Are You Living Your Fit Life?

I’m going to pay an extra $400 per month to spend one day per week with my oldest son next year. It’s his last year before he starts going to kindergarten. I don’t think I’ll ever regret that decision. This is an example of what Ramit Sethi (author of I Will Teach You To Be Rich) calls a “rich life”.

We get to choose what makes our rich life.

There are some absolutes, but rich is not a number just like fit is not a number. Being rich is about having the freedom to do what we want to do. Being fit is the same thing. There’s a cost to everything. I’m choosing to make less money right now. I could make more if I worked more, but I’m not. I love my job & I would like to work more, but I also want to be present with my kids during this season of their life as much as I can.

There’s no right decision, either. We all get to choose.

It would be silly to compare my business to someone who works 60 hours per week & makes 7 figures. That’s their choice based on what they value. My cost is money. Their cost is time. The bill comes due for everyone. Nobody said these decisions were easy. It’s called a cost for a reason - it requires something of you. If it was easy, everyone would have six-packs & be millionaires. But it’s hard.

We can have anything, but we can’t have everything.

And we get to choose what matters to us. My wife & I have been on vacation for a total of 11 days in nearly 8 years of marriage. We go out to a nice dinner every other week. It’s not that we don’t like vacations, we do, but we prefer to have regular date nights. We are willing to give up more vacations for more date nights. That’s our rich life & we live it guilt-free.

And just like we get to choose what rich means for us, we get to choose, within reason, what fit means to us.

This is what I’m calling our “fit life.” We can be as fit as we’d like, but also have to be willing to pay the cost for it. For a bodybuilder, that may mean being absolutely ripped at the expense of enjoying their favorite foods. For an NFL lineman, that may mean being as strong as possible & having to hold onto some extra body fat. Both are fit for different things. Neither is better or worse; they’re different. Maybe you want to lose the last 10 lbs or maybe you decide that you’d rather enjoy a few more treats & drinks.

But just like we can’t buy everything we want & expect to be rich, we can’t eat everything we want & expect to get lean.

We can have one or the other or some of both, but we can’t have everything. Decide what you value most. Then, whatever you choose, be willing to live with the consequences, both good and bad. The choice is yours. What does your fit life look like?

“If we could draw it up exactly how we wanted, how would our life look?”

I ask my wife this all the time. This is THE rich life question. I spend Wednesdays with my twins. I stop work at 3 PM every day. 3 days per week, I get to drop everyone off. I coach small group workouts at a local gym, I have regular check-ins with my clients, I write content, I record podcasts, & try to improve my business.

If tomorrow, my business made 10 million dollars, here’s what I’d do:

I’d spend a day or two per week with my kids. I’d stop work at 3 PM. I’d coach a small group, write content, coach my clients, record podcasts, & try to grow my business. In short, I’d continue to do all the things I’m doing now (plus, I’d probably golf once per week & buy a bigger house because we have a lot of kids). This is my rich life. My fit life is built on the same foundation. I love pizza & margaritas. I want to eat pizza & drink margs. In order to do that, I have to be willing to give something else up.

There’s a cost to everything.

I could choose to eat less other food or I could choose to be a bit less lean, but, at the end of the day, the bill comes due and I have to decide if I value those things enough to pay the cost. And I do. It’s unreasonable to compare ourselves to someone who’s living a different life than us (for me, it was always Chris Evans in Captain America). Because here’s the deal: if you’re not willing to do what they do, don’t be surprised if you don’t get what they got. I don’t have any desire to give up all fun just to look like Zac Efron in Baywatch, so I can’t be upset that I don’t. There’s no right answer here. You get to choose what you want most. But you can’t complain about the consequences of that choice once you make it.

Count the cost, make an intentional decision, & live with the outcome that follows.

I’ll happily be a little less lean to enjoy pizza with my kids. Pizza & margaritas (on occasion) are part of my fit life. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go enjoy this margarita.

I recorded an entire podcast episode on The Fit Life. It might be my best work ever.