The Importance of Cost Analysis
Mark Brown
October 17, 2021
We are accustomed to lying to ourselves, for better or for worse, and others by saying something without ultimately meaning it. “Doing whatever it takes” is a phrase much easier said than meant. It sounds good and can give the illusion of commitment but the words don’t mean anything if actions don’t back them up. Being great at something requires that one become a slave to the goal and process of the thing they are trying to do. To that end, everything else in life revolves around that thing. The kind of conversation one has to have with themselves revolves around the price that they are willing to pay for that greatness. The price is monetary, time, relationships, a mixture of those things or who knows. Understanding what one is willing to sacrifice and make others around them sacrifice is the key to actually make progress towards their goals.
Motivation is overstated. It is an incredibly easy thing to overcome. All it requires is finding something else that one wants more. That makes discipline much harder to attain and much more ingrained once it is. All of the focus in the world isn’t going to help unless the question of what one actually wants is answered. Defining goals is the first step in the process. The second is a cost analysis of those goals. The depth of the analysis depends on how specific the goals are. This conversation one has with themselves or a coach is the thing that will define them. The major thing here is to not lie to oneself or the coach during said conversations because that will end up distorting the vision or cause the goals potentially irreparable damage from the start. Every facet of life should be addressed: How much time to work out does one have? How much sleep is one getting? How long are the work days? How stressful is work? How stressful is one’s home life? Etc. Brutal honesty is required in this step. When one has truly figured out what they want, those costs become easier to see and understand. It is a far muddier conversation if that direction hasn’t been set because actions made will trigger consequences that damage one goal while helping another.
Last year, 2020, made me more aware of what I wanted and the costs associated with it. The closings of public privately owned facilities left me in a tough spot because a big part of my mental well being was kicking my own ass hard in the gym after work. I was an atrocious human being for those 6 weeks. I had never bought into the “home gym” thing because the public gym had everything I needed and I figured I knew the monetary costs of gym equipment. I learned exactly what those costs were when I, like many, looked into equipment during the summer. The monetary cost was daunting but not as bad I expected it to be. The availability of gym equipment in general up until about November 2020 was unbelievably frustrating. All I did was hit refresh button on the web browser because I was constantly on Rogue’s or EliteFTS’s web site because I wanted to see if what I wanted was in stock finally. It’s comical now thinking about how much money I spent last year hitting the refresh button that one last time at 11 pm. I don’t regret any of it now because I have a very well stocked gym at my disposal.
What I learned last year was that my desire to get stronger and better was the thing that enslaved everything else in my life. I knew that desire was powerful but it became very apparent it was the only thing that mattered when I started to buy gym equipment instead of just waiting out the closings and going back regularly when they reopened. I stopped buying anything that wasn’t food or gym related and began to understand the limitations of the commercial gym I am a member of. I poured all of my energy into lifting in Pete’s garage and became a different lifter. I was more committed to lifting in part because I wasn’t just lifting by myself. As I have written before, Pete let me control how we were going to lift despite me being 12-13 years his junior. That act really helped me emphasize lifting in my life even more because I consumed more fitness media than I ever had in my life. The “book learning” began to combine with what I had learned through gym experience and lifting became a full fledged obsession. Learning about the effects of various performance enhancing drugs was particularly fascinating because I found that it really is not the path to go down unless competing is in one’s future. I was aware of wrist wraps, straps and belts but learning how much those pieces of equipment effect lifting through both experience and watching videos on Youtube was instrumental in my understanding of how to watch major feats of strength. It doesn’t take long to learn that lifting like people using PEDs and deadlift suits doesn’t make sense when one isn’t doing either of those.
The time cost with this turn towards obsession was very easy to see when work days began to routinely hit 12-14 hour shifts 5 days a week and half day on Saturdays almost all of last year. There were many nights I didn’t start lifting till 7:30-8:30 pm only to finish after 11 multiple nights a week. My level of focus and willpower became unbreakable. The more Casey’s pushed absurd hours my way, the more I poured into lifting to combat the stupidity. The result of long shifts and the completion of lifting sessions meant a complete loss of time for other things. Down time was planned for complete rest and I was constantly tired because sleep got cut into because those sessions were starting at 8 pm instead of 6. Eating in the evening became pretty blatantly impossible. I ate far, far too much food from convenience stores. Everything that wasn’t lifting paid the price for my obsession with getting stronger. Even now that hours have returned to relative normality, eating in the evening requires extreme thoughtfulness. It’s part of why I laugh at Blue Apron commercials. The other part I will expand on in future entries. What helped me maintain the discipline to keep going was the results I was seeing and feeling.
I have to discuss sleep a little bit more in depth here because it is very important. It is truly the only time the body is at rest. The only thing I would push back on is that the only way to get stronger is to put effort into lifting. That could be barbells, concrete, bags of dirt or whatever else. There’s even a sport built around that exact thing: Strongman. Skipping lifting sessions to ensure the same number of hours of sleep a night will not help one get stronger. Workouts can be manipulated and changed to help get more regulated sleep but they cannot be skipped. Unless one makes money without working a lot of hours, something is going to give. Sleep is probably going to be the thing that does. There’s only so much time in a day and there is much to accomplish. My body requires more than 5-6 hours of sleep to be really effective. Once I start getting below that, I know I will be paying for it later in the week. Any more than that and I feel it’s wasteful.
Relationships are part of the cost analysis because they are like results in strength training. They are built up over time. I don’t need to defend my use of time lifting for long sessions 5 times a week after work because I don’t have a significant other. That has been part of the choice I made when I decided to go down this path. I can understand why people have a hard time committing to strength training when there are people kind of standing in the way of it. Almost every minute of my days from Monday through Friday are spoken for. It’s not an impossible task to find someone to have that kind of consistent relationship but it would be a lie to tell them they would be the primary part of my life. It is the hardest part of this cost analysis because it can’t be quantified in any way. What Dave Tate, former powerlifter and owner of EliteFTS, said in a recent podcast regarding relationships and sacrifice rang true to me partly because it was a growing feeling in me but it was also in line with what a lot of professional athletes have said. He said that the sacrificing is being done by the other people in the relationship, not the one going after the goal. “You are the one who is doing what you want to do,” he said. This relationship part of the costs analysis is where one determines the scope the goals more specifically. The bigger the goal, the bigger the effect on those around someone. Becoming emotionally aloof to those around is going to be part of the public consequences of going down this path because some will never understand the desire to be the best at something in their life. Actions have consequences that cannot be controlled or spun. It’s best if one makes people around them aware of why the choices are being made and making sure the actions back up the words.
What I have laid out applies to everything in life. If being great at something is the goal, then the process of goal setting and cost analysis has to be there from the start. Once the analysis is made then the brutal honesty must follow with oneself and those around them, those helping and those effected by the goal. Sure, life is going to get in the way sometimes but that’s where adaptation and problem solving skills that have been learned along the way become more instinctive. That is the point of training, after all. Understanding the cost of one’s goals is how discipline overcomes motivation.
Life Through Lifting 