Do What You Can
“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”
Inspiration and motivation can be the kick-start to a lot of habits and routines. That’s just it though, they can get you going but you’d need them daily to keep at it. If you’ve found yourself highly motivated after watching The CrossFit Games; crushing it with mobility daily, weighing and measuring food, and getting lots of sleep, only to have it all fizzle away and fall further behind than when you had started, then you’re not alone. Rather than focusing on the end goal treat habits like a chipper, if you can convince yourself every day to dedicate two minutes to habit X, before or after something that’s already a part of your routine, you’re winning. Bigtime.
You likely haven’t noticed but I recently started shaving my head regularly. I’ve been shaving for about a decade now, but at inconsistent intervals. Sometimes it would happen in a week and other times it would take two months (at which point I looked like a microphone and my kids would enjoy running their little hands through my spikey yet soft head). I knew I was going to continue shaving my head but wasn’t able to to establish a routine that would keep my grooming habits consistent. After reading James Clear’s “Atomic Habits” I had a far better understanding of how to establish a habit and used a neat little trick he refers to as “habit stacking” to see if I could shave my head on a consistent basis. I can list plenty of times where I am motivated to change a behavior which will last a brief time, but then it fizzles and I’m back to where I started. I am now eight weeks in and have shaved as much in this time as I did in the entirety of 2019.
What is habit stacking?
“Habit stacking is a special form of an implementation intention. Rather than pairing your new habit with a particular time and location, you pair it with a current habit. This method, which was created by BJ Fogg as part of his Tiny Habits program, can be used to design an obvious cue for nearly any habit.”
How did I apply it? I tied it to a habit I did every day, which is shaving my face. I wouldn’t allow myself to shave my face (which I found annoying after just one day) until I shaved my head. So then after a few days, I would want to shave my face so badly that I would shave my head first. Fast forward to a few weeks of awkward facial hair and people showing genuine concern for how I was doing, I now shave my face daily again and have yet to take more than seven days between shaving my head.
I realize I’m getting personal these days with these blog posts, but much like with CrossFit, I am hoping that I can communicate to others the things that have helped me in my pursuit of happiness and fulfillment. Whether it’s shaving my head consistently or doing mobility work, it is entirely possible to establish new habits without solely relying on bursts of motivation to get you through it. In the book “Atomic Habits” by James Clear, he explains the many possible reasons why we fail at trying to establish new habits and routines, and gives you several structured methods that require little work or motivation to implement.
Why might you find this particularly important at this very moment? Currently there is a lot of pushback from gym members and gym owners against Public Health Orders We see people who have been struggling for years to adopt a healthier lifestyle, only now to be forced to be stopped and have the fear that they will fall back to their old ways. A regular exercise routine has been deeply rooted into people’s daily regimens and disruption to that routine can send them back to whatever ailment caused them to seek out exercise in the first place.
The more adversity you overcome, the more prepared you are to deal with the next obstacle and as long as we are living and breathing, we will encounter hardships. I can’t say that I am struggling with the idea of the gym shutting down because I am viewing it as a challenge to keep our community going strong, but those that are truly struggling and have found all the benefits of exercise and being social may lose that, potentially causing their lives to spiral out of control. This is why I want to do anything I can to minimize the effects of a possible quarantine and help members become pandemic-proof.
If you know me, you know I like to think. I think about ways of making things more efficient, how to do something better the next time, and how to best deliver our program. This involves offering basic information on sustainable dietary habits, improving flexibility and mobility, and in setting goals to stay motivated. I believe we should absolutely be physically, mentally, and emotionally preparing for another gym shutdown. I hope it will be much shorter than the one in March, but this time I think we can come out better than we are today.
In the weeks to come, I will be creating content for a Facebook group where I’ll be breaking down my own strategies (as I explained above) surrounding nutrition, recovery, exercise, and mindset. There is no sign-up, you can choose to follow or not as I will not be sending out invites for this group. Those that are part of the group will have the ability to see the information and the work I’m putting in, but I will also provide resources on each area I am working on as well as literature to support that strategy. I hope to create an environment full of healthy, hungry, happy, and humble people that truly get the most out of their days, and that will serve as pillars within our community who can inspire others as well. Nothing special will be required, we have an app that can be used to track our sleep, recovery, nutrition, and workouts already. You will even have access to your own customized program to develop physical skills such as handstands, getting your first pull-ups, a program for squats, deadlifts, and presses, and even mobility goals.
Cost of participation: watch this video and keep an open mind.
If you’ve got questions, I might have some answers. You know how to get a hold of me.
Sincerely,
Coach Tron