It’s a seemingly innocent statement, but in this one simple paragraph is the entire operating manual for success — not just relating to music, but to obtaining any meaningful goal.

Let’s break this down, because it’s so profound.

The award is the work. 

For Taylor Swift, her everyday achievement is the true award, and the Grammy’s, the fame, the money, the adoration, all those things are simply derivatives of her everyday achievements. 

Okay…

Cool…

But again, what does this have to do with weight loss and fitness, and more importantly, how does it help us lose weight and get in the best shape of our lives?

To best explain, I’d like to share this photo with you.

I’ve shown a version of this photo several times before, but for those not aware this now hangs in my kitchen.

It is scotch taped straight to the cabinets.

Fancy, I know! 

Anyway, the point is this: For me, this is my Grammy award.

My happiness comes from completing these daily tasks. Every. Single. Day.

It’s in knowing that I did not give up. 

My happiness is when I finish a workout, or go another day without drinking a calorie soda, or go another day walking on the treadmill. 

My happiness is in keeping these streaks alive.  

It’s being able to erase and replace and add a checkmark to this tacky little streak counter that hangs in my kitchen.

It’s knowing that ninety-nine percent of the world will never stick to anything for this long.

It’s knowing that I’m doing something different. Something meaningful. It’s knowing that I chose to be different. That I have not quit. That I have not given up on my goals.   

So for me, my award is the daily work, and losing forty pounds, and gaining muscle, and fitting comfortably into my clothes, and having more energy, more self-confidence, a low body-fat, having people treat me differently…all these things — they are just derivatives of my everyday achievements. 

But Now Let’s Jump Back To Taylor

Notice Taylor Swift says she feels this supreme happiness when she finished a song. And when she has cracked the code to a bridge that she loves. 

She is saying that she feels this happiness after the song is finished and after the code is cracked.

She doesn’t say she is happy during the struggle of creating the song or when trying to crack the code. 

She doesn’t say she never gets frustrated.

She doesn’t say things never get hard.

I’m sure there are times she bangs her head on the wall trying to figure out a lyric or a sound or how to structure certain parts of a song.

I’m sure there are times she would rather lie in bed and watch YouTube rather than slogging through a song that is stubborn to come together.

I’m sure there are times when she has a headache or is depressed or is straight up feeling blah and she would rather stay home rather than jumping on a stage in Tokyo.

Why am I sure of these things?

Because she is human, and this is real life.

But the fact is: She keeps going. Every. Single. Day. 

And she does this because she has a work process and the process is something she has committed to and this commitment is important to her. 

Let me wrap this up with a quick personal story.

The Not-So-Famous Flu Workout

You’ve probably watched or heard about Michael Jordan’s famous flu game during the 1997 NBA finals.

Legendary.

For sure.

But not many of you (meaning no one) have ever heard of the famous flu workout that took place in my garage a few months ago. 

It started on Christmas evening at my house where I began to  feel a bit off. Not necessarily ill, but fatigued, tired, sluggish. All I wanted to do was crash. 

So I went to bed early, even by my standards. (I have to work at four AM so I’m normally in bed rather early anyway.)

When I woke, it felt as though barrels of thick sludge had been pumped inside my body. Moving was laborious. My muscles, bones, joints — everything ached. My brain was foggy. A killer headache was crushing my thoughts. Snot leaked from my sinuses. It felt like someone had sandpapered my throat. 

But because I’m an idiot, I decided to shrug on my uniform and try going to work.

Bad idea. 

About halfway there and I came to my senses. This was stupid. Work could do without me for a day. Going would be absolute torture, for me, and for my coworkers. So I called my boss and took a sick day. 

When I got back home, I slept solidly for four hours, then woke and came downstairs. Still feeling like death, I saw my streak counter taped there to the cabinets. It was waving and taunting and giggling as I shoved three Tylenol PM’s down my throat. Streaks end, I thought, already starting to head back upstairs.

And they do.

All of them do.

Eventually, they will come to an end. 

And if having the black plague is not an acceptable reason to skip a day then I don’t know what is.  

   Taylor Swift is long past making music for money. She doesn’t need the fame. She’s won multiple awards many times over. 

But here’s the thing, when I developed my fitness plan, my process, I developed it to withstand my worst days, not my normal days, and certainly not my best days. 

If you notice my janky streak counter, it only says ‘## of days working out with weights.’

That’s it. 

And it’s like that intentionally. 

So I went back upstairs and pulled my sneakers on. I put my workout shorts on.  

And I came back downstairs to earn my fucking Grammy. 

Am I going to lie and say I put on a Jordan worth performance. 

I did not. 

All I did was what I normally do as my warm up for that day, and all this entailed was doing two pullups, waiting one minute, doing three pullups, waiting one minute, doing five pullups, waiting one minute, and then doing one pullup while wearing leg weights. 

And then I went back upstairs and I went to bed for about ten hours. 

But I won. 

And to this day, if you were to ask me to tell you of my proudest workout ever, that would be right there in the top three. 

Because any normal person would have done nothing. They would have believed in their excuses. 

At this point, she’s simple trying to make the absolute best music that she can possibly create. She’s trying to entertain to the best of her ability. She’s trying to put on the best concerts that you’ll ever witness.

She’s trying to do the best that she can.

She’s competing solely with herself. 

Not necissarily the doing of the thing, but it’s the having done the thing. It’s the accomplishment. And you do this by making the process bearable enjoyable if possible and bearable if not. 

you must make your process the award. 

you have to make it 

Because she’s human. and trying to live up to thousands of people’s expectations  but she shows up consistently and little by little, piece by piece the song begins to build.

And it builds the same exact way muscle builds — note by note, line by line, day by day, with simple easy actions done consistently over a long period of time.

Taylor Swift is great because she has been doing the same thing consistently for a long, long time. For years and years and years now.  

And this is the same winning principle that applies to fitness and weight loss. 

Like Taylor Swift, you have to discover a process that you can stick to and it’s more important than all the other things that most people get fixated worrying about. 

All the mind chatter like: should you do CrossFit, keto, paleo, HITT training, refeed days, fasting, carb cycling, and blah, blah, blah, blah…

Who cares. 

Just choose something that moves the needle, no matter how slight it may seem, and then stick with it for the long term. Make ‘your thing’ something that you can do everyday. Make it something you do not completely hate.

And then do it every single day for the next ten years.

Yes I’m serious. 

Because once you become committed to doing that, then your process will begin to become your reward.

And at that point, you become unstoppable!

But today, right now…start.

Commit. 

Decide to be different.

Please shoot me a line at [email protected] if you have any questions or comments about either this article, or about how to implement this habit into your fitness routine and life.