What is My Buy In?
I have recently latched onto this question. My family and I recently moved across town. To put it mildly, it was chaos. Boxing up your life and relocating is never an easy task. Four days after the move, my wife (and number one supporter), Jess, flew out of town for an extremely overdue weekend away with her girlfriends. That left dear old dad to survive with 3 kids and 2 dogs for an extended weekend (gasp). The hardest part was the dogs. We went from a house that had a fenced in yard (think supermax) to a house without one. The extent I had to care for the dogs went from watching Jess walk them and feed them, with the occasional monumental contribution of mine–letting them in and out the door that led to their yard when they wanted to go out–to having to leash them and walk them 3-4 times a day. Don’t get me wrong, as a vegan of 5 years I do care about animals. However for the most part I could take or leave having to care for two extra sentient beings 24/7. I knew that if I was going to survive the weekend I was going to have to raise my level of “buy in”. Which is exactly what I did. I subconsciously started to arrange my schedule and daily life logistics around making sure they got what they needed. I committed myself to walking them 3 times a day. A crazy thing happened. I actually found myself enjoying being out in the new neighborhood with them. I enjoyed their company. It forced me out of my comfort zone and made me take on things that weren’t necessarily things I wanted to do.
It has made me ask this question across the different avenues of my life. As a father, as a husband, as a friend, as a self employed employee, as an athlete, as a coach, etc. What is my level of buy-in?. As part of my re-education into a functioning human adult, I have learned that half measures availed me nothing. I have ambition. But sometimes it is good to ask myself what my level of buy-in actually is. Am I doing EVERYTHING I can to accomplish the goals I want to meet? Or am I only doing the things that are comfortable and easy? I have found that the results that I get in my life are usually the results I deserve based on my level of commitment to that endeavor. As a coach I see a lot of it. We are all walking different paths and fighting our own battles. We all have different capacities for output given our individual life circumstances. I say all the time that any movement towards a healthy lifestyle is a positive thing. Most triathletes are pretty driven people, myself included. Despite that I have recently called into question my level of buy-in as an athlete. It is easy for me to lapse into what is easy and comfortable. I think for today, I am going to lean into what is outside of what is easy for me, and try to be a better version of myself. I am also going to call a fence company and price out some fencing for the backyard.
What is your level of buy-in for what you want to accomplish?