One of the perks of being a Collegiate Strength and Conditioning Coach in quarantine is the time to connect, and re-connect, with other fitness professionals through virtual meetings. I was recently apart of a great discussion on developing culture the other week – I was pumped up afterwards, and really inspired to get back to training teams. The strengthening of culture is one of the key pillars to help change our lives. It is the foundation for our belief system, and influences everything we think, say and do.
After the call, I stayed on to chat some more with my buddy Kris. After shooting the shit for a little while, he asked, “what do you think people should be focusing their [fitness] training on right now?” My response, “their habits.”
There may never be another opportunity in our lives to have such an extended duration to plan our days, and decide how to best utilize our time. Some level of focus on improving ourselves during this period could be the most rewarding investment we could ever imagine. However, it requires unusual effort and discipline. So, we must begin with humble goals, whatever they may be, to encourage us to consistently show up. With time, as we gradually expand, we develop supportive new behaviors for our future.
Choose Your Strategy
Seeking gratification to develop a habit is a good strategy, but it certainly can’t be our only strategy or maybe not even our primary approach. It is just part of our skill set, another tool in the tool box. None the less, we can use gratification as carrot on a stick to lead us to incremental successes. I struggle to write, I use to tell people I hate it, so I have developed a few strategies to coax me to practice. One of which is to condition myself with food… just like with a dog. I write early in the day immediately after my morning routine, and don’t eat breakfast until I reach my time limit of 60 or 90 minutes. There have been many days I hear nothing but my grumbling stomach as I stare at the computer screen for 50 minutes, then I finally take the little remaining time to rewrite a single sentence over and over again. As a reward for the effort, not the product, I eat. On days I am super motivated and also write in the afternoons I treat myself with something I really like – steak or sushi!
My writing mostly sucks, typically only 300-500 words of shit at a time. But it’s getting easier and easier to show up, and I have begun to gradually notice incremental improvement in the articulation of my thoughts. In addition, this experiment lead me to discover I have a much a clearer mind and better focus in the morning with little food. Although, I also think someone with a sushi roll may be able to make me rollover.
Now, I didn’t start at 60-90 minutes. Initially, I just tapped a pen on a notepad for 30 minutes as I attempted to think of ideas. There were many days of not even a single one. I still have days where I just brain dump, mind map, or outline and nothing more. No writing. But, they are all positive actions I am reinforcing with a reward once done. Just like a meticulous owner properly teaching a puppy.
Obviously, if creating better eating habits is the goal then food rewards could be a poor strategy. Choose something else as a conditional reward – tv, video games, socializing, sunshine, etc. Whatever makes you feel good, but doesn’t support a negative addiction.
Ok, but what do we do when we happen to be someone with many vices, and/or think we lack willpower to even begin? We condition ourselves with different motivation. When we are someone that identifies with strong integrity, we can relate our reason for taking action to our virtues, and set up reminders of those virtues to keep on course. Some of my virtues are health, accountability, and courage. I place statements and action reminders in my high traffic areas. The phone and computer are also easy methods if we are on them often. I go old school and write them. I have Post-it notes around my work space, on my fridge and bathroom mirror, and I have two dry erase boards in my apartment that have reminders on them.
Another strategy is to use the strong sense of love and respect for family, friends, or mentors. Know that every time you take action to develop a habit you are doing it to help someone else, or as a sign of how much you care and admire them. I will mention some of my objectives to people whom I greatly respect because I wouldn’t want to let them down.
Furthermore, you can even condition yourself with the mental anguish you feel. Tony Robbins said, “People will do more to avoid pain than to gain pleasure.” There have been many times I have thought how certain inaction would make me miserable, and took some small action to get the ball rolling. I always felt better. Also, I have completed many goals to prove people wrong. This can be strong motivation, but with time I realized it is also ego driven; so be mindful of the second order consequences of focusing on spiting people.
Try one for a duration, and see what has promise and what doesn’t. Don’t expect any miracles – remember I accumulated hours of staring at notebooks and computer screens. Just see which makes you show up to do work. Everyone has something to me them take action. The challenge is to know how much we take on, and the perception of outcomes.
Humble Gains
We have to find our point of stretch. The point our willpower, motivations, and skill – that is continuously developing from showing up – take us, and then just a little further. We want to try to set ourselves up for some victories to gain momentum because the constant perception of failure drains us; but, be aware the point of stretch is going to fluctuate each day. Individual genetics, motivation, skill level, and current life events are going to influence how we present at a given moment. This is why we have all experienced some routine task of ours to be more challenging on some days, and easy on others. Fluctuating ability is also why we must be humble. Initially set tasks that have a higher percentage chance of successful outcomes. String a few together, incrementally add or adapt to progress the challenge, and note the response.
I began the process of writing by blocking off 30 minutes in a day to think of ideas and brain dump. That was challenging for me! I wasn’t developed enough to actually write; so, sitting in front of a computer for a couple hours expecting to complete something Hemmingway-esque would be discouraging. I would feel like I was wasting time being a moron when I could be working on something else. Or, my focus would drift and I would get annoyed with myself for watching an hour of crap online or pretending my web browsing was helpful. In this instance, the level of willpower needed to continuously show up each day, long enough to make a change, would be astronomical. This is ruinous failure because I wouldn’t be recalibrating the strategy based on my ability, would keep receiving negative outcomes, and use that information to reinforce the belief that I am not able to write.
I needed a humble goal to win some and lose some – building confidence from the experience of consistently showing up, and learning from manageable failures. When we go from zero to “hardo” we fail because we bite off more than we can chew, don’t nurture the groundwork to make change, and put the odds in favor of repeated negative outcomes. We are not the problem, the strategy we are applying to create a habit is the problem. When we calibrate to find the right strategy, the energy to create a desired habit manifests.
We Are What We Repeatedly Do
Wherever we are, our best habits got us here. When we want to go elsewhere, and stay there, we must create new habits. They are our infrastructure, a representation of who we are at our foundation. Ultimately, habits are what make the sustained changes in our lives, not the flash in the pain outcome. We have no guarantee any of our choices will be successful, nor will a single success lead to permanent satisfaction. We need the processes that continuously presents opportunities for favorable outcomes. We can only do that by playing the numbers game and gaining experience along the way.
Greater experience leads to greater skill and the odds start to shift in our favor of more successful decisions. Habits are naturally this process, and create a feed forward loop of growth and fuel to take action. Incremental change, after incremental change all while creating an opportunity for a bigger pay off, or at minimum avoiding catastrophe when life inevitably goes wrong.
Problems arise when our habits are trained for instant gratification, rather than delaying satisfaction. We don’t build a root system for our growth so we stay stuck where we are, or if lady luck happens to lift us up a severe storm will definitely uproot us. The degree of damage from the fall is in relation to the infrastructure we built – the quality and usefulness of what our sustained efforts are, what our habits are, what we truly are.
Conclusion
Possibly the most beneficial product from consciously creating habits is a greater sense of accountability. We develop awareness for the responsibility and consistency of our choices while battling our humble goals. With repetition and recalibration, we begin to trust the potential success of our choices to a greater degree, and others begin to trust us for our reliable integrity and action. Thus, we – and everyone around us – know what we represent. A feed forward of loop of growth of our behaviors develops because we will sense inner turmoil if we don’t stay true to us. We will naturally do what needs to be done because it feels right. Our habits always evolve our culture.