I am what you would call a self-proclaimed Marvel nerd. Over the past 4 weeks I’ve been watching all of the Marvel movies in timeline order.
This is my first time doing so, and it’s been fun to watch the characters develop both in their own movies (Iron Man trilogy, Captain America trilogy, etc.) while also developing in the combined Avengers movies.
What’s stood out most to me is how Stan Lee and Joss Whedon created a synergistic storyline throughout the entire timeline of movies. Each movie, though individually excellent, is connected to the greater storyline that all comes together in Avengers: Endgame.
What does this have to do with health and performance?
Not much. But, there is a connection, I promise.
Last week I was talking with my sister about her Oura ring data. At Tiger Performance Institute, we use the Oura ring to track sleep and HRV trends in our clients.
My sister texted me early one morning saying she was worried about her data and wanted to talk it through with me.
Before we got on our call, I spent about 20-30 minutes reviewing her data since she began wearing the ring to look for trends, both negative and positive, that we could discuss to settle her worry.
As I was reviewing the data, I noticed that, aside from 1 or 2 days last week, everything looked pretty good.
But we all suffer from recency bias, don’t we?
My sister had 2-3 bad nights of sleep, HRV, and resting heart rate and had completely thrown out all the good she had done over the last few months.
I see this often with our clients and even in myself from time to time.
In our unique journeys toward better health and performance, we can fall into the trap of being caught up in the day to day results, rather than long-term trends.
This is very common so, now that you’ve read this, you know you are not alone.
But, in order to overcome the difficulty of stick-to-itiveness (may or may not be a word), sustaining your efforts over an extended period of time, you must develop the ability to look at your personal growth in a long-view, with the endgame in mind.
When Stan Lee and Joss Whedon were creating the first avengers movie, they began with the end in mind. They at least had an idea, maybe not all the specifics, of where they wanted it to end up.
When you begin your journey towards improved health, performance, productivity, or whatever it is you’d like to improve upon, you must begin with the end in mind and take the long-view approach.
In doing so, you will not be uprooted by the recency bias, and will find you have much more joy and endurance in the process.