No Hands

There are a lot times, day to day and throughout life, that we need and accept help. That we give ourselves a much needed advantage in order to accomplish something and succeed. But let’s take a moment and talk about all those times that we could accept help, could do things the easier way, but don’t need to and shouldn’t.

When You Don’t Need the Help

I’ll start this off with a small personal example. Most of the core and mobility exercises I do involve me being on the floor in some fashion, which inevitably leads to me needing to stand back up. For quite some time, I was in the habit of grabbing the edge of my desk with both hands to help myself stand up. One day I stopped and asked myself: Do I NEED to use my hands for this, or am I jut doing this because it makes it easier? The answer, of course, was the latter.

Standing up after punishing exercise without using your hands on a nearby surface, of course, sucks. However, as I’ve said before, I always want it to suck more. Unsurprisingly, each time it got easier. My body adapted. I’d gotten stronger.

So this got me thinking: How many times throughout my life had I done things an easier way when I didn’t need to? How many places had I used the training wheels, the easy mode, accepted help from someone else when forcing myself through the harder way would have built more character, more strength?

Ask yourself this same question. How many areas of your life are you taking the short cut in? How many chances to grow stronger by learning self-reliance are you missing? If the answer is more than zero, the answer is too many. Be honest and ruthless with yourself. Take off the training wheels. Say no to easy mode. Take every opportunity train your mind and body to rely only on yourself.

As a final caveat, let me be clear that I am NOT against the honest need and acceptance of assistance when you genuinely need it. If you know you need help, whether it’s physical or mental, get it. Just be honest with yourself about the difference between the need and shortcut.

Why it Matters

Having help available is a great thing. No one should ever have to face the long road of life completely alone. There are, however, stretches of that road that you do have no choice but to face alone. In those times, you will be glad that you learned the skill of self-reliance. That you taught yourself to not shy away from the hard to way, to not always look for the shortcut, because sometimes there is no shortcut to be found. Sometimes you just have to gut through with no training wheels, no helping hands, and no help.

When those times come, you will thank yourself for learning to not expect an easy way, to not expect that there will always be help. You won’t even hesitate, you’ll just forge ahead without wasting the time to look for a shortcut you’ve taught yourself to not need. You’ll be confident that you can get through, that you can make it and even excel entirely on your own strength.

Do You Even no Hands?

As always, I want to hear from all of you. Tell us about the shortcuts you avoid, about the times that you do it yourself. Share your stories of when you do it the hard way by choice to train yourself for the times when you don’t get to choose.