Why, What, How
As we begin to dissect the three domains of training - mind, body, craft - start by answering Why and What. Then we can decide How to train.
Your answers are unique to you. This episode will give you definitions and guidance on answering Why and What for yourself.
The text of this episode is here, with links to components of the episode from blog posts:
In the previous episode, episode 90, I presented the primary components of my approach to training. It started with joy, and remembering that we do this for fun. You can then train in three domains: mind, body, and craft. I conducted a poll of SOUP listeners to gauge relative interest in those three areas. Training the body was clearly the highest interest, the mind was a strong second, and craft had clear interest but was also clearly third. That makes a lot of sense and is roughly the balance of content I’ll present going forward.
Today’s episode is the second step in entering the framework of training mind, body, and craft. Here’s the way that I envision establishing the basis on which to begin building your training: Why, What, then How. In the previous episode, for the benefit of clarity, we jumped straight to the three domains of How. To put it more concretely, How you train refers to all the specific things you do in training the three domains of mind, body, and craft). Before we get into specifics of How, we need to be sure that we haven’t skipped..or rather make sure that we start with Why and What. Without these in place first, your training will not get you where you want to go because answers to those questions are the fundamental purpose and meaning for your training. You must know those before you can create a plan; you have to know where you want to go before you can figure out How to get there.
So, today we’ll define Why and What.
Take this seriously if you plan to take the rest of training your mind, body, and craft seriously. By listening to this podcast at all, I know you’re serious about your training and constructing it deliberately. You can not skip the steps of Why and What; jumping straight to How and skipping today’s steps of Why and What will always give you results that are less fulfilling.
In the next episode, we’ll begin dissecting How, starting with training the body.
There are three interconnected facets to your training: mind, body, and craft. We’ve now explored the first elements of training your mind. Specifically, you must know the answers to your Why and to your What. I recommend writing them down so that they are undeniably and fully articulated. Then, with those articulated first, you can move to the next step in developing the architecture of How to train your mind.
Throughout this series on training your mind, we’ll explore concepts such as confidence, trust, calm, grit, optimism, control, and focus. Stay engaged, there’s a lot more to come.