ERF 770: How To Handle Challenges, Setbacks, and Obstacles In Your Life

What is going on, guys? Welcome back to another episode of the Eric Roberts Fitness Podcast. I hope that you are having a great day thus far. Listen, in today's podcast, we're gonna talk about how to handle setbacks, how to handle challenges, how to, how to handle obstacles that come up not only in your fitness journey. This could be used for anything in life, but I'm gonna talk about it from a fitness perspective because, you know, the gods aren't ashamed truth first and foremost is you're not going to be able to just not have setbacks. It's nice to think that way, but I like to think of a realist mindset. And like, realistically speaking, there are going to be unfortunate things that happen to you. You know, God forbid a family member passes away. You know, God forbid you get an injury. Maybe something happens at work, your schedule changes, whatever the case may be. You're going to deal with setbacks and challenges. And so I think first and foremost, as opposed to trying to like get out of it, as opposed to trying to make it never happen, which is what I think most people try to do. Most people try to go through their life and you try to have bad things not happen to you. This is, this is bad for a couple of reasons. Number one, when bad things do happen to you, you freak out even more because you're so focused on having them not happen that when even the smallest of things happen, it turns into this big deal because you're trying so hard not to have bad things happen. And then number 2, just again from a realistic standpoint, do you really think you're gonna go through life just like scot-free, like nothing bad is ever gonna happen to you and there's gonna be no challenges that come up along the way? It's, it's not realistic. So as opposed to trying to avoid the bad things happening or avoid the setbacks happening, How about we find a way to inevitably, when they come up, deal with them and have a framework and have a system to deal with them, to not only get through the setbacks or the challenges or the obstacles, but also get better every time you get a setback, get better every time an obstacle comes your way? Because think about how much more progress you would make if every time there was a setback, you got better. Not you got worse, not you quit or you fell off or you stopped doing what you know you should be doing. Every time a setback comes, you got better. How much more progress not only would you make, but how much more progress would you maintain over the course of your life? I think a lot more. So in this podcast today, where I'm going to run you through the framework that quite transparently I put this in and I gave this to our Clubhouse members and hopefully it helped them. And so hopefully it can help you as well. It's a simple framework I call the reset framework. And this is a framework you can work through. I'll give you the 5 steps to work through it. Every time a bad thing happens or a potential setback happens, I want you to run through this RESET framework. And this can help you get better. This can help you move forward and get— again, not only get through it, but get to the other side of it in a better position than when it happened. So First and foremost, the reset framework. I'm going to go through the the five things here, and then I'll go in depth on each one. First one is going to be reframe the situation. So that's the R in reset. And again, what does it mean to reframe a situation? So I will use some stories from both myself and from you know clients that I have worked with, we have worked with in our coaching. So for example, I had to back in 2019, I had a surgery on my hip, and When I look at that, when anybody looks at— let's say you have a surgery or a major— excuse me, a major injury— you might look at that and say that's a setback. I'm not going to be able to lift as heavy. I can't lift for a couple of weeks. Like, I might lose muscle. I might lose strength. You could choose to look at it as a setback or a challenge, or you could reframe it and use it as a positive. And I'm not going to say you're going to be perfect with this every single time, but even when I was going through You know, that, that hip surgery and knowing that I was going to have to do it even before the surgery happened, I really did try my best. It wasn't always easy, but I did try my best to reframe the situation. And as opposed to looking at it as like, I'm not going to be able to lift as heavy, this is going to suck. I tried to look at it from the perspective of, well, you know what's going to happen? I'm going to rework a lot of my form and that's going to help me get even stronger in the long run. I'm going to be able to fix a lot of my muscle imbalances, which is going to not only make me stronger, in the long run, but also prevent injury moving forward. Because if, you know, you have very bad muscle imbalances, that's where injuries can stem from. So from that, even from that perspective alone, I also looked at it from, yeah, you know, maybe I can't lift for, let's say, 1 to 2 weeks, but, you know, I don't ever take breaks. I don't ever take days off. And so maybe I'll get a couple of days off. So just trying to reframe the situation and use it and look at it from a positive perspective, because again, I've said this before as well. You get to choose whether you look at a scenario as a positive or a negative. You don't get to choose what happens to you. Life happens, but you can choose how you react to it. And so choosing to reframe the situation, whether it's, you know, again, there's a challenge you're facing at work, your schedule changed, you know, something happened with, with your personal life. How can you reframe That situation to highlight the importance of what positives can potentially come from this situation, no matter how bad it seems. And this is really important because, again, getting started from a positive place as opposed to choosing to, you know, dig yourself this hole and then just go and, and crawl in that hole. I've also said this before, but A lot of times when something bad happens to somebody, they just make it worse by their actions. Like, you're only gonna make it worse by not continuing to stay on your diet. You're only gonna make things worse by not continuing to work out. You're only digging the hole deeper for yourself that you're eventually going to have to get out of later. Whether you get out of it right now, in a month, or in a year, You're gonna have to get out of that hole eventually that you dug for yourself. And so, as opposed to digging a bigger hole for yourself, yeah, you kind of get knocked in the face, you kind of get punched in the teeth a bit, but how can you reframe this and say, how is this going to benefit me? What positive can come from this to make me stronger, to make me more skilled? Also, recently when I'm thinking about things that are, you know, happening from a business sense for me, A lot of this stuff is new to me because I've never been here, and so I'm feeling like recently there's just a lot of just setbacks or challenges or really hard scenarios that are coming up for me. But, you know, I'm— I think with my prayer and with the help of God, like, I'm just trying to continue to look at it from like, what is this going to bring to me? What am I going to learn from this? What skill am I going to gain from this that I'll be able to use moving forward? So first and foremost, reframe the situation into an opportunity. Everything can be this is happening to me or this is happening for me, and I want you to think about that when things happen. So that's number one. Number two, the E in reset: embrace the fact that it won't last forever. Nothing lasts forever. When you are going through a really, really, really good time and like think you're crushing it, living a great life, you know, like I don't know, think about vacation, for example. Like if you go on a really sick vacation, you know, my vacation is chilling at the beach. You're gonna go chill at the beach, everything's great, not a worry in the world. That's, that's not gonna last. Again, that's, it's not gonna last forever. But also negative times don't last forever. It doesn't rain forever. It's not sunshine forever. It does, it's not cold forever. You go through seasons. Nothing lasts forever. And so using this to your perspective, and again, I know a lot of times when we're going through negative things or challenging things, it might feel like the darkest time. It might feel like this is— it's lasting forever. Again, I think first off, reframing the situation can help this not feel so heavy, not feel so dark, not feel so daunting, which is why we start with reframing. But then number 2, just again embracing it's not going to last forever. And not digging the hole even deeper for yourself. Because this is where, when people get into this mindset, they just don't see a light at the end of the tunnel. That's where most people just say, fuck it, I might as well, you know, eat whatever I want. Fuck it, I might as well not work out anymore. Like, who knows when this is gonna pass? Like, it's just all of it's too daunting and too overwhelming for me. So just be mindful, like, again, If I go back to the surgery that I had on my hip, yes, there was a period of time where there was a recovery process, but like, I'm 5, almost 6 years post-surgery at this point. The recovery didn't last forever. There was a period of time that I had to go through the surgery, recover from the surgery, get back to being able to strength train consistently how I wanted to. It was a period of time. And what I would encourage you to do is like just take each period of time as it comes. Look at what is in front of you. You know, one of my, my favorite athletes of all time is Kobe Bryant, and he talks about with his Achilles injury, he just looked at it from different stages where like, okay, the first stage was have the surgery. The next stage was, you know, recover and, you know, not literally not walk or not move for a period of time. Then it was like moving my ankle again. Then it was learning how to walk again. And it was like just piece by piece by piece. And so breaking these things down into like, okay, I know it's not going to last forever. And then what can I do kind of during this time period where I know it won't last forever? And just continuing to remind yourself like, and think about other things that maybe you have gone through, whether it's like, you know, whether you really, really had like a hard semester in college, or like maybe you, you know, you got your, your You know, you were in nursing school or whatever the case may be. You've gone through challenging times before and you got past them. This is— whatever you are going through or whatever you will go through, it's going to be no different. You will get past this as well, as long as you don't stop and as long as you don't quit. Just don't dig yourself a deeper hole during that period of time. So that's number 2, embrace it won't last forever. Number 3, the S in RESET. Simplify your focus. And what I mean by this is a couple of things. During very challenging times, it's very, very easy to get overwhelmed. It's very, very easy to go into a dark, negative place. And when you do this, you often are focusing on the things that are out of your control. Again, I am in agreeance that bad things happen to people. Like, it's It's unavoidable. Unfortunately, bad things are going to happen to you. You can't always control what happens to you or what happens around you. But again, you can control how you react to it. You can control what you choose to do after the negative things happen. And I'm not saying you can't, you know, you can't feel your feelings for a bit or do whatever the case may be. But recently in culture, this whole victim mentality of like, Woe is me, this happened to me, like, you know, this sucks. And like this whole victim mentality, like you can't do anything about it. You can. You might not be able to— again, you can't change nature, you can't change sometimes what, what life happens to you, but you can change and you can control how you react to it and how you respond to it. So as opposed to taking the victim mentality, we need to focus on simplifying the focus to What can we control? That is the bottom line. What can you control in this situation? For example, one of our coaches, Coach Tara, is kind of working through a very serious injury right now, and we've been, you know, we've been FaceTiming every single day, getting outside and getting a nice walk in the morning because that was one thing she can control. She can get outside and get some walks in the morning. And so we said, okay, Yes, all this bad shit is happening, but we are going to get outside and get this walk no matter what. And we were on the— we were on the phone the other day and, you know, she— I was like, hey, she was having a really bad pain day. And I was like, what can we do that you can control? And she's like, well, walking and staying hydrated. And we're like, okay, focus on walking and staying hydrated. Simplify your focus to that. Because again, oftentimes our brains end up going to all these things that are out of our control, like when is the pain going to stop or Or or why is this happening to me? Or this X, Y, and Z. You can only control what you can control. So focus on the controllables. This is going to do a couple of things for you. Number one, it's going to help you move in the right direction again because when you focus on the things you can control, inevitably you will move in the right direction, which is like actually going to help you see progress. But then also mentally. Us humans do not like to not be in control, right? We like to be in control of things. And so if your brain is solely and continuously focusing on the things that are outside of your control, it's going to cause you to spiral. It's going to cause the situation to be much worse. And again, I'm not saying it's not bad, but it's going to be much worse. And you're going to do what we talked about, digging that hole deeper. So choosing to— not easy, but choosing to focus on the controllables, which is why I love health and fitness and all that kind of stuff so much. Because like, no matter what, you can always control your movement. Now, it may be limited, it may be things that are, that are, that are different than what you're doing right now, but you can control movement. You can control what you're reading and what content you're digesting and intaking on a day-to-day basis. You can control what, you know, what food you're eating, what water you're drinking. You can control all of these things. And so simply just controlling the controllables is massive. And, you know, if you need to do things like call a friend and talk through things, if you need to do something like journaling or just simply, you know, having what we call it and what I call like a kill list for your day where it's like literally writing out the things that you can control, the things you want to control, and checking those things off on a day-to-day basis. Literally, as I just said that, I looked over at my kill list for today and on my kill list was this podcast. And so I quite literally just checked off, like physically checked off the podcast line because I'm getting this done right now. So if those things can help you, but you have to simplify your focus on the controllables. And then the next one is going to be E, the E in RESET, execute on those actions. So again, we talk about what are the things you can control. You have to be able to Figure those things out and then go take action. So many times, people will make things worse and you will stay in this bad place much longer than you have to. And remember, guys, I care about you. I love you. I want you to win. I don't want you to stay in this negative place for longer than you have to. It's not beneficial for your life. You're wasting days of your life in this place where it's not good. I don't want that for you. The only way to get out of that though is by taking action. That is the only way you are going to work through this. You're not going to work through it by thinking about it. You're not going to work through it by, by wishing upon a star. You have to move forward executing on the actions that you can control. And remember, it doesn't matter how small these steps might seem, whether it's Getting back to drinking a certain amount of water per day, whether it's you know getting up and taking a ten-minute walk to get some sunlight in the morning, you know whether it's just getting a a ten or a fifteen-minute workout in, doing the warm-up, doing ten minutes of cardio, whatever the case may be. So many times again people make things worse because you think ah well a ten-minute walk outside isn't going to help me that much. So you do nothing and then you make it that much worse. Doing nothing. Is gonna do what we've been talking about, where mentally you feel like more shit. You're digging yourself a bigger hole. You're not gonna put yourself in a good position. So stop thinking that these small steps won't matter. These small actionable steps that you need to take action on can rebuild the momentum of you moving in the right direction, albeit maybe it is quote unquote small steps in the right direction. But at least they're steps in the right direction, which again, we all know this, consistent action day after day leads to progress over time. And so for you, it is the most important when you're going through challenges and setbacks. You need to be able to focus on and execute on these small actions. I don't care how insignificant they seem. And I almost want these actions to be like, of course I can do that. That's too easy. Because if that's the response that you have, then you're going to do it. And if you do it, that is going to lead to you seeing more progress. But if your response is like, oh man, like that, yeah, I guess I can do that. It's going to be really challenging and like I'm really going to have to like muster myself up to it. That's not good. You don't want that right now. You want a reset action plan with 1 to 3 tasks that you know you can do over the next 24 hours. That's it. 1 to 3 things that you know you can do over the next 24 hours. Because guess what? You do that today, and then you do it tomorrow, and you do it the next day. Those 3 days alone where you were taking action are going to massively outweigh the 3 days of you wallowing in your misery and not doing anything and making the situation that much worse. And not only is it 3 days of that, it's compounded because every day you stay in that makes it harder to get out of it. So the second E, the fourth step, execute on those controllables. Execute on the actions that you have laid out for yourself and go do it. And then the last but not least, the fifth part of it, the T in RESET, tell someone how you overcame it. There's a saying where it's like, write it down, make it real. When you are telling somebody else, whether it be the community you're in, whether it be your partner, whether it be your family, friends, social media, whatever, telling somebody what happened, how you reframed it, how you're embracing it's not going to last forever, what you simplified your focus on, and what you took action on— telling somebody that is going to solidify your growth in overcoming setbacks and challenges. Think of it as like you're poor. It's almost like pouring the cement in like making the cement stick like you are. Every time you're telling somebody, you are solidifying in, in your head. I don't care about anybody. It's really not about the other person. It's about you being able to open up, being able to say it out loud, being able to write it out is going to make it more real. And then when you make it more real, not only are you mentally for that specific scenario, not only will you mentally be like, shit, I, I did overcome that. Like, yeah, that was challenging, but like, fuck, I did this, I did this, I did this, and I did this. Damn, I overcame that. Not only is it gonna make you feel better for that specific situation, that scenario, but again, moving forward, you are going to face another challenge or setback. And so being able to look back and say, well, shit, I ran through the RESET Framework last time, I'm gonna run through the RESET Framework this time again, just like I did with that. And now This chaos and this bad thing that happens, the initial emotional reaction becomes a little bit less because you know you can work through it. And then you go through that again, do the whole reset framework. The next time another challenge comes up, guess what? There's a little bit less of this emotional response. And slowly but surely— again, I'm never, I'm never saying you're not going to have an emotional response to things. You're a human being. We're human beings. We have emotional responses. But it gets a little bit less. And when you can start to take out a lot of this, like, massive highs and massive lows of emotions, you can just focus on moving forward, taking the actions that you know need to be taken to get you closer to where you want to be. And if you're confident that you have a framework to overcome these things, these challenges and these obstacles and these setbacks don't really seem that big and scary and overwhelming anymore. And if they seem less scary and less overwhelming, you're not going to freak out as much. You're not going to ruin all of your progress as much. You're not going to completely go off the rails. And, you know, the main thing we help people with in our coaching is actually staying on track and staying consistent. That is the main thing we help people with because everybody knows what to do. It's in between your ears. That's what throws you off track. So being able to know like you have the confidence to move forward with this sort of stuff and overcome these setbacks and these challenges, There's almost nothing more valuable I can give you because that is actually the true key to consistency. That is the true key to building a life where, like, just think about it for a second. Think about if truly you had the confidence to know no matter what comes your way, you're going to be able to overcome it. You're going to be able to work through it. It's not going to cripple you. It's not going to stop you. It's not going to ruin all your progress. Think about And genuinely think about that for a second. If you knew that in your core, how much better would your life be? If you knew that, how much like less stress and less anxiety would you have? A lot, because you know you can work through it. So nothing— it's, it's, um, I forget the exact phrase, but you know, it's, it's, um, it's not bulletproof, but it's like somebody says, um, I don't know, I, I forget the word, but essentially you know what I'm talking about. Like Nobody can fuck with you, I guess is what I'm trying to say. And that's a really, uh, that's what I want for you. And that's the whole reason why I did this podcast today. So again, recapping the RESET framework. Number 1, reframe the situation. How is this going to benefit me? What can I learn from this? How does this challenge make me stronger? Number 2, embrace the fact that it won't last forever. This too shall pass. Number 3, simplify your focus and really choose to focus on The controllables. Number 4, execute on those actions, execute on those controllables to start to create momentum, no matter how small the step may be. And then number 5, tell someone how you overcame it to solidify your growth. Guys, that is the RESET Framework for today, and that's the podcast for today. I really hope you enjoyed this one. If you feel like somebody could benefit from this podcast, please share it with them. And really, I mean that because I think this can help. This is the number one thing that can help you stay consistent and actually change your life. It's not the macros, it's not the calories, it's not the workouts. It's actually being able to stay on track when shit gets crazy. So if you think this podcast could help somebody, I thought it was just straight to the point. So please share it with them. Um, and I hope you guys enjoy and we'll chat next time.