It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of Atomic Habits by James Clear. I’ve listened to it twice and have white-boarded some ideas I hope to share with students as soon as things settle down a bit.

So when I saw that James was a recent guest on the Tim Ferriss podcast, I had to start listening.

Yesterday morning after waking up a bit later than usual, and taking a little longer than usual to write, I wasn’t sure if I had time for my workout. But rather than skip it, I decided to do a 10 minute row instead of 20 minute stationary bike, and then do 3 quick sets of tricep pull downs with elastic bands rather than weights… Less than the usual plan, but a workout nonetheless!

As I was rowing, I was listening to the podcast and came across this gem of a quote:

Here it is in-text quote:

The first thing is I give myself permission to reduce the scope but stick to the schedule. So if my typical workout takes 45 minutes, but I only have 15 that day, it’s easy to get into the story where you’re like, ‘Ah, I don’t have time to do it all, like why bother?’ But instead, I try to remind myself to reduce the scope and stick to the schedule, and there’s been a lot of days where all I have time for is to go in and do a couple sets of squats, but I’m glad that I did that rather than doing nothing, and it counts for a lot to, like, not throw a zero up for another day. In a sense, in the long run I almost feel like the bad days matter more than a good days, because if you showing up on the bad days, even if it’s less than what you had hoped for you maintain the habit. And if you maintain that habit, then all you need a time, so it counts for a lot. You also prove to yourself, you know, you can look yourself in the mirror at the end the night, and be like, ‘You know what, circumstances weren’t ideal, situation wasn’t perfect, but I still found a way to show up and, you know, like get some reps in today.’

It was so timely for me to hear this. I was on the row machine on a morning where I had reduced the scope but stuck to the schedule. I couldn’t do what was ideal, but I didn’t skip the workout. I showed up. And hearing this I went from feeling kind of guilty that I was cutting my routine short to realizing that I stuck with it. I did it anyway. I didn’t have a zero workout day. Because in the end consistency really matters, and a lighter, faster workout is still a workout.

Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to get on my exercise bike and put a bit more time into my workout today.