EP 3589 Sometimes you can just do what you can do
The Strong Life Project Podcast
Release Date: 01/11/2026
EP 3594 Don’t get to the top of the ladder and realise it’s against the wrong wall
The Strong Life Project Podcast
Most people think the goal is to climb faster. Work harder. Get more done. Win more. But here’s the brutal truth: you can spend years doing everything “right” and still end up miserable if you’re climbing the wrong ladder. In this episode, I break down why high achievers often feel flat, restless, or secretly resentful even when life looks successful from the outside. It is not because you are ungrateful. It is because your direction is wrong. You have been optimising effort instead of alignment. We unpack the warning signs that you are chasing someone else’s definition of success:...
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EP 3593 The parable of the Mexican fisherman
The Strong Life Project Podcast
In this episode, I unpack the parable of the Mexican fisherman and why it punches so hard if you’re ambitious, driven, and chasing the next milestone. A tourist watches a fisherman bring in a catch, then suggests “improving” his life: buy a bigger boat, hire staff, scale the operation, build a fleet, sell to a distributor, then one day cash out and retire to a quiet coastal village where he can fish a little, nap with his kids, spend time with his wife, and play guitar with friends at night. Here’s the twist: that “dream retirement” is already the fisherman’s current life. We use...
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EP 3592 You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf
The Strong Life Project Podcast
In episode 3592 of The Strong Life Project, Shaun unpacks a simple truth that most high performers forget when life gets rough: you don’t control the ocean, you control your response. The “waves” are pressure, setbacks, conflict, fatigue, uncertainty, grief, and the problems that show up at the worst time. If you keep trying to stop the waves, you waste energy fighting reality and you miss the only leverage you actually have. This episode reframes resilience as a trainable skill, not a personality trait. Shaun explains why calm isn’t the absence of chaos, it’s the ability to stay...
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EP 3591 Never miss two days in a row
The Strong Life Project Podcast
In EP 3591, Never miss two days in a row, you get a simple rule that stops small slip ups turning into a full collapse. One day off happens. Life hits. Motivation dips. But the second missed day is where the identity damage starts. This episode breaks down why your brain treats two missed days as permission to quit, and how to interrupt that pattern before it becomes a new normal. You will hear the difference between a mistake and a mindset. Missing one workout is a scheduling issue. Missing two is often a story you start telling yourself about who you are and what you do. The point is not...
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EP 3590 The deferred life hypothesis
The Strong Life Project Podcast
In EP 3590 of The Strong Life Project, Shaun O’Gorman pulls apart the deferred life hypothesis: the quiet belief that real living starts later. Later when the kids are older, when the business is stable, when you’re leaner, calmer, richer, or finally “sorted”. It sounds responsible. It is often disguised avoidance. This episode names the cost of that pattern. When you keep postponing joy, connection, health, and meaning, you don’t stay neutral. You drift. The goalposts move, the workload expands, and your nervous system learns that relief only arrives after the next milestone. For...
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EP 3589 Sometimes you can just do what you can do
The Strong Life Project Podcast
In EP 3589, Sometimes you can just do what you can do, I unpack a truth most people resist until life forces it on them. There are seasons where you are not going to be at your best, and pretending otherwise just adds guilt, stress, and self sabotage. Sometimes you are carrying fatigue, grief, pressure, illness, family strain, or just the mental load of being human. In those moments, the goal is not peak performance. The goal is staying in the game. This episode is about stripping things back to what is controllable. Your next decision. Your smallest repeatable action. Your non-negotiables....
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EP 3588 What question would you ask yourself one year ago?
The Strong Life Project Podcast
In this episode, I challenge you to use a simple question to create a brutal level of self honesty: if you could speak to yourself from one year ago, what would you ask them and why. This is not about regret. It is about responsibility. Because the quality of your future is directly tied to the quality of the questions you are willing to face right now. We unpack how most people drift because they avoid the hard conversations with themselves. They stay busy, distracted, and reactive. A year passes, then another, and nothing meaningful changes because nothing meaningful is confronted. This...
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EP 3587 Why don’t we ask ourselves tough questions?
The Strong Life Project Podcast
In EP 3587, Shaun gets blunt about the one habit that quietly ruins progress: avoiding tough questions. Most people say they want change, but they keep asking themselves soft questions that protect comfort, protect ego, and protect the story they tell themselves about why their life is the way it is. This episode is a wake up call to stop negotiating with your potential and start interrogating your patterns. You will be challenged to look at what you are tolerating, what you are avoiding, and what you keep blaming on circumstances when it is really a standards problem. Shaun breaks down why...
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EP 3586 Your worst enemy can’t hurt you as much as you do
The Strong Life Project Podcast
Most people waste years blaming the wrong enemy. They point at their boss, their partner, their past, their circumstances, the economy, their parents, their workload. And yes, those things can be hard. But they are rarely the thing doing the most damage. In this episode, I unpack a brutal truth. The most consistent source of pain in your life is often you. Not because you are weak, but because you keep running the same self-destructive patterns on repeat. The way you talk to yourself. The standards you keep lowering. The excuses you keep protecting. The procrastination you keep calling rest....
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EP 3585 Suffering is pain multiplied by resistance
The Strong Life Project Podcast
Pain is unavoidable. Suffering is optional. In this episode of The Strong Life Project, Shaun O’Gorman cuts through the noise and explains why so many people stay stuck, exhausted, and emotionally overwhelmed. The problem isn’t the pain itself. It’s the resistance to reality, responsibility, and what actually matters. When urgency dominates your life, the important things—like family, health, relationships, and values—get pushed aside. And that’s where real damage is done. This episode is a wake-up call for high performers, leaders, and driven people who are constantly reacting...
info_outlineIn EP 3589, Sometimes you can just do what you can do, I unpack a truth most people resist until life forces it on them. There are seasons where you are not going to be at your best, and pretending otherwise just adds guilt, stress, and self sabotage. Sometimes you are carrying fatigue, grief, pressure, illness, family strain, or just the mental load of being human. In those moments, the goal is not peak performance. The goal is staying in the game.
This episode is about stripping things back to what is controllable. Your next decision. Your smallest repeatable action. Your non-negotiables. When you stop demanding perfection, you create momentum again. I talk through how to recognise the difference between a genuine low capacity season and an excuse pattern. One is real and deserves compassion and strategy. The other is avoidance dressed up as self-care.
You will learn how to set a minimum standard for the day so you keep identity intact. Train, but reduce intensity. Eat simply, not perfectly. Have the hard conversation, but keep it short and clear. Do the work, but focus on the one thing that moves the needle. This is not lowering the bar. This is protecting the foundation so you can rebuild strength when capacity returns.
If you have been beating yourself up because you are not firing on all cylinders, this episode will reset your expectations and give you a practical way forward. You do not need to do everything. You need to do what you can do consistently and let that be enough for today.