Sage Solutions
Advice and insight about personal growth, personal development, and becoming your best self.
Sage Solutions
Life Is Like A Muscle: So Build it! (6CF?)
The secret 6th core fundamental?!
What if personal growth was as tangible as building muscles at the gym? On this episode of the Sage Solutions Podcast, I, David Sage, promise to transform your perspective on self-improvement by comparing it to the physical act of muscle building. Drawing inspiration from Jeff Olson’s “The Slight Edge” and Darren Hardy’s “The Compound Effect,” we uncover the powerful impact of small, consistent actions that can lead to remarkable personal development over time. You'll learn how just like muscles, traits and skills need regular practice and recovery to thrive.
We explore how discipline and resilience stand out as "super muscles" vital for enhancing all aspects of life. With insights from Dr. K Anders Ericsson's research on deliberate practice and Angela Duckworth's study on grit, you’ll see how these key success factors drive lasting change. I share practical strategies such as focusing on one area for improvement, committing to daily habits, and celebrating small victories. Plus, your feedback is invaluable—so join our community of listeners by subscribing and sharing your thoughts on this educational journey.
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The Sage Solutions Podcast and content posted by David Sage is presented solely for general informational, educational, and entertainment purposes. No coaching client relationship is formed by listening to this podcast. No Legal, Medical or Financial advice is being given. The use of information on this podcast or materials linked from this podcast or website is at the user's own risk. It is not intended as a substitute for the advice, diagnosis, or treatment of a psychotherapist, physician, professional coach, Lawyer or other qualified professional. Users should not disregard or delay in obtaining medical advice for any medical or mental health condition they may have and should seek the assistance of their healthcare professionals for any such conditions. The opinions of guests are their own and may not necessarily reflect the opinions of the podcast.
Welcome to the Sage Solutions Podcast, where we talk about all things personal growth, personal development and becoming your best self. My name is David Sage and I'm a self-worth and confidence coach with Sage Coaching Solutions. I'm so glad you're here today today, because today we're talking about something that might completely change the way that you think about personal growth, how your brain, your skills and your traits are a lot like a muscle. Now, if you've followed this podcast for a while, you know that this is not the first time that I have said something like this. This has been a consistent theme that has come up again and again throughout the Sage Solutions podcast. This concept is so important to me that I've actually been referring to it as the secret sixth core fundamental. It applies to so many different areas of life that harnessing and utilizing this can completely change the way that you live your life. So, in all seriousness, life is like a muscle, so build it, but before we get into it, our goal with this podcast is to share free, helpful tools with you and anyone you know who is looking to improve their life. So take action, subscribe and share this podcast with them. This is about how your life, your skills and even your traits are a lot like muscles. That's right. Just like you go to the gym to build your physical muscles, you can apply the same principles to strengthen your mind, your habits and even the traits that shape your life. Now, I'm not saying life is just about working out. In fact, there's way more to life than that. Not that it's a bad habit to have. But just like building muscles takes consistent effort, so does building a better version of yourself. So in this episode we'll talk about the science behind muscle growth, how it mirrors personal development and why some traits like discipline are kind of like the super muscles that make it easier to develop everything else. Plus, we'll dive into Jeff Olson's the Slight Edge and Darren Hardy's the Compound Effect and how the concept that both of these different books really are talking about the same thing, and how that concept is a huge factor in building the muscles of your life.
Speaker 1:So if you're ready, let's dive in. All right, so let's start with the basics. We all know muscles grow when you challenge them, right. You pick up some weights, your muscles get tired, they break down a little bit and then over time they rebuild themselves stronger. This process is called muscle hypertrophy and it's essentially your body adapting to a stressor so that it can handle more next time. But here's the thing it's not just about the workout itself, it's about the recovery. You tear those muscle fibers, then you give your body time to rest and repair, and when you do this consistently, you see results. But let's get down into the nitty gritty of muscle building Now.
Speaker 1:I am not an expert on the full science of how to build a muscle, and there is some disagreement as to what is the most optimal way to build a muscle, and there is the difference between strength and hypertrophy, or basically like building for strength versus building for size. People can build for explosiveness. People can build more for, like muscular endurance. Some people are 100% on the go hard till failure. Some people are on the. It's all about load over time. Basically, you have to push yourself, you have to challenge the muscles in your body.
Speaker 1:Now I'm going to just talk about the basics of it, not the most perfect, optimal way to build a muscle, because I'm not an expert on that. What I will say is that, in general, the way that muscles work is that the most important principle is use it or lose it. If you don't use a muscle at all. Over time it will start to atrophy at all. Over time it will start to atrophy, meaning you will lose muscle mass. And skills and traits work the same way. If you completely stop using them, the muscle of a skill or a trait that you've built up will slowly start to dissipate. Now, if we take aging out of the equation, it's much easier to rebuild a muscle that you have built up in the first place back to where it was than to push yourself beyond where you've ever been before. So if you have gotten very strong in certain muscles and you've let them atrophy some, you will get back up to where you were much quicker than you will pass that threshold.
Speaker 1:And then there's another factor, which is muscle memory. Let's take this when I was a wrestler, I was stronger and in better shape than I am right now, and in addition to building muscles and building endurance, I also built skills. I built specific wrestling moves. I've built awareness. I built many other peripheral things that came with it, and those were all built like a muscle as well. But I also built muscle memory, and that muscle memory stays with me, which makes it so that, even if the muscles that I have to do a specific thing, like a half Nelson have fatigued, are not as strong. I still have the muscle memory of how to do it, which puts me way ahead of somebody that is just first learning it. And the same goes for any skill or trait. While not using it may have caused the muscle of that skill to atrophy or weaken and fatigue, you can build that muscle back up quicker and you still have the muscle memory of how to do it, putting you at a huge advantage. So don't beat yourself up if you've let certain skills or traits or even mental muscles fatigue because you have so many things going for you to build those things back up way faster than it took in the first place. But we're not just talking about getting skills and traits back. We're also talking about how to build them up in the first place.
Speaker 1:From both my personal experience and the statistical data around the subject, consistency is king when it comes to building muscle. Yes, pushing yourself hard maybe going to failure can be really important. Things get better at it with the muscle memory and is going to have consistently better results than the person that once every month goes absolutely ham in the gym, blows their muscles out and then doesn't use them again for a month. Consistency is king. Are there other ways to build muscles? Sure, it's possible, but statistically speaking, consistency is the best way to go. You can combine different things and push yourself really hard once in a while to help speed up your progress, but consistency is what's going to make it work. Consistency is what keeps people going to the gym, consistency is what gets it done, and that is what we are going for here when building our life's muscle skills. And in order to be consistent, it doesn't have to be big, strong, powerful things. We are just looking for the daily disciplines, the small things. We're looking to, over time, build habits and routines to make these things automatic so that we can continue to improve on them in the background.
Speaker 1:This is the beauty of the slight edge and the compound effect and how they apply to building muscles, both physically and in all areas of life. A quote by Robert Collier success is the sum of our small efforts, repeated day in and day out. Now let's talk about the power of these small, consistent efforts and how we can make those small, simple steps work for you. This is where the powerful ideas in Jeff Olson's the Slight Edge and Darren Hardy's the Compound Effect can be game changers when it comes to making lasting progress. So let's start with the slight edge.
Speaker 1:Jeff Olson talks about how small daily decisions have a huge impact on your life. He says you're only a few slight edges away from success. It's those simple little habits including things like getting 1% better every day, like reading for 15 minutes or doing five more pushups, that add up over time and create massive change. And while all it takes is these little slight edges, jeff points out that these things are easy to do, but also easy not to do. Darren Hardy's compound effect is similar. Hardy talks about how the small, seemingly insignificant actions that we take every day compound over time, creating huge results. Imagine this If you're saving a little bit of money each day or eating just 100 fewer calories, that tiny change doesn't seem like much in the moment, but over the course of a year those small actions will have a massive impact.
Speaker 1:Here's an example from muscle building. When you lift weights, you don't start with heavy weights. You start light and work your way up gradually, increasing the load over time. Those small increases in weight add up. The same goes for skills or habits. You don't need to tackle everything all at once. Just focus on improving a little bit every day and you'll see progress. A quote by Darren Hardy in the Compound Effect is small, smart choices plus consistency plus time equals radical difference.
Speaker 1:Now let's take the concepts we just talked about and apply that to the brain and to personal growth. Just like muscle building, developing new skills or changing habits requires you to push yourself out of your comfort zone. You have to stretch yourself, maybe even fail a little, but each time that you do it you get stronger. It's the same idea. And just like physical muscles, your brain can get stronger with practice. This process is called neuroplasticity your brain's ability to reorganize itself and create new connections in response to learning and experience. Researchers have shown that when you learn something new, your brain literally grows. So if you want to improve a skill like public speaking or problem solving, you've got to work at it, and just like physical muscles, you're going to need time to recover. A quote by Dr John Rady the brain, like the body, responds to the stresses we place upon it. In his book Spark, the revolutionary new science of exercise and the brain.
Speaker 1:Now let's talk about building traits and skills. Just like you wouldn't go to the gym and expect to get ripped after one workout. You won't master any new skill overnight either, but over time, as you keep working on it, you'll see progress. What are some examples of things that are built like a muscle? Discipline, confidence, memory, critical thinking, courage, self-compassion, grit, mindfulness, focusing on your locus, building your actual focus and attention span, thinking in shades of gray, willpower, taking control of your conscious perspective and really building habits with the habit loop that we talked about in our episode about holiday discipline are also built like a muscle over time. So just think about that for a second Building any skill, whether it's leadership, writing or even emotional regulation, is like working out your brain.
Speaker 1:You have to put in the time and keep going. The other important thing is, while some people might naturally build physical muscles or specific skills more quickly, we can all build just about any muscle in our body if we take the right approach and we push ourselves consistently. Even just using those muscles, even if you're not pushing yourself, is helping you stop any fatiguing of those muscles and keeping them active and keeping the muscle memory fresh. If you think about your life and all of these different areas as the many different muscles that make up your body, you want to be using all of these muscles, even if it's in flexing it for a little bit or in small ways, just so that you don't have any of them fatiguing. And I'm both talking about your physical muscles and your skills and traits. If you've ever thought about man, I wish I was more blank. I want to learn blank.
Speaker 1:Any skill or trait that you would like to develop, you can do it. It's just like a muscle. You just have to work at it consistently and push yourself and practice over time. Personality isn't permanent. Any skill or trait that you would like to develop, you can. This opens up an incredible world of possibility. It makes your life an incredibly different experience. You can become or be anyone you want to be. Now, am I saying you shouldn't be you? Absolutely not. You are you, you are enough, you are great. But that doesn't mean that you can't continue to grow and improve and become the you that you truly want to be, you with this trait that you've always wanted, you. Who knows this skill that you've always wanted to have, or improve upon what you've already got? Don't focus on the lack of what you don't have, but focus on how you can continue to improve, fall in love with the process.
Speaker 1:Here's something interesting there are some muscles that, when built, make it easier to grow other muscles. One example of a muscle that can make other muscles grow faster is strengthening your core and your back. By having extra stability, you are making it easier to do many other different exercises and be more stable and less likely to get injured and, as a result, you will be able to grow those muscles, those other muscles, faster. So an example of that, when it comes to skills and traits, would be discipline. Like think about discipline. It's like a super muscle. If you work on building the muscle of discipline consistently, it not only helps you stick to your fitness routine, but it also spills over into other areas of your life. You've developed this skill, this trait of discipline, that you can now apply to many different areas of your life. You've developed this skill, this trait of discipline, that you can now apply to many different areas of your life. Suddenly, it's easier to work on your communication skills, your financial habits or even your emotional intelligence, because you've developed the muscle of discipline, which leads to consistency.
Speaker 1:To give another example of a super muscle trait, let's take resilience. Resilience is like a mental muscle the more you face challenges, and the more you bounce back, the more you're strengthening your ability to handle adversity. It's not that you enjoy the tough moments, not to say there isn't plenty of power in enjoying overcoming obstacles, but with each challenge you get better at dealing with them. And guess what? That resilience will help you in just about every area of your life. There's actually a powerful study by Dr K Anders Ericsson which found that expertise isn't about talent, it's about deliberate practice. He showed that to reach world-class performance, you need roughly 10,000 hours of consistent practice. Yes, 10,000 hours to mastery. But here's the good news you don't need to go all in all at once. The key is steady, focused effort over time.
Speaker 1:Grit is a trait of mental toughness and passion and consistency, of discipline and courage over time. It includes persistence and perseverance. It is the number one predictor of success for any individual, according to a study by Angela Duckworth, who won the Genius Award for her research on grit. I am personally working on growing the muscle of grit for myself, and grit is a compound muscle. It has multiple different muscles within it that I am all trying to build at the same time to help cultivate more and more of this trait of grit within myself. So just remember grit makes greatness, consistency is king, persistence is power, practice is the purpose. The obstacle is the way, action cures everything, discipline is destiny, courage is calling and growth is the goal.
Speaker 1:So how can you actually apply this philosophy to your life? It's pretty simple, but it requires consistency and commitment. So here is the easiest way to start. First, pick one area to improve. Don't try to change everything at once, whether it's improving your communication, building discipline or learning a new skill. Pick one area to start with. Focus all your energy on that. Second, commit to consistency. Set aside just 10 to 15 minutes a day to work on that area. It doesn't have to be a huge chunk of time, but it does need to be consistent. Remember small efforts every day are the key. Third, track your progress. This part is important. Keeping track of your progress, even if it's just journaling a bit at the end of each day or reflecting in your mind every day on how it went, can make a massive difference over the long term. You'll be amazed by how much you've accomplished when you look back after a month or two.
Speaker 1:Fourth, embrace the journey Like building a muscle. There will be moments when you feel like you're just not progressing, but trust me, every time you feel challenged or even frustrated, you're actually growing. Every time you feel challenged or even frustrated, you're actually growing. Don't be afraid to fail. Failures are just opportunities to adjust and learn. Pivot and try again. And, lastly, celebrate your wins. Even the small wins deserve a moment of celebration, whether it's doing one more push-up than you did last week or sticking to a new habit for a whole week.
Speaker 1:Take a second to acknowledge your growth. It'll help keep you motivated. So take action. Start building these muscles. Remember action is success and outcomes all outcomes, good and bad are learning. How do we get ourselves to do these things? Reduce the friction, make them small, simple steps. This isn't about getting immediate results. Throw that out the window. Practice is the purpose. Fall in love with practicing. Small, simple steps, easy to do, easy not to do, but they make a world of difference over time. So, to wrap things up, life really is like a muscle.
Speaker 1:If you want to get stronger in any area of your life, whether it's your skills, your habits or your mindset, you've got to put in the work, you've got to challenge yourself, give yourself time to recover and stay consistent. And don't forget some muscles like discipline are amplifiers that make it easier to grow in other areas. To grow in other areas by applying the slight edge and the compound effect. Those small daily actions, those simple daily disciplines can give you a slight edge and compound over time, leading to big, lasting changes in the long run. So what's the next muscle you're going to start building? Start small and stay consistent. Every day is an opportunity to get one percent better. And remember you are enough and you deserve to fill up your inner cup with happiness, confidence and self-compassion.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Sage Solutions Podcast. Your time is valuable and I'm so glad you choose to learn and grow here with me. We'd love to hear your feedback, so click the link in the description and let us know what you think. If you haven't already, don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss out on more sage advice. One last thing the legal language. This podcast is for educational and informational purposes only. No coaching client relationship is formed. It is not intended as a substitute for the personalized advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist or other qualified professional.