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Here are just a few of Lee’s physical feats:

• Performed one-hand push-ups using only the thumb and index finger.
• Could hold an elevated v-sit position for 30 minutes or longer.
• Could throw grains of rice up into the air and then catch them in mid-flight using chopsticks.
• Could break wooden boards 6 inches (15 cm) thick.
• Performed 50 reps of one-arm chin-ups.

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Here’s just a few of the ways you can start getting stronger, faster and more toned without ever stepping into a gym:

1. Calisthenics. There are so many different bodyweight exercises out there, but we’ll start with the basics. For the lower body: lunges and squats are a good start. For upper body: pull-ups, push-ups, and shoulder press ups. For your core: crunches, chops, and reverse crunches will get you going. What’s great about bodyweight exercises is that they build functional strength. They’re natural movements you would use in real life situations like sports, self-defense, gardening, or doing chores. Plus when you do bodyweight exercises, you force your body to use more supporting and balancing muscles than you would on machines. For more bodyweight exercises check out these great resources: The Ultimate Guide to Bodyweight Training: 100 Killer Resources and for an awesome list of bodyweight exercises with illustrations check out Combat Fitness. Bonus: Top 10 Best Bodyweight Exercises for Advanced and Beginners.
2. Isometric exercises. These are basic bodyweight exercises, but where you hold your body in a static position. Examples of these are the frog sit, v-sit, horse stance, hanging from a pull-up bar, and the plank. Calisthenic exercises will improve muscle strength over a range of motion, but isometric exercises are great for joint and stabilizing strength.
3. Range of motion and flexibility. The best exercise I’ve found for range of motion and flexibility is yoga. The best thing about yoga is that no equipment is required and you can find tons of free resources online for yoga routines. Check out Anmol Mehta’s Yoga Illustrations to get you started.
4. Balance. Balance is the ability to keep your equilibrium when your center of gravity is thrown off-balance. There are many ways you can practice balance every day (we won’t get into tight rope walking here). When you’re putting on your shoes or getting dressed, do it on one foot. Walk on the curb and try to walk in a straight line without stumbling. Or if you’re really ambitious, there’s always pogo sticking and unicycling.
5. Dynamic exercise. Dynamic exercise is anything where you’re not performing routine after routine. Things are in flux and constantly changing. You’re moving in more natural movements, rather than continuous repetition of fixed patterns. I recently started doing Jeet Kune Do in the park every weekend. It’s a great way to get a good work out and learn self defense. Not to mention, practicing martial arts tends to make you inspired to further pursue and achieve higher levels of physical fitness. If you’re not into martial arts, you can always pick up a sport like tennis, handball, basketball, or take dance classes. Do whatever you’re naturally drawn to. Or if you struggle with seeing fitness as an enjoyable activity, you might consider getting a Wii Fit.

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Tap into your own curiosity and make fitness enjoyable. Challenge yourself to new levels of fitness. Go beyond what you think you can do.

“If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.” - Bruce Lee

This article was written by Zen Habits contributor Jonathan Mead of Illuminated Mind. To learn more about how to reclaim your life, grab a check out his book - Reclaim Your Dreams.

Quoted from How to Get Bruce Lee Like Strength Without Ever Going to a Gym

Leading your own life - the way it should be, the way you want it to be… follow the link to read the full post. The more I look at it, the people that refuse to give up will end up with what they want. How soon they get it is the only variable.

• finding your true passion
• consistent action
• adjust and keep trying
• loop

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The problem is, when we ask the question in the context of careers, we almost always bundle with a “part 2.” We ask, “what am I passionate about…that will make a lot of money?” When we add that dangling participle, we end up dangling our passions in the wind. So, step one. Stop doing that!

Take the money part of the equation off the table, even if for a moment. When you do this, activities, ideas, adventures and explorations start flooding in.

A great starting point is to ask…

“If I won the lottery, and it was enough to support me for the rest of my life, but a condition was that I had to work full-time at something and I couldn’t use that money to fund a business, what would I do?”

Then, begin to refine. Ask what you’ve done in the past that has delivered you into what famed psychology researcher and professor, Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi, called a state of “flow” (I go into this in detail in the book).

Next, go one level deeper and ask “who” makes you come alive? What type of people?

Finally, look at what you love to read, what you do when you have free time (other than sleeping and watching TV). You get the picture.

Leo: Leaving your day job to pursue your passion is a scary thing, for anybody. How do you overcome that fear to take the plunge?

Jonathan: First, very often, you can test the waters or start to build your renegade career on the side, before making the big leap into the next big adventure.

You are a great example. For the better part of your first year as a blogger, you still worked a “real” job, until you’d built Zen Habits and various other passion-driven income streams into a stable enough side-pursuit to make the jump.

Second, you’ve got to rally your rabbis. What does mean? Work like crazy to assemble a team of like-minded people who will be honest, but still support your quest.  You may also need to spend a lot of time convincing those closest to you that you’re not just plain losing it (trust me, been there).  I actually tapped my marketing background to lay out a process in the book to make this a lot easier and smooth a lot of bumps.

Last thing, mindset is critical. You’ve got to cultivate the “just watch me” mindset. This will be instrumental in cultivating the will to take daily action toward your vision. And, honestly, that’s the single most important factor in any success. Consistent action. So, implement a set of daily mindset practices that’ll keep you focused not on what can go wrong, but on what can and will go right.

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Leo: What happens if you take the plunge and go for your dreams, but don’t make enough money? Do you think that happens very often?

Jonathan: So, one thing I’m not going tell you is that this is easy. It’s not. It may be one of the hardest things you’ll ever do. But, here’s the thing. We’re talking about the one thing that will likely consume the vast majority of your waking hours until the day you either retire or die. So, sure, it’s a giant, challenge…but it’s a challenge worth rising to!

Whether you succeed in this or any other life-changing endeavor is largely a factor of your approach. It’s no different than any other big-picture quest. There’s no magic to it. No secret strategy, key, button or pill.

• Identify your genuine passion,
• Test for viability/market demand and adapt,
• Acquire the knowledge and assets you need to act,
• Cultivate the renegade mindset,
• Rally your inner and upper circles
• Define and commit to daily action, then
• Take consistent action, without excuse, until you reach your goal.

That formula wins pretty much every time.

So, when you look at people who take the plunge and come up short, you can pretty much always look at each one of those items and pick out where there was a breakdown. And, if you’re game, go back to the broken element, adapt and revise, and jump back in.

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Quoted from Become a Career Renegade: Interview with Career Expert Jonathan Fields

Here is another great post from Zen Habits, When you look at your whole span of life. little but steady changes are what really makes a big difference at the end. Change a direction, turn a corner and go slow and steady. You will find yourself changing and moving towards your goals without even noticing it. Visit the link at the end to read the full list.

Are you feeling like life isn’t exciting enough? That maybe you’re missing out on something because you just can’t get motivated for anything? Turns out you’re not alone.
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1. Make small, positive changes. This is a bit of a paradox. Making small, positive changes — eating a little healthier, exercising a little, creating some small productive habits, for example — are an amazing way to get excited about life … but doesn’t it take some excitement and motivation to even get started with these small changes? Yes, a little … but not a lot. If you start small, you don’t need a lot of motivation. Just get going. You’ll soon find that just the act of getting started and doing something will give you some momentum, and soon you’ll be in a positive spiral of changes — one building on the other. When I started doing this in my life, I was so excited I had to start Zen Habits to share it with the world.
…
4. Exercise…
5. Appreciate loved ones…
6. Pursue a passion. ..
7. Talk and work with other excited people…
…

Quoted from 10 Ways to Beat the “Can’t Get No Satisfaction” Syndrome

Even Mt. Everest has to be climbed one step at a time. the trick is not to stop. When it gets hard just make smaller steps and keep going.

Theory

• Forming new habits isn’t hard, nor does it require a lot of willpower. The problem is with our approach to habit-formation
• There are two simple ways to habit-formation that makes it easy to accomplish: 1) Half Habits 2) Timeless Habits
• Half Habits: Rather than aim to form a new habit fully, aim to make progress in the direction of the new habit. You will gradually re-adjust, and the approach is much more natural than expecting to form a new habit with a single leap
• Timeless Habits: There are many, many habits we can develop that require absolutely no time commitment. Replacing coffee with green tea, or soft drinks with water doesn’t take any extra time to do but can bring about great benefits into our lives

Practice

• Half Habits: For all the habits you intend on adopting, instead of focusing on the destination (forming the new habit fully), think of the next step you can take in the direction of these habits and make a slight adjustment to adopting these habits
• Timeless Habits: Come up with ways you can make simple changes to what you eat, how you behave, etc. that can bring about positive results in your life, without needing to free up any time on your schedule to form these new habits

To read more from Haider Al-Mosawi, check out his blog: Personal Growth Map.

Quoted from Two Simple Ways to Form New Habits Without Really Trying

That’s right Ze Frank! lets execute right now! What have I been waiting for? I was hooked on Brain Crack for too long.

“Hi my name is Sung and I am a Brain Crack addict!”

Ze Frank knows steady output, and the iconic video blogger knows why we put off acting on our ideas—we’re saving them as reassuring, addictive “Brain Crack.” (Warning: Bit of swearing in the vid).

In typical Ze Frank style, the clip cuts away to something almost entirely different at about the 1:30 mark, and there’s a chanting chorus of F-bombs—so if you’re watching at work, it’s definitely headphone material. But it’s also pretty encouraging stuff.

“washington, ideas, brain crack” [The Show with Ze Frank via 43 Folders]

Quoted from Ze Frank on Executing Ideas Vs. “Brain Crack” [Clips]

This is a very good read written by Leo Bahauta from Zenhabits. I agree with many things he has to say. Where do I fit in? Over thinker? Perfectionist? Just don’t want to do it? There are so many barriers to getting something done for me at this stage in my life? What are my biggest barriers?

What makes me go? What do I really want to do? What would I be happy doing everyday? This really gets me thinking.

Please visit the Permalink below for the full article. Here are some quotes from the article that really stayed with me right now.

Barriers to the Action Habit

But what if you’re having trouble actually taking action? Some quick thoughts:

• Don’t worry about perfect. Too often we want to create the perfect plan, but while it’s important to know where you’re going, it’s more important not to get stuck in the planning mode. And while it’s important to do your best, perfection isn’t necessary.
• Stop fiddling. Are you messing around with your software or other tools? Are you playing with fonts and colors and other non-essential things? Stop! Get back to the task.
• Remove distractions. Turn off the phone, email, IM, Twitter, etc. Shut off the world around you, and just focus on the doing.
• Improve it later. Just do it now. You can make it better later. Writers call this the sh*tty first draft — and while it sounds bad, it’s actually a good thing. You’re getting it done, even if it’s sloppy.
• Break it into smaller chunks. Sometimes the task is too intimidating. If the task takes more than an hour, start with a 30-minute chunk. If that’s too big, do just 10 minutes. If that’s too hard, do 5. If you have to, just do 1 minute, just to get going.
• Stop thinking so much. Thinking is a good thing. Overthinking isn’t, and it gets in the way. Put aside all the thinking (analysis paralysis) and just do.
• If you can’t do something … figure out why. Maybe you don’t have the tools. Maybe you don’t have the authority. Maybe you need something from someone else. Maybe you’re missing some key info. Maybe you don’t know how to do something and need to read up on it, or be taught how. Maybe you just don’t want to do it, and you should drop it altogether. Figure out what the barrier is, and solve it.

Quoted from Task Ninja: Form the Action Habit