Goal Setting: “That’s All It Takes Really – Pressure and Time!”

I’ve watched The Shawshank Redemption at least 5 times. I even studied it for my film study in Year 12 English Studies. The movie has some obvious themes surrounding hope, institutionalisation, friendship, perseverance, patience and redemption. However, it wasn’t until I watched it again in my 30s that I realised it taught a strong lesson about adapting, ambition, the journey and achieving goals. This one quote was the penny drop: “Oh, Andy loved geology. I imagine it appealed to his meticulous nature. An ice age here, a million years of mountain building there. Geology is the study of pressure and time. That’s all it takes really… pressure and time.” I paused the movie right away and tried to think of a scenario that couldn’t be narrowed down to these two variables -pressure (or its synonyms: energy, force, stress, effort) and time. I concluded that’s all it takes to achieve anything, really - pressure and time.

I started to look at where I was using most of my energy and time, and I was way out of balance. In fairness, I had known this for a long time, but I never had the correct framing to properly diagnose the problems I had created and how to implement the necessary changes.

One of my biggest time and energy wasters was the gym. As a very skinny lad who loved sports, I always wanted to put on as much size as possible. I spent thousands over the years on bulking powders and spent a minimum of 90 minutes in the gym 5 days per week. This began for me around 2003 - the fitness craze wasn’t what it is now, but nowadays a serious proportion of the population would have a very similar routine. My first error with this routine was the emphasis I placed on the gym and gaining size - it was by far the most important thing to plan my week around. When considering school, university, my sports, socialising and family, there was much need for a more balanced approach than I was willing to accept at that time. To compensate for the physical and mental energy required for my workouts, I’d find ways to conserve energy in other areas I should have been giving my all, just to leave enough in the tank to get to the gym - this resulted in me holding back at university and even work.

There was no ‘adapt’ in my personal goals - I had to stick to my intense routines and there was never any excuse for not pushing myself. The gym I attended at the time was just a tin shed with a thermometer hanging on the wall. It didn’t matter to me if it was 45 degrees outside; the same gruelling workout needed to be adhered to. I remember seeing that mercury reading up around 50 degrees on a few occasions in that tin shed.

And boy did this cause procrastination - what a waste of valuable time I desperately needed. I remember some work nights (even as a teacher I might add) not getting to the gym until 10:30pm, as I’d sit there staring at my gym bag, battling my mind to pick the damn thing up and get off my comfy couch. I’ve stated in previous blog posts that I’d developed a mentality of, at times, wanting to avoid challenge, but paradoxically also having the grit and determination to not give up on my Dreams. So I’d sit there in this never-ending mental battle, paralysed and achieving nothing. Once I was able to have my determination win the battle, I’d finally get that gym workout done. The flow-on effect? Not getting home from the gym until midnight some nights and not falling asleep until 2am. This would render me dead tired for work the next day. Some Saturdays I’d get nothing done for at least 6 hours of the day, trying to hold myself accountable to getting the gym workout done before I started anything else. It was affecting everything, from my work to even my social life. Ultimately, the forcing of this routine would continually break - mental fatigue would win out, and I’d miss gym sessions, sometimes giving up for weeks - consistency and progress lost time and time again.

I admire the morning fitness guru, and I tried everything to join the club. Before-starting-the-day gym sessions never seemed to work for me. I hear people claiming that it energises them for their workday and sets them up for success. For me, the gym is a net energy depleter, with everything in my being telling me to have the gym as the thing I use my last daily reserves on before I crash. I guess I knew the gym was already affecting my life enough and I didn’t want it to get in the way any more than it already did - it was clear the 5am club was never for me.

Time management was not my issue, energy management was (and mainly mental). How I was using and managing my energy was affecting how I was using my time, which was greatly influencing my outcomes (or lack thereof). While a health and fitness routine is, I believe, critically important to wellbeing, it’s nowhere near as important to self-worth as I had prioritised. Furthermore, it’s not going to pay the bills or put food on the table. There are plenty of other areas of life that contribute greatly to self-worth that I was not allowing myself to explore. I was completely out of balance.

I’m sure many reading this have their own version of the gym. Trying to find that right balance is a constant juxtaposition in all our lives. Just like Andy in The Shawshank Redemption, we find ourselves in our own virtual prison cells - sometimes of our own volition, sometimes due to circumstances out of our control. With the right mindset, we find purpose in these cells. The first thing Andy did was structure his life in a way that allowed him to work towards his goal of freedom - gaining access to the right places and people improved his chances of success. Once his life was structured in a way that he could see a path to his goal, he began chipping away, little by little, at the chance of freedom. There were interruptions along the way - beatings, injuries, solitary confinement - but having his process simple enough allowed him to limit the effects of these disruptions, always getting right back on the horse and continuing to chip away. Andy showed that small amounts of pressure, applied consistently over a long period of time, yields incredible results.

I mull it over in my head - did Andy always have to improve his output in chipping away at his goal? No. Were there nights where he may have done less due to what happened that day? Yes. Did he miss some nights? Definitely. Andy’s goal of freedom did not require continual improvement or to be habit stacked - it just required him to keep to the minimum pressure required over the greatest time he was willing to allow and constantly adapt these factors until he achieved his goal.

It took Andy almost 20 years of chipping away to achieve his goal of freedom. He gave it the maximum amount of time he could give, with the nub of the small rock hammer possibly representing how much longer Andy would have survived in Shawshank. He then endured crawling through 500 yards of shit to finally escape - a metaphor for everything he had to endure at Shawshank to achieve his ultimate goal, freedom.

When I set a goal or am faced with an obstacle, I now start by looking at these two factors - pressure and time. I first consider the greatest amount of time I am willing to allow and the minimum amount of pressure I need to put myself under to achieve the goal within that timeframe - this becomes my foundation, and I set it in concrete. This allows me to stay consistent barring extreme circumstances. The foundation is nowhere near my ceiling, so if I have the energy and time, I will push further, but I keep pride attached to the minimum also, not allowing any type of progress to be undervalued. And if I do miss a day, the minimum is usually easy enough for me to catch up the next day. I no longer consider how much I can get out of myself every day, or how fast I can achieve the Dream, as my measure of success - as the less time I allow to achieve the goal, the more pressure I will find myself under and the more likely I am to break. Factoring this in also allows me to have plenty of time and energy for the other things important to my life. A balance between forcing and flowing is achieved.

The pressure and time quote has served me in almost every area of my life and has allowed me to find a balance in almost anything I do. It’s why I also value the Tao Te Ching so highly, as I find both represent much of the same philosophy. They are the two greatest influences in The H.A.B.I.T House Framework, where you'll find much of what I have spoken about in this post, available for purchase from this website.

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