After a few decades spent working in gyms, either as an employee or customer, you begin to recognize certain, discrete patterns among the membership. One of the most predictable (and self-defeating) of these patterns is the sudden drop-off in workout motivation that always seems to happen around spring. Truth be told, I'm often guilty of this (DOH!). Since this time of year is often the Last Stand for many people's New Year's fitness goals, we're gonna tackle this topic right here, right now, and talk about how to get back on track.
A few weeks ago, as I happened to be in a rare TV-watching mood, I caught a fascinating series on the Military Channel dramatizing the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. Besides being incredibly well-produced and superbly acted, it got me to thinking about patterns.
Does this scenario sound familiar?: Some visionaries dream up a bold, stirring plan for a new way of public life and discourse; the dream manifests and grows as one victory leads to the next; following a golden period of shining greatness, unchecked power and hubris lead to the entity's decline and eventual fall.
Yep, you'd think those Spaniards and Englishmen would have learned the dangers of imperialism from the town Romulus and Remus built. But nooo … (What, you thought I was referring to some other imperialist nation-state?!)
The sad fact is, politicians will probably never truly learn the lessons of history, and so they are doomed to repeat them. But you and I can recognize our past mistakes, and resolve to avoid them.
So let me first just say, if you haven't slacked off in your training, congratulations. But if you have - maybe you've been too enamored of the gorgeous weather to be cooped up in a gym - you're not alone.
Question is, what does that mean for those goals that had you so fired up in January? Are they now toast?
I'm going to suggest to you that they are not. And if you're beginning to recognize a pattern that seems to play out for you every year, you can start right from where you are to change it. The temptation might be there to say, "I've blown it, might as well just give up for this year." You have not "blown it." Every day gives you the chance to get that much closer to the person you're trying to become.
But what causes you to fall into that undesirable pattern in the first place - of falling off the workout wagon? While I'm no psychotherapist, here go a few reasons that have definitely been with us for a while. Perhaps once you recognize any of them as your own, you can consciously take steps to counteract them:
You need a vision. You need a clear, compelling, exciting vision of the future to get your subconscious to "do what it takes" to get there. Motivation to action begins and ends with emotion - the lowest emotion being fear and the highest and most powerful emotion being love.
Your environment (friends, family, co-workers, access to training equipment) fails to support, encourage and re-inforce your goal. See the related article, Can Your Friends Make You Fat? Like it or not, you are influenced in myriad ways by your surroundings and by whom you are surrounded.
You need more focus. If you're trying to do too many things at once, something must suffer. Remember though, if your health fails, none of that other stuff will matter. The president of the United States, presumably someone with every excuse in the world not to jog, lift weights or break a sweat on the ranch, makes exercise a priority.
You get frustrated because results aren't coming fast enough, and therefore give up. Think of working out as a health piggy bank. It takes months, if not years of making small, steady deposits in order to get truly impressive results. Meantime, tons of research shows that that the health benefits of exercise - on improving memory, on lowering bad cholesterol levels, lowering blood pressure, etc., are near instantaneous (noticeable results in a few weeks or months).
Stories … Not enough time or money. My favorite way to implode this myth is to point out that you can train in front of the TV, with minimal equipment. Kids wearing you out? Put 'em to work for you. I like to use other people's kids AS weights. Dunno about you, but I've yet to meet a kid that doesn't enjoy being curled, overhead pressed or squatted! Very carefully, of course. Bonus: Their giggling is likely to be contagious, and laughter is almost as good for you as exercise.
Hopefully one of these bullet points got you to say "aha!" and enables you to interrupt an unhelpful pattern that you may have fallen into. If not, perhaps you can do some sleuthing on your own to de-bug your everyday actions -- so that your patterns serve to move you forward, rather than keeping you stuck in place.
To that end, what are your "trigger events" that turn you into a workout-shirking zombie? It could be external, like a friend asking you to go drinking (how 'bout inviting them to work out with you instead?) … or internal, like thinking, "I'm so beat," after you drag yourself in from work.
On that last one, just remember the words of Viktor Frankl, the Jewish psychiatrist who survived the Nazi death camps to write the classic, Man's Search for Meaning: No one can force you to think something you don't want to think.
In other words, you can literally change your state by choosing to change your thoughts. I won't lie, it takes some discipline and practice not to feel like you're being delusional with yourself, but once you accept it as a better paradigm than your old one, it does work.
Patterns actually can be quite useful - they automate a lot of routines in our lives so that our conscious minds can focus on other things or simply take a break. Ever get in late at night and have no recollection the next morning of driving those last few miles home? But the route home is engraved deeply into your mind and your muscles. You could literally do it with your eyes closed (please don't test this out)! Patterns are merely your subconscious in action.
When you master the art of creating new, effective patterns for your life - as touched upon above - then life gets easier and more rewarding. You'll associate helpful habits, such as working out, with feeling great about yourself and having a sense of integrity with yourself. Patterns are closely related to, and in some cases indistinguishable from, habits. (To use a military metaphor, I tend to think patterns are analogous to "strategy," while habits are on a smaller scale - "tactics," if you will).
How to establish new habits is beyond the scope of this article, but for now just try to spot your patterns and ask if they warrant changing. Chances are, they were established a long time ago, when the world was a much different place. The world has changed, and the pace of change is only getting faster. Are you keeping up?
Be strong; live well.
Toast image courtesy of Freedigitalphotos.net
