Bodybuilding Physique Update 3.

Setting my 3-5 year goal.

Since my previous physique update I have set out a goal of weighing 165 pounds lean within the next 3-5 years (2022-2024). To achieve this goal, I also decided that I was going to learn from others more than trying to create a program for myself at the moment. This led me to the idea of starting the Greek God Program by Kinobody once again. This is a program that I started a couple years ago, made some strength gain on, and then ended up switching up after a few months since I wasn't seeing the muscle growth that I wanted at the time. I wanted to try out the program again to see how it would work for me at this point in my life, hoping to see better results in terms of muscle growth. So far I can say that I am noticing a bigger back, shoulders and arms, however I have only been on the program again for about a month, and due to visiting Miami and driving back to Michigan I didn't work out for a week and a half or so besides some occasional pushups. My exact goal came about from listening to Think & Grow Rich. Throughout the book Napoleon Hill talks about the importance of setting an exact goal for yourself. Although I wanted to set an exact goal for a while now, I have been procrastinating setting this goal for the first month and a half of 2019. So creating this goal for myself is a huge motivator, as it helps me envision myself lean at 165 pounds, but even more importantly, I know that once I achieve this goal that I will be able to help you achieve your fitness goals better.
As I write this I have noticed a little more fat gain than I would like, so I am also starting to track my calories daily again until I get my body fat down to a level I would like or maintain the body fat I currently have while gaining muscle.  The reason being is that I don't want to achieve my goal of 165 and then have to drop a bunch of fat, and put the muscle that I lost from cutting back on after.

I am hoping that this will make the process a little bit easier for me down the road.  Obviously I will still have to eat some extra calories to put on muscle, so I probably won't lose a whole bunch of fat, but at the same time, I don't have a whole bunch of fat to lose at this moment (I just have a few more pounds of fat than I would like to have).

Closing thoughts.

Setting a specific goal for yourself and your body can be a massive benefit.  Personally when I think of being 165 pounds of lean muscle, it helps me be in the mindset of "what would I do to get to this goal" more often.

So write down a definite goal for yourself.  Maybe it's a 3 month goal or a 10 year goal for your body.  Whatever it is for you, by having this goal in mind you will be inspired to achieve it so much so that your entire mindset will change for the better.

Live your life to the fullest,

Brian

5 Ways Daily Gratitude Can Improve Your Life.

Today we are going to discuss 5 ways daily gratitude has positively impacted my life, and how it can change your life for the better.  I am also sharing with you how not practicing gratitude on a daily basis will lead to you in turn living a life of misery.

I didn't want to write some "feel good" gratitude blog, but instead, I wrote something that will actually lead you to take action on starting daily gratitude and living your best life.

I do share the benefits of gratitude and how it will make you feel better day to day.  But I also had to touch on some points of how it will cause pain in your life.  I did this because most people like to read blogs that make them feel good (I love it to), but those blogs never get me to make a positive change in my life because they don't touch on the pain of not taking action, which is what really gets people to change their lives.

So please read over this and take action today.  My daily gratitude takes about 1 minute per night before bed.  This is one of the easier habits to start, but just because its easy doesn't mean it isn't important.  This one habit has been what has caused me to see more good in my life and the world.  So lets jump right into how gratitude will make your life better!

Over the past 6 months I have been consistently practicing daily gratitude every single night before bed, with the exception of some days here and there where I forgot to log my gratitude for the day, or didn't have a sheet of paper to write down 3 things I was grateful during that day.

Although I have practiced this in the past, I found myself not staying consistent until the past 6 months or so.  But after staying consistent for the past 6 months, I wanted to share 5 benefits that I have noticed in my own life by practicing daily gratitude.

I hope that these 5 benefits will be an influence to you to start a daily gratitude journal of your own!

1. It becomes easier to focus on the good throughout your day.

In today's world it is easy for us to constantly focus on the negative.  We are constantly fed fear mongering news which gets us focused on the negative in the world all the time.  Maybe you are also surrounded by people that constantly complain about how much their life "sucks".

When you start to practice daily gratitude, you will noticed that you don't resonate with their negativity anymore, or if you do, you'll put dramatically less focus on the negative.  In fact instead of noticing all the "bad" that the news shoves down your throat, you will notice that the world is actually mostly filled with good.

2. You go to sleep in a positive state of mind.

How many nights have you ended up going to sleep pissed of or dragged down from the day you had?  Don't worry it happens to everyone, we all have bad days.  But we don't need to always go to bed feeling this way after having a bad day.

By writing out 3 things you are grateful for about your day right before you go to bed, you will be switching your minds focus to the good things that happened throughout your day.  This has probably been the biggest benefit that I have noticed from practicing gratitude before bed on a daily basis.

Before I started doing this I would notice that I would go to sleep holding on to all the negative thoughts that I had throughout the day.  My focus was in the wrong place.  I also have noticed that by focusing on the good before bed, that you will wake up the next morning in a better mood (most of the time) than you are used to waking up in (this is just my personal experience, it may be different for you).

3. You are able to enjoy the moment more often.

Daily gratitude has also helped me realize that every moment we have is precious.  The problem is that when we don't practice gratitude we never really get to enjoy the moments of our lives as much as we could if we were to practice gratitude.

Gratitude helps you to focus on smaller moments you might not otherwise think of.  Think of right now if you were sitting at a table in a 5 start restaurant eating a perfectly prepared steak dinner.  You would probably eat the dinner slowly and savor each and every bite of the steak.  But how often do you do this when you are eating some cheap food or fast food?  My guess is that you never savor each and every bite.

And I'm not saying that when you practice gratitude on a daily basis that every meal will feel like eating a steak at a 5 start restaurant.  But you will be able to enjoy what you are doing in the moment more often than you would before.

4. You take less for granted.

We have so much going for us in our lives, but most of us don't even take the time to realize this.  We usually feel a lack in our lives.  Whether that is you don't have the best car, food, house or whatever it may be.  Now don't get me wrong I am striving for a better life and I love luxuries such as a nice car, house or some good food.  Go for the things that you want in life, there is nothing wrong with that!

The problem comes when we aren't grateful for what we currently have.  We start to think that what we have isn't enough.  We are so focused on complaining about the things we have right now, but how often do you think to yourself "you know what I am grateful for the car/house/phone/shoes that I have".

Imagine how much better you would feel if you were grateful for the things you have in life right now.

Practicing daily gratitude has helped me to focus on how much I actually already have more often.

5. You will notice most of what you used to focus on was useless.

I actually really noticed myself complaining a couple of weeks ago.  I was leaving Florida and driving back up to Michigan.  If you know me you know that I despise cold and cloudy days, and I was starting to feel triggered.  In fact this feeling lasted for a couple of days after I arrived back home.  I noticed myself complaining all day about being back in Michigan.  Although half of my complaints were me just joking, the other half were real complaints, I spent so much time thinking about how "bad" it is to be back in Michigan.

After a couple of days I snapped out of it.  Part of it was my dad telling me to look at a few reasons to be happy to be back in Michigan, the other part was that I realized that if I wasn't grateful throughout my day (or at least at night) that this cycle would continue and soon be out of control.

One small thing that I remember being grateful for was that the Whole Foods close to where I live in Michigan sells the best açaí bowls that I have ever had in my life.  None of the Whole Foods in Florida sell them, so you bet I was happy to get back to this Whole Foods for my açaí bowl!

If you are reading this it is probably easy to realize how ridiculous my complaining was being back in Michigan.  Maybe you are in the same boat but you don't even realize it (it is always easy to notice other peoples faults but never our own).  From my experience above I can say that after being grateful to be back in Michigan my day to day mood has gotten better since those first couple of days.

If you are in a similar phase, practicing daily gratitude before bed is the easiest way to break the habit.

And soon after you will wonder why you spent so much time focusing on BS.

Closing thoughts.

I hope that reading the benefits of gratitude has influenced you to start keeping a daily gratitude journal of your own.  I personally like to use the same page in my notebook that I write out the plan for my day on, but you may prefer to keep a separate journal just for your daily gratitude.

Let me know, how has keeping a gratitude journal impacted your life, what benefits have you noticed?

Live your life to the fullest,

Brian

The Happiness Hypothesis By Jonathan Haidt Top 10 Lessons (Part 2).

If you haven't read part 1 of the top 10 lessons from The Happiness Hypothesis, click here to read it before reading lessons 6-10 down below.




6. Practice being social.

The first point of part two of this blog on The Happiness Hypothesis is to start to work on building closer relationships with the people in your life.  In the book Haidt says that "having strong social relationships strengthens the immune system, extends life (more than does quitting smoking), speeds recovery from surgery, and reduces depression and anxiety disorders."  (Having strong relationships link to your happiness has also been confirmed by Durkheim's diagnosis).

The reason this point stood out to me was because it was a huge eye opener for me.

Although I see myself as being extremely close with my immediate family and a couple of friends, I often times have trouble growing as close as I would like with many of the people that I meet and talk to on a regular basis.

This even affects how social I am with some of my more, distant family.  Maybe you can relate?

This point from the book is massive and I think the reason that this section stopped me in my tracks as I was reading was because I realized that this is something that I need to work on big time if I want to live my happiest and most fulfilled life.

If you are in the same boat, how are some ways you can continue to nurture the close relationships you have?  Maybe you have old friends you haven't spoke to in years, or would like to make new friends.

7. Acceptance & Action.

"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference."

Throughout our lifetime, many of us fixate on all of the "bad" things we cannot change about ourselves or our situation.  The classic saying above, is something that we can all use to our benefit.  First we must acknowledge that we are fixating on our "problems", in order to accept them.

As a reader of this blog, you may be all focussed on changing the things that you can change in your life.  But if you don't first accept the things about your life that you cannot change, then even when you change everything you can, you will still feel this state of unhappiness.

I realize that this may be challenging to do, in fact this is something I am currently working on in my own life.  However from my experience, the more I am able to accept what I cannot control, I am able to move faster towards my goals.

As I am writing this blog I realized that over the past few days that I was not accepting my situation I am currently in.  I just got back to Michigan from a nearly 3 month trip to Florida.  Being someone who loves to spend time outside in the warm, sunny weather, I noticed myself getting "triggered" being back in Michigan, and to be honest the first couple days back here I was feeling extremely down about it.

Today I just started to accept my situation a little more and I notice myself feeling better already.  Sure I do still wish I was in Florida, but there are many things in Michigan that I enjoy as well, and I know, deep down that feeling sad about not being in Florida isn't going to change my situation or help me to achieve my goals.

What is something in your life that you need to accept?  Learn to take a step back and look at what is currently a challenge in your life.  Doing this alone will help you learn to accept your situation and move forward from it.

8. Develop your strengths.

Become what it is in your nature to become, realize your potential, and develop your strengths to have the good life.

I believe that we are all born with a certain gift of our own.  We were given this gift to serve the universe as a whole in some way.  Your gift may not be something you are passionate about per se.

A classic example of this is part of Michael Jordan's story.  In short, Michael loved baseball, but his body wasn't built well for being very good as baseball, instead he would have more strength playing basketball (a sport he wasn't as passionate about, but had a better chance of being good at).  By Michael nurturing his strengths, we know him today as one of the greatest basketball players of all time!

By developing your strengths it will be easier to live not only a happy life but a fulfilled one as well.

9. You need love, work, and a higher purpose.

By getting the right relationships, work, and something larger than yourself, a sense of meaning and purpose will emerge.

To feel fulfilled in life, we must have meaningful relationships, as well as work, and be moving towards something bigger than ourselves.  If you are lacking in love, work, or a higher purpose it will be a challenge to move towards where you would like to be in life.

Love is what brings us together, and this goes back to lessons number 6 - being more social.  We must have more close connections with those we care about in our lives to live our happiest life.

Work can either be a huge destroyer of your happiness, or something that amplifies happiness.  If your wake up excited to do your work it is a good sign you are on the right path.  On the flipside, if you wake up every weekday hating your work and wanting to stay in bed rather than go to work, then you will always be unhappy as long as you continue to do that work.

From what I have noticed is that most successful people tie together their work with their higher purpose.

10. We need an Eastern & Western approach to life.

In different times we will benefit more from Eastern or more from Western philosophies.  At one point in life, you may need to sit back and reflect on everything in your life that matters to you.  Other times, you may need to hustle and actively move towards your goals.

Both philosophies are important, and if you neglect either one, your life is sure to be sub-par.

For example, in my own life, I have lately been feeling like I am hitting a wall at certain times, because I am super focused on growing, that I never take the time to work on my spiritual side as much.  Although I have been implementing 20 minutes of meditation per day, I still feel like I need to connect with myself more a couple days per week.  I feel as if I need this time for myself to make what I share 10 times better than it currently is.

Maybe you are in the same boat?  Or maybe you are on the other side, where you need or want to start taking a Western approach?

From what I have noticed so far in my own life, is that whenever I combine these philosophies, I am able to carry out my gift in the best way possible, and make things lighter and easier on myself.

Give it a try yourself, if you are only working, take some time to at least meditate each day.  If you are only meditating or reading but taking no action, start to take a more Western or hustle approach to your day.

Closing thoughts.

I hope that these 10 lessons from The Happiness Hypothesis will be beneficial to you in your very own life.  Comment below which lesson you are going to implement immediately and why you are going to implement that lesson into your life!

Live your life to the fullest,

Brian

Why You Need To Be Grateful For 99% Of Everything You Complain About (The One Thing Nobody Talks About).

The idea for writing this blog came about around two weeks ago.  I one night I went to sleep around 12 a.m. and ended up waking up around 3 a.m.

This is pretty normal for me as I usually wake up once or twice throughout the night.  But this night was different, for some reason I could not get back to sleep even after laying in bed for over an hour.

I ended up feeling pretty aggravated, but decided to start my day after an hour and a half of trying to get back to sleep.  And although I was angry for only getting 3 hours of sleep, after a few hours I accepted it and it got me thinking about the subject of today's blog, which is to have gratitude for most of the complaints you have if you live in a first world county.

A few common complains we often have.

- Losing Wifi
- Traffic
- Waiting "too long" for food

We all have complained about at least one of these one time or another.  And yes they may be real complaints because we are used to living a certain way.  However, in the grand scheme of things, how much do most of our complaints really matter, or help us grow?

The scenario from a couple weeks ago helped me realize that I must recognize my complaints, and instead of complaining, I need to be grateful for having whatever I am complaining about be my biggest worry at that time.

I realized that complaining about getting 3 hours of sleep isn't going to serve me.

Why you can feel lucky in this situation.

The fact that we are able to complain about such minuscule things in our life is a true blessing.  Living in a first world country, we are able to have the luxury to complain about these things.  And often times, most of these complaints are accepted by most people as normal.

So how exactly can you feel lucky during a situation when you feel like complaining?

I'll use my own life as an example.  Almost every time the internet goes out or is taking more than 1.3 seconds to load something I notice myself get mad for a second.  Then I will start to shift my focus on a real problem that affects people in the world (such as someone walking several miles just to get some water).

Now I completely understand that this is an extreme case, but just try it for a second.  Think of something small that you have recently complained about, or a small complaint that is currently on your mind.  Then switch your focus and envisioning yourself having to walk miles to get some water.

Most likely your complaint isn't a big deal anymore, in fact you may even start to laugh that you had that complaint in the first place.

Closing thoughts.

Now I am not saying to never let things bother you, obviously we are all going to be bothered by something.  And it is fine to complain about certain things in our life.  I wrote this to shed some light on this topic because I never really hear people talk about it.  

Although you may still complain about little things in life (its ok I still do to), I hope that this blog has helped you to start to complain about little things less, and improves your life as a whole!

Live your life to the fullest,

Brian

The Happiness Hypothesis By Jonathan Haidt Top 10 Lessons (Part 1)

After re-reading The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt, I have found a few key lessons that will help you to grow happier in your own life.

When I first read this book a couple of years back, I did not understand much of it and the text went over my head for the most part.  

After reading it the second time through I found between 20-30 parts of the book that really spoke to me.

I compiled a list of the top 10 lessons from the book and wanted to share 5 of them with you here today in part 1 of the top 10 lessons from The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt!

1. Play your role in the universe.

"The message of the Bhagavad Gita (a central text of Hinduism) is that you can't quit the game entirely; you have a role to play in the functioning of the universe, and you must play that role.  But you should do it in the right way, without being attached to the "fruits" or outcomes of your action."

If you are a follower of Ganifit, you know that I have talked on this same subject over the past few months.  I strongly believe that we all have our own role in this life.  Sadly most of us don't even try to play that role, because we try to follow what others say we should do.

But for one minute, take out the time here before reading on to really think of how much better your own life, the lives of those you deeply care for, and the world as a whole will be if you start or continue to take action on your gift to the universe.

Each and everyone one of us has a role to play.  To be exceptional in our lives.  You were put here at this specific time for a reason.  You have some gift and some role to play.  

This quote from The Happiness Hypothesis is one of the best ways to realize how to be happier in your own life.  

Personally I find that whenever I am doing an activity that allows me to play my role in the universe that I always end up feeling happier, during that time and the rest of my day.  




As an example, as I write this blog I feel good while writing because I am sharing something that I know is going to help you live your life a little bit happier.

What is it for you?  Have you been practicing your role in the universe, or do you need to start your role in the universe?

2. Acknowledge the fault.

This one is going to be hard for many of you.  That is ok, it is hard for me and everyone else on Earth to acknowledge their own faults.

Think of it like this.  As an example, how often do you notice other people slacking off in some way?  Maybe its with their workouts, diet, or playing video games for hours on end, or watching too much TV.  

Now I mentioned that, you probably thought of other people that do these same exact things.  But how often do you notice yourself do the same?

It is always going to be easier to notice when others make mistakes than when you make a mistake.  It is human nature.

Haidt suggests that if we acknowledge our own faults that it will be painful at first, but by digging into the faults we will be rewarded with a flash of pleasure and a hint of pride.  Similar to the feeling you get when you pull a splinter from your skin.  

I believe this is not only important for happiness, but to live a better life as a whole.  If you are able to acknowledge your own faults it will also be able to help you with lesson number 1 (play your role in the universe) as you will get to know yourself better.

3. Know your baseline state.

Haidt suggests that when something good happens to us, or something bad happens to us, that we will eventually go back to feeling the way that we feel most of the time.

You can think of this in terms of when you have bought something that you have wanted.  For a while, you will feel a sense of a rush once you bought this thing.  But after a while you notice yourself go back to your baseline way of feeling.

The opposite is also true.  If for example this same thing that you really wanted was to be damaged.  You may be devastated for a while, but then go right back to your baseline state.

Why I believe this lesson is huge is because by knowing our baseline state (the way we feel most of the time) we will from there be able to find ways to increase that baseline.

A couple ways to do this that are described in The Happiness Hypothesis are through meditation, cognitive therapy, and prozac.

Personally, I can only speak on meditation and what I have felt from doing meditation on a regular basis.  (If you have done cognitive therapy, or use prozac, I would love to hear how they work for you!)

I have just started to get back into 20 minutes of meditation per day like I used to do.  Although as of writing this I have only done 2 days in a row.  When I would mediate in the past, every single day, I noticed that it would help me to be more patient, calm, and centered in my daily life.  

I find that after about 5 days of meditating I start to notice these benefits in my own life, but once I fall off I start to notice that my baseline state gets lower.  When I make time to meditate every single day, my baseline is higher.  I am also able to come from a better space more often than when I do not meditate.

4. Happiness comes from within / focus on what you can control.

One of the easiest ways I have found to feel unhappy and stressed is by focussing on the things that I can not control.  Every time I do this simple action, I always find myself stressing out.

Focusing on what you can not control not only stresses you out but also is just a plain waste of time and energy.

I know there are different degrees to this, some things you can not control are bigger than others. 

As an example, if you have bad eyesight, would you sit there and complain about how bad your eyes are (something you can't control).  Or would you go get your eyes checked and get glasses, contacts, or eye surgery (something you can control).

The first option will make you unhappy and feel like a victim.  The latter will put you in control of your eyes and help you see like normal.


5. Turn inward.

For part one of this blog, I believe this is the one lesson that would bring these points from The Happiness Hypothesis together.  

As humans we must share our life from inwards out.  What Haidt believes will cause unhappiness is by making the world conform to your will.

This way of thinking that the world revolves around us is a guaranteed way to live an unhappy and unfulfilled life.  

Once we start to turn inward (a great way is through meditation) we start to notice that we are actually the creators of our own world.  Instead of trying to make everything work our way, for ourselves, we must first turn inwards.  Once we turn inwards towards our true selves, we will have true inner growth.

With this inner growth we will then be able to spread it throughout the universe (the opposite of making the world / universe conform to us, which is a form up taking rather than expanding).

Closing thoughts.

I hope that you have gained massive value from these first 5 lessons from The Happiness Hypothesis.  By implementing at least one these lessons into you life today, you will without a doubt start to notice a positive change in how you feel throughout the day!

Live your life to the fullest,

Brian

Why I Will No Longer Consider Myself A Hard Gainer And Why You Should Do The Same.

Over the time I have created the Ganifit blog and Youtube channel I have been considering myself a hard gainer, and using the term "hard gainer" in several blogs and videos.  And this is great, it may give you something to connect with, and is an easy term to understand.

The problem I am having with using this term is I feel, for myself, that as long as I consider myself a hard gainer, I will always have some kind of trouble for gaining muscle.

However I may still use this term in some of my videos and blogs so it is easy for you to find what you are looking for when you search for something such as "How to gain muscle as a hard gainer".

The reason I am going to no longer consider myself a hard gainer is because over the time that I have started my personal journey, I have always been considering myself a hard gainer.  Which from the books I have read, podcasts I have listened to, and Youtube videos I have watch over this time, I have heard many people talk about small barriers that block people from becoming successful in their given field.  Many of us aren't even aware that we are blocking ourselves, but from what I have heard from several people that I consider successful, is that we are what we think of ourselves as.

So if I am always calling myself a "hard gainer" then I will always have trouble gaining muscle and this will be who I think I am supposed to be in my subconscious.  But for an example, if I flip the language I use and start to perceive myself as a bodybuilder, then I will find it easier to gain muscle, and train more like a bodybuilder would train, eat like a bodybuilder would eat, etc.

How this can apply to your life.

What I am talking about here, not only applies to how you perceive yourself in terms of health and fitness, but how you perceive yourself in any area of life.

To name a few common things many people think about themselves, maybe you are always thinking deep down you "always mess things up" "just can't lose weight" or "I'm never good enough"

If you are currently carrying any type of language that is limiting yourself from living your best life, I want you to write it down right now, whatever it is just accept it for the moment.  Next I want you to write down one belief for each limiting belief that could break your limiting beliefs.

If you have one limiting belief that is OK, if you have 1,000 that is also OK.  

Once your have identified a way to flip your limiting beliefs to beliefs that will work for you and serve you along your journey, just start by implementing one empowering belief into your life.

How implementing empowering beliefs will change your life.

By identifying your limiting beliefs, writing them down, and implementing empowering beliefs, you will be making things easier on yourself.  You will no longer have to keep hitting the wall you are currently hitting.  Instead you will blast right through that wall, crumbling it into a million pieces.

Now by no means am I saying your goals are just going to be a walk in the park and all rainbows, where you can just sit there and wait for things to happen.  But by taking away these limiting beliefs and replacing them with empowering beliefs, along with taking action towards your goals, it will feel a lot easier than it has in the past.

As an example, as I write this blog I also wrote down my limiting beliefs on the notes app on my phone.  I found that one of my limiting beliefs was being a "bad writer" because most of the time in school I would rarely get A's on writing assignments.  But by doing the exercise of making this limiting belief and empower one, I switched that I was a "bad writer" into "my writing positively impacts billions of people around the world".  Now although this may not be true for the current moment in my life (as I don't yet have an audience of that many people) it has rewired my mind to write as if I already am writing to that many people.  And if I view my these blogs as something that is a positive impact on the world I am also going to be writing with more emotion.

Closing thoughts.

It has taken me years to actually implement this into my own life.  Which I know has in turn set me back years in terms of where I could be today if I actually implemented this mindset when I first heard about it.  I wrote this in hopes that you will implement this today, instead of waiting years, and wasting your own time by having limiting beliefs, that make you stay right where you are and stop you from achieving your goals.

Although I have neglected this in the past, I wanted to write this as a way to share my own experience, in hopes that it will help you to take action today to live your best, healthiest life!

Join me along this journey, and lets start to grow together.

Live your life to the fullest,

Brian

Why I Started Adding 1 Set To Each Exercise (From Skinny To Bodybuilder).

I really wanted to start to share with you a tip that I am currently testing at this time in my life.  I am testing this because I believe it is always a good idea to test new things to find stuff that might work better for you in your life.

Over the next couple months I am going to be testing this strategy out, of adding one more set to each of my exercises (accounting for about 8 extra sets per workout since I do approximately 8 exercises per workout in the gym).

I am hoping this helps me grow muscle faster since I will be training my muscle groups 25% more than I have been over the past year or so.  One reason I am doing this to get to 165 lbs as fast as possible in a healthy way, but another, even more important reason is that by adding these extra sets to my workouts, I have already noticed I am pushing myself a little bit more in my daily life with the other activities I do, including writing this blog right now.  Because I didn't even plan on writing this today, I was going to plan it for another day.

What can you gain from doing this?

Imagine yourself right now, instead of walking out of the gym just doing the bare minimum, and feeling the same as you always do, imagine yourself walking out of the gym head held high, feeling like the champ you really are!

You may currently be saying to yourself "that sounds really cool Brian, but how is this going to help me?"

Besides being able to have more courage to push yourself more, you will feel like a champ the second you walk out of that gym.

It is very easy to get stuck in a workout routine and always just do the same thing over and over with no change whatsoever.  The second you decided to push yourself and add some more sets you may start to say "This is going to take too long"  or  "Doing this much of a workout is too exhausting".  But the second you complete your workout, how do you think you will feel by proving to yourself that you can complete it?

Only you can answer this for yourself.  However I would like to share with you exactly how I feel after completing my workouts over the past week by implementing this strategy into my lifting.

I have been in the gym 4 days in the past 7 days, and each day I implemented this technique.  3 out of the 4 days were super productive for me outside of the gym.  The only day I didn't feel to great was Saturday, but I think I just woke up on the "wrong side of the bed" if you will, for achieving my goals.  Regardless of this, I still felt amazing during my workout and after accomplishing what I set out to accomplish during that workout.

Closing thoughts.

I am hoping this becomes a useful part of your life.  First start out with pushing yourself a little more in your workouts, and then after a while start to carry this same philosophy into other areas of your life as well.

If you have gained massive value from reading, and implementing this into your workout I would love to hear your thoughts and feedback on how much it has made a positive impact on your life as a whole!

Live your life to the fullest,

Brian