Falling Victim To The Norm – Do Something Different From Everyone Else

I am a cliché killer. I hate average. I hate normal. I hate doing things like everyone else. I hate what is expected. I hate conforming. Show me what everyone else does, follows or thinks and I will do the opposite in my own way.

I hate normal in life. Grow up, get married, get job, have kids, get a huge house to show off to all your friends, get fat and have a boring marriage, celebrate useless things, be “social”, post stupid selfies, whine about politics on Facebook, whine about everything on Facebook, play sports this way, train this way, eat this way etc. I hate all of it.

I want to be elite, successful in my own core values and be different. I want to go down the path no one else does. I bring this to everything in my life. Fitness and sports included. People ask me all the time when I am having kids. You know why? Because I recently got married and that’s the progression of normal people. It’s too predictable. You say you just got married and its already coming out of peoples mouths. I say I’m not having kids and people almost lose their lunch. They can’t believe it. They even go as far as to say I’ll change my mind. How the hell would they know? Because they live in this world where things must follow a certain path. Tell you right now, I’m not normal. And if you want to change things in your life, you shouldn’t be either.

I love to be different. It fuels what I do on a daily basis. I call it true character. If you have the guts to do it different, you have character, If you follow what everyone else does you have weak character. I’m a hockey player and one of the most annoying things is when people tell me they were coached a certain way to do things, It’s the “system” of hockey. That’s how it should be played. I didn’t grow up playing hockey like most who started as kids. I started when I was 23. ( I’m 32 now ) so my take is different. I don’t have the back ground of “coaching” on how you’re “supposed” to play hockey. I look at it differently. So it sometimes makes people think I don’t understand hockey, or that I wasn’t “coached”. If you always do what’s expected in life, you’re very easy to predict!

That’s boring and the reason sports are over coached and stagnant these days. When I play hockey, if I’m not supposed to shoot in a certain situation, I’ll shoot. If the norm is to play a position a certain way, I’ll do it different. If you’re not supposed to check someone one way in a situation, I will anyway. Take the shooter on a 2-1, that’s what the goalies supposed to do, nope I’ll take the shooter. Why not stop the play all together? You know why? Because if that’s me as a shooter on a 2-1, I’m scoring most of the time, I laugh when they don’t take me and take the pass as a defender. It drives my team mates nuts. So nuts in fact, I lead the team in scoring every year (which is a goal of mine). Yet no matter what if i do something that is different in their coached ways, they are so quick to point it out. Always gives me a good chuckle. Crazy how it works being different. My list could go on but you get the point.

The same thing goes for fitness and nutrition.

Think you can’t be fit and healthy working out and playing sports without tonnes of protein and eating meat? I will be vegan. Tonnes of reps and high volume, I’ll try heavy and low volume. Follow the new fitness craze online that millions are doing? I’ll skip it and see the guy with 50 followers, and see how he stays fit, and get some ideas. Yoga seems to be mostly women? I’m in. Pilates? No way men do that. I’ll do it.

If you want to break free from the shackles of society, you need to do things differently. You have to break barriers. That’s where magic and creativity happen. It’s always frowned upon at first, always. People think you’re a freak, or an idiot, because of how you do things. It’s not the way. But I’ll tell you right now, man, is it ever fun and satisfying! My training style is not like any ones.

I have a tonne going on from hockey and baseball to strength work, to calisthenics, to yoga, to insanity, to Pilates to rock climbing. Why? Because I love to just do different things. Most people’s schedule just has “gym” a few days a week – if they even have a schedule.

Take a look at your life and where you are in your goals. Both fitness and other. See anything familiar? As in that’s what everyone does? Maybe start thinking about how those pertain to your own goals. Too often people are doing things just because it’s what expected of them. Don’t conform. Do it better!

For fitness, I always recommend changing up your routine. Find something different. Are you eating the usual 5000 cal diet with 14 chicken breasts a day to gain size but all you’re getting is fat? Time to follow a different diet or idea. You want to be strong, but you do 8-12 reps and 20 different sets and exercises when you’re at the gym and 6 are bicep movements? Probably time to start working on compound movements. You still do the elliptical as cardio and haven’t lost fat in 6 months? Maybe try a boot camp or yoga etc. There are so many examples. Try seeing where you have settled for the norm in your life and goals. You will be amazed.

Follow the path least traveled. There’s hardly anyone in your way anyway!