Finish Strong Friday Begins

SPEAKER_01 0:06

So I don't know about you, but uh it's beyond TGIF for me, man. It's about Finish Strong Friday. That's right. On the sweet spot here, we call it Finish Strong Friday. We do not say on the sweet spot TGIF. That's only part of it. That's only a part of it. You know what we say? Finish Strong Friday. That's right. Absolutely. You know why? Because we've been in a wonderful series here called The Inner Edge. Oh yes, we've covered a lot this week. I'm Dr. Derek Sweet. You're listening to this sweet spot. And it is Finish Strong Friday, my friend. And as you know, I work in high performance environments, but you know the highest performance is to sit across the coffee table with you, grab a cup of coffee, and think through this thing we call life. So this series has been called The Inner Edge. And we find ourselves in Finish Strong Fridays episode, episode 5, when you're tired and you still show up. Isn't that you? Isn't that all of us? A little tired, a little fatigued, and we still show up. And look, I I give you a lot of credit. You've done great. I'm proud of you. So what do I have for you this beautiful Finish Strong Friday? Well, we've covered a lot this week, haven't we? On Monday, you saw that pressure makes you fall back on whatever your genetic wiring is, whatever your already foundation is under there. On Tuesday, we saw that you can recover fast if you are intentional about it. On Wednesday, you've seen that meaning is assigned to moments, and that whatever meaning you assign to the moment changes everything. And Thursday, yesterday, you saw that trust keeps your identity steady. Now, let's talk about something very real here on Finish Strong Friday. What happens when you're just tired? Yeah, it's late in the week, it's late in the game, you're on a project and it's getting late. You've been disciplined, you've been really good, you've stayed steady, you've handled the pressure, and now your energy is low. It's Friday, it's TGIF, it's for the strong Friday. But you're tired. This is where a lot of strong starts fade. Everybody is fresh in the beginning. At the beginning of the race, everybody's running strong. But then fatigue sets in. Fatigue isn't laziness, it's reduced capacity. When you're tired, your patient just shrinks a little. Small problems start to feel bigger than they did on Monday, don't they? Wow, you know, there's that little experiment where they have you stick your hand out and you put a little cup on your hand and you stand there for three hours, and that little cup after three and a half, four hours, it feels like, oh my goodness, you're holding up a big truck. When you're tired, your patience can shrink a little. Have you ever been there where you're tired and you get snappy and short? You get frosty with people? Huh? Yeah, small problems feel bigger than they did on Monday or Tuesday, and uh your thoughts kind of tilt slightly negative when you're tired. And yeah, the effort can feel heavier than it should. That's normal. That's so normal. That's being human, that's being a human being. Your system is just trying to conserve energy. That's all it is. It's trying to conserve energy. And here's where things get tricky. When you're tired, you're more likely to avoid something uncomfortable. Yeah. You put off the hard email, the hard task. You delay doing the extra rep. This one's for me. You scroll instead of starting the new paragraph on the book you're supposed to be writing.

SPEAKER_00 4:27

Oh man, in that moment, you know, you just avoidance just feels so good, doesn't it? Sometimes, right? But you just avoid you know you're avoiding things. In that moment, yeah, avoidance feels good because you know what?

Mind Over Moment: Stoic And Buddhist Wisdom

Four Steps To Finish Strong

Procrastination As Emotional Avoidance

Rewriting The Story And CTA

SPEAKER_01 4:42

It lowers the tension and um you feel better. But that relief, as you know, is temporary. But your brain remembers it and it returns you there. And if that pattern repeats, something very subtle starts to happen. You begin to form a quiet belief, a quiet ceiling, an invisible ceiling. Remember that series? The invisible ceiling? Right. The invisible ceiling says, I don't finish strong, I lose focus around this time. I'm better on TikTok. I speak to myself, I'm better on Instagram. Okay, yeah, that belief weakens your inner edge. The problem isn't that you're tired, the problem is that when you get a little unfocused, you feel that going to TikTok makes you more focused, that somehow it'll bring you back. Yeah. Yeah. If you've been there, you know exactly what I'm talking about. But you have to understand that TikTok and Instagram and all the social media sites, they're good and they are interesting, but you can't give them power over your mind. You have to have power over your mind. Remember Marcus Aurelius' quote that we always say here on the sweet spot: you have power over your own mind. You don't have power over outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength. You may not control the fact that you're fatigued. You might not be able to control that. You're tired, you're a little fatigued, but you do control what you make fatigue, what you make it mean to be fatigued. Because the mind precedes every mental state. The mind is the chief, the mind is what's in charge. When you're tired, your mind colors the moment. Yeah. In Buddhism, in this Dhammapada, this Buddhist teaching book, it says that the mind precedes everything. That the mind is the chief of everything. So, if you believe every thought that shows up, well then there you have it. Your reality is set. Your reality is set. You have to notice the thought and make a decision as to whether or not this thought has the power to make you do TikTok or do the work you're supposed to do. It boils down to that. Absolutely. Even if you're doing good, doing great things, you still have to have a mindset that you're not gonna allow the fatigue to stop you from getting it done. Remember, in the ancient wisdom in Galatians, it says, um, so let not yourself get don't let's okay, so let's not allow ourselves to get fatigued by even doing good. Think about that. Notice that line carefully. It doesn't say you won't get tired, it just says don't quit. Don't quit. Finish strong. Finishing strong isn't about a feeling, it's about protecting who you are when your energy dips. It's about protecting what thought patterns you have when the fatigue hits you. So the first thing you have to do is be honest. I'm tired. I'm fatigued. Don't say I'm falling apart. Oh, I'm no good and all that stuff, right? Tired is temporary. Falling apart, that's a lot to deal with, right? When you say I'm falling apart, like I'm oh my goodness, this is the end of it. When you say things like that, the body just rehearses it, the brain rehearses it. Yeah, you can say you're fatigued and you're tired. The second thing is, after you've been honest about what state you're in and you don't over-dramatize it, the second thing is to make the next step you're gonna do small. Start reducing the task. My favorite way to say this is how would you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. That's the best way, right? Not the whole task, just the next piece. Five minutes. Take one possession at a time, you know, one possession at a time, one call at a time, one paragraph at a time, one email at a time, one issue at a time, break them down into smaller steps. And when you break things down into smaller steps, you rebuild your momentum. The third thing is to take your take care of your body briefly. Drink a glass of water and really be mindful about it. Be like, oh my goodness, this water feels awesome going down my throat, right? Something like that. Step into the light and say, wow, this light is regenerating my my melanocytes, my skin cells, whatever. Okay, that will help. Um, take 10 slow breaths, like we've been practicing here on the sweet spot, where you just sort of drill the air in and then take a long exhale out. You know, do 10 of those. Reset your nervous system, move for two minutes, stretch. These aren't hacks. This is a way to steady your nervous system. When you move around and do these kinds of things, when you take care of your body even for like two seconds, two minutes, you send a powerful message. And then the last thing is start before you're ready. That's one the energy will return before you begin. Each time you move forward when you're tired, you collect evidence. Evidence that says, I can continue. And that evidence builds trust. Trust keeps your identity steady, sweet spotter. And a steady identity, as we've been seeing all week, when you keep your identity steady and the stress comes and you know who you are and you know where your edges, your performance is also excellent. A lot of times you have to move in order for the body to understand that you can do it. Because if you wait for the mind to tell you you ain't going nowhere, you'll be on TikTok. Trust me, I know. Yeah, fatigue doesn't ruin your edge. Quitting on yourself ruins your edge. So don't blame it on the fatigue. Don't blame it on the fatigue. Quitting on yourself is what stops it. Not finishing strong is what ruins the edge. You don't need to be dramatic about this at all. Just just stay with one rep, just stay with one page, just stay with one action, just finish one thing strong, and then the next thing we go to the next thing. Compartmentalize. That's what finishing strong is, and that's your inner edge. You've been listening to Finish Strong Friday, and we've been exploring with you some very practical strategies for finishing strong. And that's quite powerful. That's how you do it. Absolutely. And listen, I want to just say a quick word about procrastination because sometimes you listen, I speak to myself. Procrastination is not that you lack discipline, it's that there's a lot of discomfort around you. And what's happening is you want to get rid of the discomfort so you don't get anything done. That's what that boils down to. So look, it it's not even poor time management. It's really more like a it's more like emotional avoidance. You're delaying the task because you it triggers you not feeling comfortable. And the discomfort could be anything with procrastination, right? It could be a fear of failure, a fear of being evaluated, a fear of confirming a doubt that maybe you can't really do this, or it feels so huge, you're not so sure. But when you avoid the task, the discomfort drops and it feels good for a moment. And that's why you're on TikTok, that's why you're watching TV, that's why you're in these wonderful conversations with somebody when you know darn well you should be doing what you're supposed to do. That relief feels good. But remember, your brain encodes avoidance as a reward, and you're gonna have a problem with that. And the problem is not the delay, the problem is what the delay begins to mean. Because if you repeatedly pull away when you're tired, your mind starts writing a quiet sentence about you. Oh, yes, it does, it'll say, I don't finish, and we can't have that here on the sweet spot. We don't do that on the sweet spot because this is finish strong Friday, and you definitely want your brain to encode something different. So that's the message. Stay strong, focus, don't let the edge control you. You control the edge. I'll see you tomorrow for self-care Saturday, where we're gonna widen the discussion on the inner edge to include self-care. For science, for soul, and for success. Subscribe to the sweet spot and share it. See you tomorrow.