10 Thing That Will Happen When You Get Jacked
The Implied Things We Don't Normally Talk About
Normally, I find click-baity titles annoying as much as anyone, but I thought this post would be cool as both motivation and some expectation management for when you, a BowTiedOx reader, inevitably get jacked (this is a DEMAND, anyone, no matter where you start, can).
Now I will say, about 95% of what will happen to you as a result of getting jacked will be good, VERY good, but, I’d be remiss if I didn’t say it comes with some negatives and inconveniences. At the end of the day, it’s worth it, a million times over it’s worth it.
I speak from experience here as someone who has been jacked, been fat, and been very jacked again—as well as the experience from the 1000’s of conversations I’ve had with other gym bro’s. Your mileage may vary, but universally, most of these will ring true.
I could make this post very generic and list off bullet points but that’s not fun or interesting. Instead I’ve listed 10 unique, direct phenomena that will happen on your travels to Gainzville, USA, Population: You.
Number 1: You’ll Need New Clothes
Of all the things I could’ve started with, this probably wasn’t the one you were expecting. This is also rather Captain Obvious tier, but this is actually important and not listed for the reasons you might have thought of.
As you get going on your journey to the Swoley Grail, you’re going to notice 1 of 2 things:
Your clothes are getting tighter.
Your clothes are getting too big and swallowing you.
These are both very good things because it means whatever you’re doing in the gym is working. I would be concerned if you spent month after month in the gym and this didn’t happen.
If you note from this post, our first year if we truly get after it and maximize growth we could add in excess of 15-20lbs of muscle—this is quite significant and will likely take you up 1 or 2 sizes in clothes (or dropping sizes if starting from an overweight place).
The positive here is you now have an opportunity to get a new wardrobe and upgrade your style, which you’ll want to do because of the newfound confidence and self-esteem many guys get as they get in shape. (Very near future post on this).
The negative is you will literally need pretty much a new closet, so expect to take this very worth it, small financial hit. Ideally, I’d suggest buying new clothes just as you *need* them and wait until after your first consistent year before going all out.
Number 2: People Will Treat You Different (Better)
A very unique thing you will notice that changes over time is how people act towards and around you. There are many ways this can go, but in general people will assume you are someone who has it figured out and has their shit together.
Essentially you will be much more respected and will be setting an automatic positive first impression.
It’s not an overt respect like when you walk into a room everyone stops what they’re doing and announces you entered, but a subtle respect—you will see it in the subtext of almost all social situations.
When you are in public:
- Men will start being overly polite and do things like opening doors for you.
- Women will give you a second longer look, you will also get longer hugs and have girls touch on your arms.
- Older divorced housewives out with their friends will catcall worse than a 10/10 Eastern European woman at a construction site in 1950’s New York.
All-in-all, you will just be viewed in a better light, it’s like an automatic 10-20% boost to your “Presence” skill bar and going to influence more positive social outcomes in your life.
Number 3: Halo Effect
Tying into the above, one of the most positive, life-changing effects of getting jacked is the Halo Effect.
The Halo Effect is a cognitive bias people create by allowing one specific trait to influence how people feel about someone in a positive manner. Many times they will assume the person is highly qualified without anything else to go on besides that one trait.
By being in great shape, considering maybe 1% of the population is in great shape, people will assume you are simply knowledgeable and they place more value on your opinion.
In business or professional life this can be a huge benefit as this will have a direct benefit to any client/customer facing role due to the fact that the client/customer will trust you more and view you as someone of authority. If you’re in sales, you’ll likely get more sales because people trust people they find more physically attractive.
You will notice people start asking for your opinion on work projects when they never have before. If you’re in management/leadership, you’ll find people take you more seriously and value your input.
Now, if you’re actually competent and intelligent at whatever it is you do, the sky’s the limit. People will have a picture painted of you in their brains of this overall great human who can do no wrong.
Number 4: Your Standards Will Increase
Getting jacked takes a great deal of both physical and mental, even spiritual, development. This will start to show in everything you do naturally with a spillover effect. You will also start expecting more out of yourself and others—higher standards.
Suddenly, you need your career/business success to match your fitness success so you become more restless and work to improve that. You’ll start putting more hours in and scheming how you can elevate your financial life.
Your body looks good, so your hair, clothes, and skin need to look good to match that and maximize your appearance. You’ll start taking care of these things so you can take advantage of the fact people trust and like attractive people more.
You have the discipline to track your diet, your lifts, and stick to the plan—you might even start making sure your actual temple (house/apartment) is staying up to par with your physical temple (body). You’ll start keeping the house clean, doing your laundry, and actually cleaning the dishes… not just letting them “soak”.
Well, now you’re improving everywhere else, but when’s the last time you picked up that dusty book “How To Get Rich” by Felix Dennis (read this if you haven’t)? You realize a strong body needs a strong mind so you develop yourself intellectually as well—then this helps with your financial goals from above…
You see where this goes, it all snowballs into a general state of always wanting to improve yourself. It might not look exactly like this, you could have those things figured out, but momentum is contagious and spills into other avenues of life.
Another key benefit of higher standards is if you suddenly find yourself falling off, maybe eating worse and getting a little fluffier, you will stop yourself before it gets bad… but the reality is you still look better than 99% of people—but for you it becomes unacceptable. This means you’re likely going to stay a healthy body composition your entire life (live longer).
You’ll also hold others to higher standards, which can be good or somewhat painful (depending on their response) but ultimately this will help your friends and family be healthier, fitter people.
Number 5: Life Seems Easier
If you consistently spend multiple days a week pushing your body and muscles to the literal point of failure, week-after-week, month-after-month, year-after-year, then you are also building one of the most important “muscles” in your brain—resiliency.
If you can take a set of hack squats for 20 reps to failure, hate your life and struggle to get off the toilet, and go back and do it all over again in just a few days, then what else is really that hard? I have little reference point I like to say when dealing with some hard task and it’s “well, at least this is easier than squatting 500lbs” and kinda laugh on and put it into perspective.
You will develop a relationship with pain/struggle, a relationship where you see that the *right* pain and struggle leads to results, so other things just don’t seem like that much of a challenge. For many people life just isn’t that difficult if we’re honest with ourselves, so by giving us a near daily challenge we become tougher.
Number 6: Being Jacked Is Like A Daily, Subtle High
This is a feeling that is hard to describe if you’ve never been there and it fades to the background if you’ve been jacked for a long time, but it’s one of the most satisfying feelings the gym gives you.
It can only be described really like a small little hit of happiness/slight euphoria and it will sometimes hit you when you look in the mirror, get a compliment, or at times just completely random. A feeling that is just *good*—you look good, feel good, and you’re proud of it. It could be described as a deep satisfaction. Again, hard to explain, but if you’ve ever been unhealthy or overweight, the opposite of that feeling.
It’s a constant high and it makes all the hard parts—the diet, the hard sets—all worth it. It feels better long term than unhealthy decisions feel short term—better than any donut could taste.
The feeling does become a homeostasis, you just get used to it, but if you ever get out of shape or fall off for whatever reason, you will realize how much you miss feeling that good.
One way you can feel it pretty much on command is when you get a pump and are looking huge, looking great in the gym + have endorphins just flowing. As Arnold once said:
Number 7: Everyone Will Call You To Move Furniture
You look like you can deadlift a few plates? Your family and friends know you go to the gym?
Congrats, you are now the number 1, go-to guy when it comes to helping people move furniture. You can’t say no because you’re not a bad person, but you are also going to be asked about once every month to move something, and about once a year to help move someone’s entire house (yikes).
You will likely be rewarded with pizza and beer… Lord forbid you also have a truck… If you do then you need to up those numbers by probably 200%.
Like I said, not all of the things that happen are good…
Number 8: Little Kids Will Think You’re A Superhero
When I first entered the realm of what is known as “jacked” I was not expecting this at all, I was expecting the opposite. Little kids, even babies will look at you like you are a hero, like someone who will keep them safe.
It makes sense from an evolutionary perspective, the strongest members of the tribe would be the protectors so the children would naturally be drawn to them. You will see this with babies quite a bit, they will stare at you and even stop crying when you hold them.
Younger kids will just think you’re great, you look like their favorite hero in their movies/shows/books. They will ask you a ton of questions, usually say they can beat you up, and challenge you to various athletic events—tons of “hey race me”.
It’s a great feeling, you should be proud to be a good influence and role model for these kids—Lord knows we absolutely need better, healthier role models. Be that person for the youth of tomorrow!
Number 9: Some People Will Hate You For No Reason
For some (lesser) men, your existence will infuriate them and they will hate you for no reason. They don’t hate you, they hate themselves, but they will project that hatred to you. You can just look at my Twitter for the evidence.
Don’t ever let it get to you. Again, they are coping and seething with the fact they never physically amounted to anything beyond gym class in school. Just ignore them, laugh about how pathetic it is, and move on.
This is actually rather important to understand with how much our lives involve social media nowadays. Some people really let this get to them and affect them mentally. Don’t. Anytime you are improving yourself people will project their insecurities, you should take it as a compliment—they are just telling you how much better you are than them.
They hate us cause they AiN’t US!
Number 10: You Will Be Happy, But It’s Never Enough
You can always be a little bigger, a little stronger, a little leaner… you are going to tell yourself things like this all the time. You will be happy and know you look good, but still part of you will be unsatisfied.
It’s important you actually take the time to smell the roses—be grateful and appreciative of the progress and physique you have built.
Time will pass and you’ll look back at pictures and realize “oh man, I looked good then, way better than I thought”.
This is part of the game, it’s normal as long as the first part of this is true—you are happy. If not, then you’re venturing into some body dysmorphia type issues and should definitely work on that, that is no way to live, the gym and your body should bring joy not insecurity and self-loathing.
This is a gym bro paradox: You will always think you looked better while cutting while on a bulk and think you looked better bulking while on a cut. We will never win but have already won—deep.
There’s always room for change, but we need to appreciate this moment in our process and not harp on the change every waking moment.
Putting It All Together
Like I said, most of what happens when you get jacked will be great. Very Great.
But there’s always gotta be trade-offs for anything good in life.
It will still be worth, it’s not even close, regardless of what the circumstance is.
Anyway, these are some of the things you can expect to see happen when you get jacked.
Until Next Time,
#WAGMI
Your friend,
- BowTiedOx
DISCLAIMER
This is not Legal, Medical, or Financial advice. Please consult a medical professional before starting any workout program, diet plan, or supplement protocol. These are opinions from a Cartoon Ox.
Wow! What an encouraging read, thank you so much for writing this! My friend finally got me to go to the gym with him, first time I’ve been in 5 years. Couldn’t have read this at a better time.
I’m not sure who hurt you, but this is sad, seek help.