Want success more than you want to sleep

I find myself reciting the article title a fair bit. There is a tonne of motivational videos on the internet which is where this line comes from. Whilst some have switched off from the day long ago I am writing this article not for me, but to help you. On the other hand, there are some who will work long into the night more than me and these people want success more then they want to sleep. Arnold Schwarzenegger talks about sleeping faster in one of his videos. I found this really funny, but he also talks about working your butt off in that same video.

It doesn’t matter what it is you want to achieve at some point you will have to roll up your sleeves and do some hard work. If it is fitness related most likely it will take more work than you think. But it isn’t the end result where you learn the most and get the benefits. It seems to be the journey where you learn what you can do and endure not the destination. Often you will hear advice given that habits make us what we are or that we are our habits. I think this is largely true. So if you are new to fitness maybe you should focus on creating the habit of exercise. I have talked about goal setting in the past, here. Behavioral goals are very often overlooked, but this is a powerful, subtle goal to set. Setting a behavioral goal to create a habit could see you on the journey to success without you realizing it.

Something you should do is set up behavioral goals to create habits. This will help you become successful easier. You will become your habits. If your habits are exercising, eating healthy and working your butt off for success more than you want to sleep, then the journey will be hard and tiresome but worth it.

Success leaves clues

Strangely I hear that term a lot and I often find myself pondering its meaning. Seriously “success leaves clues”, what could that possibly mean? It could be interpreted in a million different ways so I decided to try to find out what exactly it means by looking for clues to success. Honestly I believe people don’t seem to look for clues to success. Instead they choose to believe that someone success comes from luck, excessive money or something else. Whilst it couldn’t hurt to be lucky or rich it doesn’t seem to be the primary reason someone is successful. Now I could talk about the clues I have found in various endeavour’s that make someone successful but I’d rather give an example of someone that has found success.

Recently my brother has discovered movement and healthy eating kind of like how someone finds religion. Off course what I mean is that his new outlook has literally changed his life. I know because I have seen this happen many times before. Some of you that have read my previous blogs may say that your brother had you to help him. Perhaps he does but in the end he has to do the work himself, I can’t do it for him. So how did he flip the switch? Well the first clue to success is access. Successful people often have access to resources, people and helpful information. In my brothers case the organisation he works for has a gym that employees were free to use. For my brother not having to pay was enough to get him motivated. The second clue is support, and yep seems obvious but a little bit of support goes along way. You are 50% more likely to achieve a goal if someone close to you does it with you. My brother’s partner who also enjoys fitness was always trying to get him into eating better and working out and once he was receptive to hearing the message they both managed to support each other. Goals are the third clue, my brother set himself a goal. He always wanted to be muscly but never really tried to achieve it. I watched a TV show called Muscle TV on local access and if I recall right I got him onto it. On that show they had a fitness challenge and his partner said she was going to do it. Off course then my brother also said he would do it. I don’t think anyone in my family is capable of saying no to a challenge. This challenge in particular provided a framework for competitors to use including diet, exercise and accountability. Accountability often is associated with consequences and bad stuff but it is not always about that. Often being accountable for yourself is the most important thing if you have made a real commitment. Commitment is a big clue to success. My brother’s commitment was and is still strong.

While all this led to him getting into shape it is the deeper success I have seen that seems to really matter. He has literally changed himself for the better. This is the biggest clue I find in people no matter what they are successful in. It’s the positivity they feel from changing themselves, physically and mentally. Mindset off course is always the biggest clue to success. Never underestimate the power of positive thinking. My brother’s success has seen him change from an angry, introverted and low self-esteemed person into an outgoing, happy, confident person in the space of 6 months. Physically he is able to bench 120kg (264lbs) at 72kg (158lbs), run 5km (3.1miles) no stress and just has tonnes of energy. Sure I was there to offer advice and instruction but it was up to him to do it and become successful at it. If you think you could use some advice and instruction I can help you with Exercise Physiology services. If you want success you now have some clues so stop wasting time and go out there and use them.

Get on your success path now!

Sit on it.

                Sit on it or maybe don’t. The media has been lately talking up “new” research showing that sitting is the new smoking. Personally I do not like smoking and that is for so many reasons. Like most people however I don’t mind a good sit. So as a result I try to stay involved in the research stating sitting too much is bad for us. Now I have written an article about squatting or as some call it the paleo chair in the past. Right now as I write this article I am standing (curveball not squatting) instead of sitting in a chair. In Kids will be kids I wrote about the issue of opportunity for movement. It is important to remember whilst standing is not the opposite of sitting, movement is. I should also add that standing is another alternative to sitting in a chair.

                So why am I writing this? Well I usually take Wednesday off mid-week from training and sure I might do some mobility/recovery stuff but it is mainly to give my body a break from the previous sessions. So I woke up this Wednesday tight and sore especially in my lower back, not injured but fatigued. It was understandable since I spent a great deal of Tuesday sitting and working on various things. I am still working on acquiring a standing desk. I find sitting is a habit hard to break for most people. Whether it is working at a desk or spending time with the family a lot of us spent most of our days sitting.  This made me think about sitting in depth, recently I read that Kelly Starret said people that sit a lot should every 15 minutes or so reset how they sit. Whilst in theory I agree with it, I think if someone like me who loves to move or is a natural fidgeter struggles to undertake such an act every 15 minutes how on earth will the average office worker achieve it day in day out. Now I am sure there’s an app out there for that and if not, patent pending. 

By now some of you read this and said oh why can’t you fix your sitting technique and a plethora of other things. Well simply put I’m not perfect, though I am going to try to make it more of a priority. So what are the other solutions, standing desks are one and so are apps but is there a bigger fix, maybe office overhaul as it were. Now this is probably where much groovier and smarter people take over from me and I am sure there is research surrounding changing our environment to effect the way we do things, sitting being just one. Maybe it is time we have a societal shift. We are frequently looking at the past and taking things used or techniques and updating them to today’s world. Maybe we should have a room with no furniture in it (lounge room, just a suggestion) that would make us get on the ground if we want to sit, there are a lot of options we could utilise.  Can you of you think of ways we could get around sitting in chairs? 

               

Had a gut full.

How is your gut health? Wait, what? Your diet could be effecting your gut health which could really be effecting your overall health. I have been reading for some time about progression in knowledge of gut health. To be honest it is amazing, we a learning more and more each day. Rather than me writing a post about it. Catalyst a show devoted to exploring science has done a great two episode look into gut health, gut bacteria and the possible future and implications.

http://iview.abc.net.au/programs/catalyst/SC1302H005S00

http://iview.abc.net.au/programs/catalyst/SC1302H006S00

What should I do?

This is a question that is often finished with “to lose weight”, “to get bigger” or insert your health related phrase here? Recently whilst on Reddit which I do frequent from time to time I responded to a post asking “I want to lose weight but I hate the gym. What can I do?” Now I could have posted a link to thousands of articles written by myself and many other very experienced and intelligent people. But instead I posted “The Question is not what we recommend, the question is what do you like?”

This is really the crucial question for everyone. I could go on and on about recommendations and science and some may take the advice at least for a little while. But the only things the keeps anyone and everyone coming back is finding something that they enjoy rather than doing something they think they should. You don`t need to do any research to know that people will more likely do what they enjoy rather then what they don’t enjoy. This poster hit the nail on the head “I hate the gym”. I find that so often with patients and people I speak with. They don`t like the gym and think exercise requires mandatory gym attendance. The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) defines aerobic exercise as "any activity that uses large muscle groups, can be maintained continuously, and is rhythmic in nature." Most people often equate exercise to the above definition and think boring running or walking on a treadmill for ages. It certainly bores me thinking about it. But the thing to note about that definition is that it is very broad. This gives you and I a lot of room to play and be creative. 

I want to let you in on little secret often in education and motivational interviewing the teacher or interviewer will ask open ended questions and may do this “what do you think the answer is?”  We do this when interviewing someone for lifestyle changes and it works. The aim of this questioning is to force the person to give themselves answers and convince themselves of the change. Sales people will do it, they ask “on a scale of one to ten how much do you want this product?” The interviewer will then follow it up with “why wasn`t it a lower number?” They use it to get to the core of any problems and get you to convince yourself that you need this product. Have you ever had this happen? We use this to expose ambivalence. Now you may begin to see the connection to the previous paragraph. The definition of physical activity might be very broad but encompasses a lot of easy to do activities that most don’t consider. Like for example increasing your N.E.A.T (non exercise activity time) I recommend it in my weight loss activity checklist. For instance walking further to work or climbing extra stairs instead of taking the lift. Kicking the footy with friends, doing gardening all ways to improve your N.E.A.T. 

When asking “what should I do to achieve something?” often it is best to ask yourself first. You may not know what you need to do but you do know what you like. That first and biggest step to taking responsibility to find what YOU like. This will increase the likelihood of adhering to your goal.  

Now as a little addition you may have read this article and said I hate any physical activity. Really? Do you like video games? They can be used to create physical activity. Find out what you really like and use it to get physical, there is always something. The one thing I have found through all ages is that exercise that`s disguised as a game and is fun will turn everyone into an exercise lover without them knowing it.