Have you ever wondered what it would actually take to change? I’m not just talking about physically modifying the way you eat or exercise. I’m talking about changing your emotional and mental relationship to your health.
What if you wanted to exercise?
What if you started craving healthier foods?
What if you started looking forward to the next early morning ‘quiet-time’ where you get to pick up that book again about that subject you’ve been passionate about for years but haven’t made the time to fill your soul with?
Do those things sound impossible?
They’re not!
But those things don’t show up into your life the way you might think; in fact, I’ll bet you that 95% of people out there, including you, don’t really have a grasp at how simple it really is… Quite simply, you just don’t know what you don’t know.
You see, change gets a bad rap, and for good reason. In the fitness industry especially, a lot of fit pros believe that it’s good enough to simply draft up a meal plan, assign a number of calories and/or macronutrients (so you’re counting not one, but three things), and tailor an exercise regimen to that client and send them on their way.
Over time I’ve learned that there are so many things wrong with this approach. I’m not going to get into it in detail in this post (check back in a couple days for an expansion on this statement in a future post I’m working on), but the overarching idea is that doing this for clients doesn’t actually produce long-term change for the majority of people.
But this is (partly) why I’m here. I’m the guy trying to tell you that you don’t need to change 85% of your life on Day 1 in order to get where you want to be. I’m the guy who will actually tell you to eat chocolate after each workout to ‘reward’ yourself for executing a new routine in the habit cycle. I’m a guy disinterested in short-term success if it means you merely put the weight on all over again when the next bump in the road shows up.
So this is where I want to introduce a very powerful part of our programs – a catalyst of types to our vision in normalizing sustainable change.
Full Disclosure: This part of The Power of Less has probably had more influence on my coaching and systems than any other part. While the process was adopted initially through working with Precision Nutrition and seeing the way they have implemented this into their own coaching, I’ve provided commentary on how each step directly relates to your life as a busy dad, as seen by use of italics below each step.
Without further adieu, I’d like to share a profound habit-development process that my wife and I actually use with our respective clients.
6-Steps to Change, One Month at a Time
1 Do only one habit at a time.
Ultra focus and extreme clarity is the name of the game. Again, dads, instead of telling you to build a habit and send you on your way, we break the habits and vital behaviors down into daily practices that are simple, practical, and manageable with your schedule. If you’re someone who prefers working out at home, you can check out https://wodreview.com/equipment/best-curved-treadmill for great exercising equipment.
2 Choose an easy goal.
This goes back to our goal setting process: set a goal, break it down into sub-goals, break those sub-goals into manageable projects (vital behaviors), then create a body of tasks (daily practices) to perform. Little by little, rack up those wins! Watch the wins snowball.
3 Choose something measureable.
How will we know if we’re doing well? Translate behaviors into something that can be tracked. For many of our behaviors, this could be a notecard, it could be an alarm set every day to remind you to check-in to someone – get creative! The methodology should give you instant feedback on where you’re at.
4 Be consistent.
Don’t be a hero, be consistent. 10 Minutes a day is better than 2 hours 4 days in a row, then back to 0 hours after you injure yourself, become confused about the meal-plan, or aren’t seeing quick enough results to justify continuing to overhaul your life. You can check over here for some of the best remedies if you’re feeling tired and in pain most of the time following exercise. You might also need the best budget massage gun to relieve body pain. Also, try this 100% natural muscle relaxer when you’re just beginning to exercise regularly.
5 Report daily.
Set-up your systems of accountability to work for you, not against you. The fundamentals of accountability are mentors/coaches, a group of people you spend time around who have similar worldviews and beliefs, and self-talk dialogue. If you don’t have at least these three things, reporting to anybody and everybody (like to social media) won’t be as effective. The easiest form of reporting daily would be to someone you see daily, such as a fellow coworker at work. Another idea could be a parent of a kid who’s on your son’s ball team, or even your spouse. Remember that brutal honesty is the only way this one will work.
6 Keep a positive attitude.
What does this even mean? Sure, I understand the basics of positive thinking psychology, but the point here is not to just ‘stay positive’ but to put some meat behind why you’re being positive. It’s difficult because there are times we feel discouraged no matter what we ‘try’ to feel. Our emotions are fickle. Instead of merely trying harder, dig into concrete ways you can develop thankfulness, perspective, and resiliency (aka why you keep going and believe you can do it even when you don’t feel like it). Try this: Journal 3 things your grateful for each day for the month. *Catch*: you can’t use the same thing more than once.
When you combine human behavior psychology with sound physiology assessment and prescription, you can do some really powerful stuff. It’s one of the reasons why I’ve had many of my 30-Day Transformation program clients lose over 10 pounds in 30 days WITHOUT a meal-plan, crashing their calories, assigning a certain number of macros. In addition to the standard physical exercise and nutrition education, my coaching deals heavily with the psychology of motivation and influence, as well as habit development. I say this to encourage you to consider these things the next time you go to a community center and try to lose some weight, build muscle, or any combination of those two.
Our health journey is more than exercise and food – there are walls to break down before we jump straight into seeing real change.
That’s why I always say… weight loss and change isn’t linear. It’s exponential.
Until Next Time,
Simple Health Dad