Life in Seasons

Have you ever thought about living your life in seasons? 

I had never heard of this concept a few months ago and now it seems like I am hearing it everywhere. 

I’m hearing it almost to the point of redundancy where I don’t see as much value in it. That thought led to this writing. 

Afterall, without this framing, you may arrive at the end of your life full of regrets and no time to resolve them. 

While my college athletic career wasn’t long, we lived and died by the season. In the summer, we had summer training. You could lift and condition in the morning or the evening. It wasn’t mandatory but it might as well have been if you didn’t want to be demolished by our transition to the actual season. 

During our season, you lifted in the morning or before practice, had film, practiced, rehabbed as necessary and repeated that until game day. We’d watch film the day after the game, have yoga on Sundays and go back to lifting, film, and practice on Monday. This would continue for the length of our season which was contingent upon how deep we would get into the playoffs. This season typically ran from late July to late November. 

We would then be met with a break for the winter that would be interrupted once our spring classes started. Spring ball was everybody’s favorite time of year. If you look really closely, every word there is mired in sarcasm. Spring ball sucked because of how hard we busted our asses to not really get to see the fruits of our labor until the following season. 

When I think of living in seasons, I reflect on this time in my life. Summer training. The season. Winter break. Spring ball. Repeat. 

The beauty of seasons in life is that you get to define the period of time that you are living in. Unlike in my football experience, you get to define how long the period lasts. You get to define what you are working towards in that period. 

It gives you control to define what you are setting out to do for that period and what you want to accomplish. 

If the season analogy doesn’t resonate with you - another that might is the term “arc.” When I think of an arc, I think of the phenomenally illustrated anime, Demon Slayer. In this show you have The Final Selection Arc, The Kidnapper’s Bog Arc, The Asakusa Arc, The Tsuzumi Mansion Arc, The Mount Natagumo Arc, The Rehabilitation Training Arc, The Mugen Train Arc, etc. 

Arcs accomplish this same goal of allowing you to define what you are working on in that time period. For instance, in the Rehabilitation Training Arc, Tanjiro was returning from a fight that he was drastically under prepared for. Him and his friends had come close to death and managed to survive. 

This arc started with an emphasis on their recovery and evolved into a focus on them developing the skills that would allow them to take on higher ranks of the 12 Kizuki helping ensure they could avoid being in this same position in the future. 

This creates a clear way for the viewer to identify the underlying purpose of this portion of the story and, upon reflection, a point where the viewer can clearly identify a jump in Tanjiro’s abilities. 

You don’t need to value anime to see how this concept could be valuable in your life. 

I am currently in my “Do the Hard Things” arc or season. I am refining my ability to push myself again. 

With that, I am taking on the challenge of burning the body fat that I acquired through my “I’m not making dinner, I’m ordering pizza” arc and beginning my multi-year bodybuilding journey to push myself every single day.

In addition to this, I am locking in on my audience growth. This requires me to be consistent with the pace at which I upload content so I can build a library of content, allowing people like yourself to get to know me and what I stand for better. 

I am currently recording one video per day and posting at least one blog post per day. 

This will allow me to refine my process, my articulation, and my ability to communicate my ideas effectively with you. 

I have a strong desire to make a difference in peoples’ lives and I believe this is a great avenue to start. 

You may not think there is a correlation between audience building and bodybuilding meaning they shouldn’t be in the same arc, but I politely disagree. 

Neither of these challenges are easy and I have to remain focused for a very long period of time if I want to achieve my goals and continue building going forward. 

This arc is likely going to take me multiple years to get from where I am to where I want to be, but I am committed to that challenge and am willing to make the sacrifices to get there. 

I am the youngest I will ever be and I don’t want to be 40 years old knowing that I still have 20 years left in corporate America before I can retire. That would be significantly worsened by the lack of progress towards my goals without an arc such as this one. 

While my view on this arc may be a bit extreme, I do believe that this arc is necessary for anybody that wants to achieve their goals. 

No, I’m not saying you need to bodybuild and focus on creating an audience. You may not care about either of those goals. 

I am saying that the “Do the Hard Thing” arc is a constant that is evident in most successful people that sets them apart from others. The only caveat that I will add is that they are doing the hard thing with intention. 

You could do the hard thing in the form of excruciating manual labor your whole life but without a clear goal in mind, you worked just to get paid and are likely to be left with many regrets in your life. 

If you don’t prioritize what is true to your core in your life, you will be left with regrets regardless of what you set your sights on. 

I share this as some of us are more motivated by avoiding the feeling of regret than by the pursuit of our goals by themselves. 

I’ll expand that and say, there are many goals that we all have that we will never achieve that we have to sacrifice for our most meaningful goals; but, with a lack of intention, you may be prioritizing the goals that you would sacrifice and entertaining an arc that serves you limited benefit. 

That begs the question; what arc or season have you been living in recently? 

If you aren’t sure, reflect on what you have been working on. What have you been doing inside of work? What have you been working on outside of work? What are you seeking to accomplish? What are you leaving on the table by living this arc? What could you prioritize to move you towards what would ultimately become your biggest regret if you don’t work towards it? 

These questions will take a bit to explore, I encourage you to get a pen and paper or open a Google Docs to write out your responses. Allow yourself to explore this and see where the thoughts take you. 

If nothing is coming to mind, start writing anyway. You’ll be shocked at how much this positively impacts your ability to reflect and get going. 

Once you have decided if you are on the right or wrong track, make a commitment to yourself. What is one small step that you can make for the next 30 days to either solidify the arc or season you are in if it is the right one or to mark the start of a new season if you are in the wrong one? 

Then, minimize your time spent on anything outside of that. Remove your distractions and go for it. 

You just might surprise yourself with what your commitment to this season does for you and you’ll help yourself avoid future regrets along the way.