you stuck? It's it's blazing me, obviously, right? So, like, if you can put like yourself more towards this type of mindset, and this is where I spoke about it uh two weeks ago, the scarcity and the abundance mindset, right? Is the scarcity mindset is the one that's kind of keeping you stuck. You know, it's it's going back to that safe version of yourself, that abundance mindset is being like, okay, I get another opportunity, I can do this for my next meal, right? Okay, it's a lesson. Like, what have I learned? What could I have done better there? And move on from that as well. That's coming from a place of abundance. The scarcity side of things is looking at it from the other perspective as well. Okay, so we look at it from this perspective, right? What are you actually willing to sacrifice? Every outcome requires an exchange. Every outcome requires an exchange. So maybe you know it's 30 minutes or 60 minutes less on the couch. Maybe it's you know planning ahead. You know, I'm big on that. Proper planning prevents piss poor performance. Maybe it's going to bed earlier, saying no sometimes. You don't sacrifice these things because you're being punished, you exchange them for something you value more. And this is where some people like get into this. Um, and this happens quite a bit with very busy professionals like yourselves or you got kids, and they're kind of like, you know, the time I get home or or whatever is just my quiet time. I I need that, you know, hour and a half to stay up and watch TV and things like that as well, which would you know is fine. But then if it requires you to get up still at four in the morning and you're only getting five hours sleep, and then you're low energy, you make poor food choices, um, you're not adherent to that as well. Does it is it really actually doing you any good? It's not right, because it's that immediate gratification or or that short-term gratification that's actually taken away from the long-term success. So there will be sacrifices, and we we you there's certain things or trade-offs, I probably more so like to call them, that we do have to make in order to be successful with that identity shift, with those goals that we're trying to achieve, and so on and so forth. Okay, as I mentioned, like it says here at the bottom, again, you don't sacrifice things because you're being punished, you exchange them for something you value more. Your health, your um, you know, confidence, your um, you know, being a role model for your kids, uh, being able to, you know, feel confident when you go out with your partner. Is it about being able to be mobile when you're older? These types of things as well. Because the best insurance policy that you'll ever invest in is obviously your health, your fitness, your weight training, and obviously your nutrition. People kind of forget that, but then they just go buy insurance or life insurance or whatever, as well, um, or health insurance. And then they could actually be avoiding or putting their money towards something else, and they wouldn't have to have those a lot of those issues as well. Right? So look 12 months ahead. Everybody, look 12 months ahead. So let's say even six months ahead for you guys. Version one keep waiting for the perfect time. Life keep getting busy. Another Christmas, another new year, same conversation with yourself. And every single person, every single client that's on this call, and the client that's that are watching this back, you have all taken action. And you should be so proud of yourself because this was always the hardest step. The hardest step for a lot of people as well. But now it's about cashing those receipts. The second version, right? Wasn't perfect, had holidays, maybe you missed a couple workouts, stressful weeks, but kept coming back. And 12 months later, their entire normal has changed. We're kind of Maggie on here. She's lost 22 kilos over the last 18 months with us. She started with us 54 years of age. She's now 55. She had a full ankle reconstruction. She's pretty open about it with her like losing her partner in the past. And it was tough, very tough for her. So she could have picked her hard. She could have stayed stuck where she was. But now she's the healthiest version of herself. She's got grandkids she can play with. She's going to the gym and feeling super strong. But that that version of herself was not always that way. When she first started, she fucking hated the gym. I'd be lucky to get her to do a home workout for like 20 minutes. But she started, as I said, cashing those receipts. She started proving to herself that she was capable of it. And was she perfect? Absolutely not. She'll attest to that by any means. But she showed up, she checked in on time, she asked questions. We looked at where things struggled and we moved forward from it as well. She took on feedback and you know executed on that as well. She made short-term sacrifices to be able to, you know, not going out all the time or cutting back on the alcohol and you know, hanging out with people that actually supported her in our community and things like that as well. And like I said, 18 months down the track, 22 kilos down, proud grandmother, strong as she's been in 20, 25 years, and she's fitting into clothes she she used to be able to fit into when she was 30. It's incredible. Should be so proud of herself. So when we look at those two versions, both versions paid a price, okay? Version one paid through frustration, regret, starting over, loss of confidence, wondering what could have happened. Version two also paid, but they paid through discipline, patience, planning, delayed gratification, and getting uncomfortable. Which would you rather pay? Right? And it's always, you know, learning to do this stuff is always going to be trickier at the start of any journey. And it's still something you have to challenge yourself through. Even I have to challenge myself through this. And our coaches, Jade and Mary, speak about this quite commonly and openly. That wraps it up there, guys. Thank you for joining my podcast. Um, if any of you have any inquiries or would like to inquire with redefined nutrition and coaching for our services, send me a DM on Instagram, coach underscore Britt Carrington, and I will reach out to you as well. So chat to you all soon. Appreciate you being here. Peace.