|
by JONNY BOWDEN, M.A., C.N.S.
 If I had to make my list of the top 10
problems people have with starting a
program, finding time for exercise would
definitely be at the top of it. But here’s
the thing: if you’re looking to find some
spare time when you can fit exercise in, forget
about it. We’re living in the early part of the
21st century. No one has spare time. It’s like
“spare money.” You can choose to budget
money and time any way you want, but none of
it is extra, none of it is spare.
Time is the great equalizer. The poorest
person on the planet and the richest have exactly
the same amount of it, 24 hours per day. No
more, no less. So let’s forget about finding extra
time. (Where are you going to find it, under a
rock?) Instead, let’s talk about developing a
budget. Let’s talk about creating our life the way we want it to be.
As a writer, I’m always fascinated with what
the writing process is like for other writers.
Writing is right up there with exercise in the
procrastination sweepstakes. There are thousands
of failed writers all over the place who are
sure that the only reason they’re not successful is
that they “couldn’t find time,” or didn’t have the
right computer, or the right quiet room, or
because they had too many other responsibilities.
But successful writers—like successful
exercisers—don’t have any more minutes in the
day than unsuccessful writers. My favorite
writing story is the one about the lawyer who
wrote a novel in the wee hours of the morning
before proceeding to go to work, where he put
in a 60-hour week while supporting a family
with three small children. It took him three
years to complete the novel. The novel was A
Time to Kill and the lawyer was John Grisham.
Oh, and did I mention the almost destitute
young housewife with a young child and a
burning desire to write no matter what? She’d sit
in coffee shops and write by longhand while the
baby would nap. Did it for a long time, by the
way, with little support from the university. Her
name is J.K. Rowling. Maybe you know her.
She wrote the Harry Potter books.
So let’s dispel this notion of “I can’t find the
time.” Of course you can’t. Neither can I. The
problem is not one of time, it’s one of
habit development. It’s about taking something
that you’re not used to doing—exercise—and
turning it into something that you’re not used to
doing without. Work on the plan for habit
acquisition and believe me, time will take care
of itself.
So how do you build a habit?
Suppose you’re playing catch with a little kid. A
real little kid, one who can barely get her hands
around the ball and is just learning to throw.
What do you do? Do you throw the ball as hard
and as fast as you can? Of course you don’t
because it would be impossible for her to catch
it and she would get completely frustrated and
give up. Sometime watch a father teaching his
kid to hit a baseball. How does he pitch those
first balls? Easy and gently. Underhand.
Now why do you do it like that?
Because you want the child to develop her skill.
Because the one thing you don’t want is for her
to feel defeated. Because you don’t want her to
be frustrated. Because skill building has to start
slowly, a little at a time. When she gets good at
catching the ball with an easy throw, when he
gets good at hitting the ball with an easy pitch,
then you make it marginally harder. You keep
the challenge level just slightly above the skill
level, so that the skill can grow organically, step
by step and the learner is always reinforced
positively with a feeling of accomplishment.
And why, at the risk of repeating the obvious,
do we do it this way?
Well, if I can be blunt, because no one likes to
do what they suck at. If you keep having an
unsuccessful experience with something, you
just stop doing it. It’s not fun to fail. And that’s
what most people have done with their exercise
programs. They cut off a big chunk right at the
beginning they can’t chew it and they spit it out.
And they stop.
And blame it on not having enough time.
You are going to teach yourself something new,
a new skill, a new habit, just as surely as you
would teach a child to catch and throw a ball. If
you start with some ridiculous goal like “I must
do one hour of jogging every day,” it will be like
throwing a fastball to the kid who never played
catch before. You’re going to be frustrated,
you’re going to think you stink at this game and
you’re going to give up. That you can take to the
bank.
So you have to do something different. You
have got to stack the deck in your own favor.
You have to set the game up so you win.
See, the subconscious mind is very simplistic.
It’s very digital. It knows two states: on or off.
Win or lose. Success or failure. If you set yourself
an initial goal like “30 minutes on the treadmill”
and you only do 20 minutes, whether you are
aware of it or not, your subconscious mind logs
that as a failure. You aimed for 30 and didn’t
make it. Somewhere in your subconscious is a
little voice sticking out its symbolic tongue and
yelling “loser!” But if you set a goal of five
minutes and you do five minutes, guess what?
Your mind logs that as a win. Which it is. Does
it matter that it’s “only” five minutes? Not on
your life. What matters is that you had a positive
experience.
In the first months of exercise, all we’re trying
to do is to log those positives. We’re in a habitbuilding
mode, not in “how much exercise did
I do?” mode. It is not important how much you
do—what is important is that you do something.
Consistently. That’s how we build a habit
successfully. That’s why the intro level “Shape
Up” program begins with only 10 minutes of
walking three times a week. What you’re really
trying to do here is condition your subconscious.
You want to trick it into thinking that
exercise is always a “win” situation for you.
Maybe for you, right now, that means just
doing five minutes a day. No problem. Your
conscious mind may be saying, “Five minutes
can’t possibly make a difference,” but it’s dead
wrong. What makes a difference—and believe
me, this is the most important difference of
all—is that you keep your word to yourself. You
said you would do five minutes . . . and you did
five minutes. You said you’re going to walk half
a block . . . and you walked half a block. It may
not seem like much but on a subconscious level
you were learning the most valuable lesson in
habit development; you’re learning to believe
your own words.
You’re learning to believe that when you say
something, it happens.
And that is truly the secret weapon of the
entire “Shape Up” program.
I once trained a woman named Marnie, an
absolutely lovely and charming occupational therapist who weighed around 250 pounds. She
had never exercised successfully, hated the
concept, didn’t see how she could possibly fit it
into her extraordinarily busy life, but had reluctantly
come to the gym on doctor’s orders. She
had tried working out several times in the past
and had been given long routines of weights and
aerobics that she found both difficult and dull
and had abandoned within a matter of days. She
had very little hope that this would be different
but had promised her doctor that she would give
it one more shot.
The first training session we did nothing but
talk. I didn’t even let her change into her gym
clothes.
At the end of our meeting, I gave her her first
assignment: Show up for the next session. Which
she did. Early, actually.
The second time we talked some more.
What was her job like? Where did she want to
be in a few years? What was her health life?
How, if at all, did she feel her weight held her
back? How did she feel about her body? You
know, stuff like that.
The third time I showed her how the treadmill
worked. She actually got on it and we
walked together on adjoining treadmills.
For three minutes. Yes, you heard me right.
Three minutes. And that was her assignment
for the next two visits. Three minutes on the
treadmill. No more, no less.
She had now logged in five successful trips
to the gym. I upped her assignment to four
minutes.
See where I’m going with this? The biggest
mistake people make when it comes to incorporating
exercise into their lives is concentrating
on the amount they do and how quickly it will
produce results. It’s the wrong focus. Until it
becomes something you can’t imagine living
without, the focus should be simply on doing
something consistently. Do you realize that if
you started with as little as one minute a day
and over the next two months added no more
than 30 seconds each day, you’d be up to a half
hour of daily exercise in 60 days? You can
always up the ante once you develop the habit.
The trick is developing the habit.
In case you’re wondering what happened
with Marnie, she became one of the strongest
athletes I ever trained. When she finally left me
to move out West, she was regularly lifting
weights, running in Central Park, going mountain
biking on weekends and looking forward
to learning how to ski.
You can do it, too. Or any version of it that
suits your life.
If exercise is new to you, treat this part of the
program as a remedial course in the power of
your word. Trust me that it does not matter
how little you do right now. What matters is
that you promise to do it and then you keep
that promise. Keep the bar low for now—in
fact, I insist on it. You can always raise it. You
will raise it.
When you say so.
But first you have to learn to negotiate this
skill at the beginner’s level, just like the little
child learning to throw a ball. You have to
believe in your own word again.
And if that little voice in your head tells you
that a few minutes a day can’t possible make
any difference, well then, please tell her she’s
more than welcome to her opinion, but to
please stop chattering for a few minutes while
you go work out.
For more information visit Johnny Bowden's website:
www.jonnybowden.com
|
|
