CHANGE THE SCENERY. CHANGE THE EXPERIENCE.

I love my workouts. They give me time to expend energy, de-stress, refresh, listen to my favorite podcasts and videos, and of course, continue to build the temple. It is my time. It’s been that way for over 35 years. However, I don’t care for when the person who is supposed to open the gym on time doesn’t show up. Such was the case this morning. After an hour of waiting in the car (even though I was using that time productively), I decided to go to another gym location of the same franchise. As it turns out, I had one of the best workouts I’ve had in a while. I mean, I was on! It’s not to say that I don’t have decent workouts at my regular gym location, but there was something different about it today. The truth is, both gyms have the same machinery. It’s a franchise, so the machines are pretty much the same at every location. As I walked to the car, I realized that my excellent workout experience had nothing to do with the machinery but everything to do with the scenery. What I mean is that the place was designed differently; the machines were positioned differently; the floors, lighting, music, and faces were different. The scenery that I was accustomed to was different, so my performance and experience in my mind were better. Yet, it’s probably not true because I did the same exercises, the same amount of reps, spent the same amount of time there...basically, the same routine I had planned to do. So what happened here?

The takeaway for me was realizing that sometimes you need a fresh new perspective to liven up the same old routines. Taking a different approach to a task, speaking to a new person about your ideas, choosing something different to eat at your favorite restaurant, even something as frivolous as taking a new way home, or sitting next to someone different, taking a different seat on the train, at work, or church. In other words, get a fresh perspective on something that requires a measure of routine. Change the scenery. I submit that your experience or performance will feel different and even enhanced and could very well expose you to something new that you had not realized before.