Tag Archives: motivation

What I need

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I’m going to be joining a gym. I feel that I need to.

Sure I have a pretty good home gym. Sure I have been disciplined, working out on average 6 days a week. Sure it’s convenient not to leave the house early in the morning, and not add 25 minutes in my car getting to and from the gym. These are all wonderful perks of working out at home, and they’ve served me well for almost 7 years… but I need something else.

I need the camaraderie of working out with a friend.

I need a facility that will provide me with machines that I can work my legs without putting pressure on my back.

I need a place where I’m motivated to do more than my one-muscle-group workouts I’ve been doing at home.

I need to be around other people working hard to make themselves feel better.

But above all that, what I also need is to rebalance my morning routine to include longer workouts and travel time. I’ve loved my morning routine. I’ve developed great habits where my motivation to get going sits at zero and I still get everything done… it’s robotic, finish one task, immediately head to the next. Stacked habits that just happen once I wake up in the morning.

This morning I went to the gym for the first time and I’m writing this when I’m usually getting out of the shower to go to work. I’ll be arriving at work later than usual today, not late for work, just later than the norm. I also haven’t done my morning meditation, which will need to be moved to the evening. So already I see that things will need to change. And with that change, the autopilot gets turned off.

So, I need to create new systems, a different stacking of my habits, such that it gets re-automated. I’m sure I’ll have to pump up my motivation until that happens, but I’m so ready for this change.

This is what I need right now.

Doing hard things

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My workouts have stagnated a bit recently. I’m doing the minimum, but the good news is that I’m still showing up. Yesterday I did my first interval training in about 3 or 4 weeks. I want to do it weekly, but I haven’t made it part of my routine yet.

The reason I haven’t made interval training part of my regular schedule yet is embarrassingly simple: It’s really hard. The purpose of doing intervals is to maintain and improve my Max VO2 levels. To increase Max VO2, I need to not only do intervals, but do them at a very physically taxing level. That’s hard to do when just showing up is a challenge for me right now. But yesterday was a day off work and so I used the day as an opportunity to get an interval workout in.

I did a warm-up then eight 1-minute sprints. My sets are actually 1:15 hard and 1:10 easy, because it takes about 13 seconds to get my treadmill from my easy recovery speed to full sprint and I want the sprint to be a full minute. It’s not fun, but it’s much easier than the Norwegian Protocol which is four 4-minute sprints with 3-minute rest intervals. And I think that’s going to be my ticket to get back into regular intervals. When a task is hard to do, break it down into something more manageable. I can talk myself into 1-minute sprints even when I’m not feeling fully motivated… four 4-minute sprints feels like torture right now.

Through all this I’ve still been very consistent with my zone 2 training, but I think even that has not been ideal. I’m not sure how effective I’ve been because I haven’t been tracking my heart rate and so I’m not certain if I’m getting and staying in the zone. That’s changing this month, when I buy myself a Garmond watch, then I’ll really be able to track my cardio workout progress. I’m hoping the extra data will help motivate me to push myself.

When consistently doing hard things, maintaining motivation is important. I’ve become a master at showing up. My dedication to my workout habit is unwavering. Last year I did 326 workouts, and I’m on schedule to be around that total this year. I know how to show up! But if I were to rank myself on an intensity scale, this year would be much lower than last year. So my focus is to finish the year hard and strong. And I’m fortunate that I’ll have the tools to help track this. It benefits no one to lie to myself about how hard I’m working, and so the extra data the watch will give me will both inform me, and keep me honest about my progress.

Cross pollination

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Do you know what’s really hard to do? First, choose an area of your life where you really have your ‘stuff’ together. Then take those same skills, habits, and discipline and apply it to another part of your life. It should be easy, or at least easier than it is. We should be able to recognize what makes us extremely effective in one aspect of our lives and simply apply the same strategies elsewhere.

What prevents this? Is it motivation? Is it the fear of starting? Is it that we recognize the effort is more than we are willing to put out?

Whatever the reason, it’s sometimes important to remember that it is easier to act your way into a new way of thinking than it is to think your way into a new way of acting. Start with the action. Do the things you already do elsewhere in a new area of your life. Start with small actions, but the action itself is the start. Not the thinking, not the planning, not the talking about it… the doing.

Apply action, and the good work and skills you’ve developed will indeed cross over.

A year and a half later

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I’ve had some time recently that I could have used better. It reminded me of something I shared a year-and-a-half ago, ‘If I had the time’.

I won’t reshare the whole post, but I’ll share the very powerful comic and quote I shared:

Here’s a great comic by @MrLovenstein:

And the quote by Author Julia Cameron:

“The “if I had time” lie is a convenient way to ignore the fact that novels require being written and that writing happens a sentence at a time. Sentences can happen in a moment. Enough stolen moments, enough stolen sentences, and a novel is born — without the luxury of time.”

And I ended the post with this,

“If only I had the time… would I use it? Would you? How convenient and comfortable is this lie? The reality is that if it’s important enough, there’s probably time for it, time we can find, time we can make, rather than making up excuses.”

—

Discipline is hard. Good habits are hard. Being strong in one area of your life doesn’t automatically make you strong in another. People who smoke know it’s bad for them. People cheating on their diet still want to lose weight. Yet, in both these cases the people in question could be very competent and effective in other areas of their lives.

It’s a reality that in some areas of our lives, even when we have the time, it can still be really hard to do things we actually want to do.

Leg day

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Unlike many memes regarding physical fitness and bodybuilding, I don’t usually skip leg day. In fact, most days I start my workout walking on my treadmill at a fast pace, on an incline, in a 40lb weighted vest, for 20 or more minutes. So, I do work my legs… but they are still chicken legs that make me look like I skip leg day.

I have seen some gains in the past year, but these gains have come at a cost. The cost is that when I work my legs with weights, they always hurt 2 and 3 days later. I worked my legs pretty hard yesterday and my quads and glutes are aching today. I know I’m going to wake up feeling them again tomorrow.

It’s weird, since I started taking creatine a few years ago, that two-day later ache has been drastically reduced. My buddy and I did back and chest workout today that would normally have me aching for days with after workout soreness, yet I can tell it won’t be that bad. Thank you creatine. However, creatine or not, when I work my legs they ache for longer than I find comfortable.

And the reality is that while I work my legs, I don’t work them as hard as I did yesterday all that often. Why? Because it’s not fun feeling like I need to hold the railing going up and down the stairs because my legs feel like jelly. So while I don’t skip leg day, I do skip hard leg days, and really don’t push them as hard as other parts of my body.

Until I join a gym and start using equipment designed specifically for legs, I don’t think I’m going to see too much in the way of gains… I’m just not willing to do the real work it would take. That said, I’m still never going to skip leg day.

The first 100 days

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Real change only happens when the pain of doing something new is less than the pain of avoiding the new thing. I was talking to my buddy, Dave, after our 178th Coquitlam Crunch today and we spoke about the discipline and work that we’ve put into fitness, good eating habits, and our social-emotional wellbeing. It comes down to the fact that habits are easier to maintain than motivation, and showing up matters more than any other factor.

It sounds so cliche, but the most important workout is the one you don’t want to do… but still do. It’s a scheduled workout day and you have zero motivation… do a workout anyway. Your gas tank is empty and you can’t imagine doing your workout routine… go to the gym anyway and do a 20 minute walk in the treadmill.

Probably more than 50% of the times that you drag your ass to the gym, not wanting to go, you’ll end up doing more than you expected you would do. But guess what? The other times when you don’t do more, when you just barely do the minimum… these are the workouts that really matter. You showed up! You kept the habit going. You made the next attempt to go to the gym easier. “If I can get to the gym feeling the way I did yesterday, I can definitely get to the gym today!”

“My advice,” Dave said, “would be just show up for the first 100 days. Don’t expect to see changes, don’t even look in the mirror. The first 100 days are about making workouts something you never miss, or monitoring calories and developing good eating habits.”

Essentially, the first 100 days are really hard, and they matter the most. I said that, ‘Real change only happens when the pain of doing something new is less than the pain of avoiding the new thing.’ Whatever your new habit is, reduce the pain of doing it by making the desired goal mandatory.

You want to go to the gym 5 days a week? For the first 100 days there are no excuses, nothing is allowed to make you miss. You went away for the weekend and didn’t work out? You go to the gym every day from Monday to Friday. Exhausted and don’t want to go to the gym on Thursday? Too bad, you already missed the weekend, and attendance is non-negotiable.

Will that Thursday workout be a good one? Probably not. But it will likely be more than you thought you had in you, and it was the most important workout of the week. You got there. You kept the streak going. You aren’t someone who skips out, you don’t make excuses, you maintain your habits. You are a regular who would rather feel the pain of a workout than the pain of letting yourself down.

Just show up for the first 100 days. After the habit is established, then you can look at losses and gains. Then you can reduce fat, add muscle, increase flexibility or endurance… or just feel good about yourself because you have developed a great habit that you find easier and easier to maintain.

100 days.

Rain, shine, snow… to the crunch we go!

Early mornings

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I’m in a bit of a rut. I get up early enough, but my usual morning routine has slowed down and I’m finding myself in a rush to get to work every morning. It’s a slow creep of distractions and general laziness that’s pushing my usual routine into a speed round of getting everything in.

What I’ve recognized is that I’ve let a general slowness creep into my morning routine. I’m not avoiding anything, I’m just not getting to everything in a timely fashion. I’ve let my routine falter not by neglecting any one part of it, but by letting wasted time sneak in.

This would be fine if I wasn’t already going to bed earlier to make sure I wake up well rested, or if this happened on weekends when I have more time… but on workdays I need my tight routine to stay tight so that I’m not shortening my cardio times and rushing my workout sets. I already work on only one muscle group because I’m pressed for time, the last thing I need to do is squeeze the sets smaller and faster.

It’s an interesting realization that I’m still getting everything done but neither to the best of my ability nor in a way that makes me feel good about it. I end up feeling rushed and feeling like I’m underperforming, neither of which is a good way to start my day. It’s like I’m going through the motions and yet feeling less accomplished.

I’m going to pay more attention to my efficiency and my focus in the morning. I’m going to stare at the blank screen when unsure what to write, rather than seeking inspiration through distractions. I might even move my meditation before writing when I’m drawing a blank on what to write about. I’m going to lighten my reps and go higher volume so that I get re-used to more volume of weights in the morning.

It’s not what happens, it’s what you do that makes the difference, and what I’m doing now isn’t making the right kind of difference! So it’s time to adapt and get better. Because I can move away from this slow creep of distraction and off task behaviour in the morning I know I will start my day feeling a lot better, and a lot less rushed.

The thief or the drive?

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I’m listening to Mel Robins, ‘The LET THEM Theory’. One key idea that she shares is that of compassion and how we get jealous of other’s successes rather than letting them be successful and understanding that we can seek that same success too. I’m on Chapter 10, and while she hasn’t explicitly said this adage (yet?) I keep thinking of it: ‘Comparison is the thief of joy’.

Meanwhile, her message is that comparison should drive us to be better ourselves. This is admittedly harder to do than to say. Mel says,

“Using the Let Them Theory, you’ll be able to recognize when comparison hits, and you’ll understand that it’s trying to teach you something: Jealousy is a doorway to your future that just cracks open, and it’s your job to recognize when it happens and kick the door open and walk right through it. When you let other people lead the way, you’ll realize that beneath all the fear, and excuses, and time that you’ve wasted, there’s the life you’ve wanted all along. And right now, the only thing that is holding you back from taking control of your life are the excuses…”

So the question is, do we let comparisons steal our joy and diminish our drive, or do we use compassion as a motivation to maximize our beliefs that we can be successful too, and feed the drive to be better?

Do way stay jealous or do we let others’ successes help us find our own way to success?

A bad day of fishing…

The saying goes, “A bad day of fishing is better than a good day at work.” It’s a good metaphor for a lot more than hobbies and employment.

“I don’t feel like working out.”

“I don’t really want to practice my musical instrument.”

“I don’t have anything to write about today.”

“It’s just a practice, I’ll skip and go to the game tomorrow.”

Do I want to do it right now? Hell no! Will I feel good if I get off my butt and do it? Absolutely!

Pick the battles that matter the most… not 7 at once, 2 or 3 max. Set an intention. Do it.

Why? Because a crappy ‘I just showed up’ workout is better than another skipped workout. And 15 minutes of practice or 250 words written are all examples of things that will make you feel far better after you’ve done them, rather than how you feel not doing them.

It’s a mental shift to move the metaphorical mindset from a bad day fishing to a bad day working out/practicing/writing feeling better than a good day not doing these things, because the payoff comes after the event. When you are fishing, even the last cast has potential. But when you are doing ‘the work’ (be it in the gym, on an instrument, or writing) it still feels like ‘the work’ and is not filled with the hope and promise of a big fish.

But doing the work, even on a bad day can surprise you. You might (totally unexpectedly) hit a personal best in the gym. You might play a chord combination that you’ve struggled with for weeks. You might pump out 1,000 words, or the best piece of writing you’ve done in a while. In other words you might just hook a big one. And realistically you might not, but still the act of doing anything is far more rewarding than doing nothing.

Skip another day and the only thing you’ll catch is the desire to skip again.

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Here is some Monday motivation from Jocko Willink.

Habits and motivation

I’ve got my weight vest on. However, I don’t want to get on the treadmill, which is why I’m wearing the vest. I want to crawl under my blankets and not think about having to shovel the driveway later.

But yesterday was a rest day and I refuse to be someone who misses two days in a row. My habit of regular exercise is part of my identity. Am I motivated right now? Hell no! Am I going to work out immediately after writing this? Absolutely!

Make your habits about who you are and not what you do… and you don’t need motivation… you just get it done.