Let’s say you had a goal of exercising every day. So you go out and hire a real fitness buff to show you the ropes. He teaches you everything about using the gym equipment. You’re learning how to do the bench press, the squat, the deadlift, and a myriad of isolation exercises and machines… you’re learning all the mechanics and techniques so that you can maximize your workout potential.
Eventually you stop working with that Trainer… does that mean you’re now exercising every day on your own? Not necessarily. You have yet to develop a LIFESTYLE of exercise. You haven’t conquered anything towards getting out of a “hit or miss” training scheduling. You’ll start having more and more “misses”… and pretty soon….just like all the times before…you find you’re no longer exercising at all.
By the way, what happens when you stop exercising? All those gains and progress you made at the gym…well, they start shrinking and diminishing and your body returns to its normal baseline level. You see, you have every force in the world pushing you back towards homeostasis. It’s where your natural thermostat level is set. It says, “you weigh this much”, “you can lift this much”, “your muscles are this big”, etc.
“But I was making progress at the gym!!!”, you protest.
Yes, you were, and that’s because you were actively and relentlessly engaged in fighting the forces of entropy, fighting your body’s pushback to bring you back to your previous level. But when you give up, when you stop pushing, there is only one force left: that of entropy… pushing you backwards, eroding your hard-fought progress.
The most discouraging part of it is looking back at the sheer amount of hard work you put in, the hours of going to the gym, the grueling exercises, the sweat, the sacrifice. The amount of times when you really wanted to do something else but forced yourself to go exercise… and now what? You have nothing left to show for it??? How discouraging! BTW, been there, done that. Over and over and over…for years. I know first hand every ounce of the discouragement and frustration you’re feeling.
So, how is it that you hired a professional to help you yet you’re still at square one with your exercising habit?
Well, it’s very simple: your trainer showed you how to exercise. What you were not shown is how to develop a lifelong habit of exercise! And why not? Well, you see, people that love exercise, like personal trainers, are always going to be exercising. They can’t get enough. They don’t have a problem of exercise avoidance. What they are teaching you works for them. It’s hard for them to imagine that you’re not going to keep up what they’ve shown you.
About 10 years ago, I had a breakthrough. I discovered a hidden key that unlocks the real power in goal setting and habit formation. You can only discover this key if you’ve suffered enough failure and disappointment. It is that pain that gives you the motivation to keep pushing and pushing and pushing until you find a way to conquer the failure. This secret key cost me a lot. Many of you will read it and read right past it. You won’t recognize it for the bombshell it is, and that’s ok. Maybe it’s not for you. Maybe you don’t need it. But for the rest of you, here it is:
Whenever you are planning action steps that have been difficult to do in the past, you must get very honest with yourself and ask yourself this question:
“Will I REALLY do that?”
And I mean really. In real life are. You. going. To. do. That?
Look what it is you’re asking yourself to do. You said, “I am going to go jogging every day, no if’s, and’s, or but’s!!”
Now, you’ve already told yourself this countless times in the past. You hate jogging. And when you were forcing yourself to do it in the past, you hated every day of your life because jogging was a part of it. And so you quit. (Or your body forced a reason on you to quit, like shin splints.)
So now you’re writing down your new exercise plan that you’re going to stick with for the rest of your life. And you put down “jogging”. WAIT. Stop the presses! Are you really going to do that??? Can you imagine the rest of your life having to do something you dread every single day? You actually know you’re not going to do it, but you put it down anyway because you think you should.
This is the problem. It’s not being honest or realistic with yourself. Once you break that barrier, and begin to get honest, then your solution can finally be revealed to you. It may never be, and for most people it isn’t ever revealed because their search isn’t earnest enough, but at least now it has the opportunity to be revealed, because you’ve stopped living with the lie and can begin to search for the truth. Your truth.
When I was finally honest with myself about what I WASN’T going to do, I never again included it in my goals or plans. I was done lying to myself. Now I could fill my goals with items I actually WOULD do. And I’d do them because they were not disagreeable to me. They did not cause my subconscious mind to seek for ways to avoid them.
And who cares if my new way might not lead to THE most perfect body in the world??? I wasn’t going to get that anyway, and I’d rather get something decent, that I know I can live with and maintain, than to keep striving after what I knew I would never attain. I’ve got something decent. Every single muscle on my body is strong and healthy. Every body part is balanced and ready for anything.
And you know what the best part is? When I wake up tomorrow I don’t have to dread my day just because I have to workout. I’ve made a workout easy enough to live with it. It’s all I need. I can ride this workout system all the way through my senior years. That means I can maintain my muscle, forever. I want to teach you how to do the same thing.
Most trainers totally do not get this. And that means you will have great workouts with them, but unless you’re very lucky and/or are just the right type of person, it’s doubtful that you’ll have developed a true lifestyle of exercise. One that doesn’t come and go. One that just: is.
Find your perfect plan. And don’t plan for yourself things you know you won’t do. That way you can always keep your promises to yourself. And that means when you say something, you’ll believe it.
