You don’t reach your health and fitness goals by waiting for the human-sized opening in your life. The opening to execute your impeccably thought-out plan. Or the space to finally prioritise yourself without compromise.
Because whenever there’s a small opening, it gets filled almost immediately. But you can control what goes in it.
To reach your goals, ram your foot through that small opening.
Fill the space with what’s important.
And then gradually carve more space.
-J
This is how the first six weeks of the coaching went for a client who started with me a while back:
Week 1: Getting familiar with the coaching program
Week 2: Respiratory illness
Week 3: Tail end of the respiratory illness, followed up by
Week 4: Stomach bug, followed up by
Week 5: Concussion
Week 6: Return to physical activity after a green light from her doctor
That actually happened. Was she frustrated with it? Oh, yea.
She had all the reasons to give up. Because she could’ve just accepted that maybe exercise wasn’t for her. Because she couldn’t stick to the plan. Because she couldn’t do what she had set out to do.
But she didn’t. She’s back at it now and getting after it with determination to envy.
That’s an extreme example. But there comes a time when your plans feel like you’re squeezing the juice out of candyfloss. Pointless. Regardless of how you iron-proof your plans, they won’t always hold.
Failing your plans is all part of the process. During the struggle, you can really work on your flexible approach to health and fitness.
Because if your goal is to make a long-term change, you better figure out how to make it all work with life that doesn’t give two shits about your plans.
-J
ps. This is the last day to sign up for my online coaching program this month. If you’re a parentpreneur and want to reclaim your energy and strength, but struggle to make exercise a habit because of your work and family commitments, hit reply. Let’s chat to see if my coaching would be a good fit.
Your energy is already spread thin. This is life, after all. Implementing exercise and diet tactics, however straightforward they might seem, while ignoring your recovery is like trying to write this blog without the letter ‘A’. kwrd. nd wy hrder thn necessry.
It might feel counter-intuitive, but improving your sleep, rest, recovery, stress management, and time management is more productive initially.
Doing that instead of diving elbows first and nose pinched into fixing the diet and exercise gets you to the root of the problem: lack of energy.
Increasing your energy then gives you the foundation and the mental and physical space to build your eating and exercise habits.
Yet, recovery often gets about as much attention as a donkey in a stable of purebreds.
-J
ps. I am enrolling new online coaching clients this week. If you’re a parentpreneur and want to reclaim your energy and strength, but struggle to make exercise a habit because of your work and family commitments, hit reply. Let’s chat to see if my coaching would be a good fit. It’s not for everyone. But it might just be for you. Like it was for these folks.
Now, if there’s ever been a word that’s saturated every last corner of the health and fitness space and ignites my gag reflex every so often, it has to be “transformation”.
But.
The things you can achieve when you decide to prioritise your health can be and feel genuinely transformative.
Here’s a feel-good, unbribed testimonial from a previous client:
“I met Joonas at a time in my life when I had a number of emotional struggles with food an exercise. I’d previously been in professional sport and nearly a decade away the subsequent change in lifestyle left me with a highly disordered approach to both.
Joonas not only helped me get fit again but also helped me regain my confidence in myself and his kind and empathetic approach led me down the path to recovery. That’s not to say that Joonas doesn’t challenge you because I was certainly challenged and pushed past what I felt were my limits and he did this with an approach that suited my needs.
I’ve trained with a number of coaches and would recommend Joonas for his ability to recognise the individual needs of each of his clients and tailor his approach, his genuine interest in you as a person and his compassion and encouragement. Above all, training with Joonas allowed me to feel better than I had in years.” – Bec
And yes, I am still taking on new online coaching clients this week. If you’re a tired parentpreneur and want results similar to Bec’s without going all Rambo with your already jam-packed schedule, hit reply. Let’s chat to see if my coaching would be a good fit. It’s not for the Rambo types. But it might just be for you.
A big part of the Ark of the Covenant-like appeal of the 1250-calorie diets and nut-busting workouts is due to their off-the-shelf accessibility. The ease of use. Like buying a new fridge, you don’t have to read the instruction manual to get going.
With a fridge, you power up the fucker, open the door and shove in the lonely jar of cocktail onions. The only thing still edible after the previous Hitachi let out its last whirl of cool. And you’re done. Long live the new Hitachi.
But you’re not plugging in a new fridge when your goal is to reclaim your energy and strength after years of hiatus.
You’re trying to build a sixteen-shelf, oblong, wall-mountable, childproof IKEA bookcase with seven decorative side wings and something that looks like a siskonmakkara holder. And no human can put that together without gripping the Ikea instructions with humility and respect typically reserved only for the King James Bible.
Reading your lifestyle change manual is about introspection. About getting to the root of your struggle. And then finding the solutions to overcome that struggle by rewriting the instructions.
Doing all that work is difficult and uncomfortable. And way harder than randomly piling off-the-shelf solutions and hoping one would work like that new Hitachi.
But you got this.
-J
You might attempt to resort to the Have Visible Kidneys in 6 Weeks diet and the Ultra Mega Punishment 5000 Deathwish workout plan when trying to reclaim your fitness. And I get the appeal.
After all, most of us have this twisted mindset that for something to work, it has to be painful. We have to feel the hurt. Something about a sentimental hero mentality trap: pushing through all the obstacles. Plus, it makes a damn good social media feed.
But as Germans so elegantly put it, it’s all scheiße. Just because you feel like you’re suffering and working hard doesn’t mean you’re working hard on the right things.
Your results-driven lifestyle change doesn’t start with punishment. It begins by building the foundation. By prioritising your rest and recovery, observing and challenging some of your current lifestyle habits and accepting the flexible approach to creating new habits.
Building the foundation doesn’t feel as productive as counting how many green half-olives you ate or crawling out of another 60-minute HIIT workout.
But once the foundation is tight, you won’t have to work as hard for the results.
-J
I got a couple of replies to the “what do you hate about the fitness industry?” question I asked a few days ago. Kevin Freidberg from 7secondwebsites.com replied with some killer insights that you can use in your life to help make exercises into a habit:
This is our email exchange condensed into one comment. Bold etc., are all my doing. Shared with permission.
“Honestly? Leaving the house. (Not even kidding)
I was always a member of some kind of gym my whole life and went maybe a few times a year.
Then we moved into a house where I could have my own office. And I bought the Mirror (now called Lululemon studio)
Ever since I got that thing, I’ve worked out an average of 5 days per week for over 2 years now.
I’m 50 and in the best shape of my life.
I do 30-minute strength training classes 4-5 days a week – sometimes every single day.
Sometimes I’ll squeeze in a cardio class.
I walk my dog every day (gotta get my 10K steps 🙂
Lots of meditation.
And I do intermittent fasting.
My back hurts so much less.
My mood is better.
My weight is ideal.“
The thing to focus on here isn’t that the Lululemon Studio is the solution to everyone’s struggle to build exercise into a habit.
Instead, Kevin found a way to incorporate more physical activity into his life with an approach that fits his lifestyle.
Or, as he puts it:
“…I finally found something that works for me.
Yes, I’m quite fond of this mirror thing.
But only because of what it allows me to do.
I tell my friends all the time, do whatever it takes to find that 1 thing that allows you to work out consistently.
Easier said than done, of course 😉“
Thanks for sharing, Kevin! These kinds of change stories give me all sorts of good feelings.
-J
I mean, it’s therapeutic. Something about the repetitive task that allows you to zone out. Or zone in. Whatever.
I am all for gardening and yard work as a part of the plan for boosting physical wellbeing. That shit’s good for you in so many ways.
But gardening and yard work on their own is probably not enough to physically get you what you want to do in 30 or 40 years. Getting off the toilet, climbing the stairs with conviction, carrying groceries…
Unless your yard work includes a fair bit of chopping wood and lifting heavy objects, it’s not enough.
Even if, right now, it feels like it is.
-J
I’m curious. What do you hate the most about the fitness industry?
Just hit reply and let me know. Don’t hold back. This is all 100% confidential.
Go!
-J
Self-control’s all about having the discipline to deny a strong impulse. Saying no to the fourth piece of apple pie. And silencing that loud motherfucker of a voice in your head that’s certain you don’t need to exercise today.
But wait. Isn’t it great to bend your mind to the bridge to push away the fourth piece of pie and muscle your way to the workout? Absolutely. But doing it by improving self-control is a road paved with stones shaped into fists and elbows.
First, riding the self-control horse named Discipline usually works great until you’re exhausted and stressed after a day’s work, haven’t eaten since 11am, know you can’t sleep because you have to prep something for the morning, and have your kids slamming doors at you when you forgot to buy Vegemite. The fourth piece of apple pie? Uhhh, yes, please, thank you very much.
And second, once you improve your self-control and coat your brain with the battle armour built of determination, then what? You still have to fend off these strong impulses in your head constantly.
It won’t stop. Your brain becomes an eternal battlefield of ye! no! ye! YE! NO! Sigh. That just sounds super unappealing. Even if you win most of these self-control battles.
Instead of building self-control, improve your self-regulation
Whereas self-control is about resisting strong impulses, self-regulation is about reducing the frequency and temperature of these impulses. It’s about tuning into your inner dialogue instead of just trying to fight off every urge that arises.
When you improve your self-regulation, you don’t have to have a mind of steel because the impulses aren’t there like they used to be. Bye bye ye! no! ye! YE! NO!
Here’s where it’s at.
The way to improve self-regulation is relatively straightforward.
1. Work on your stress management. Both in terms of how you handle stress and your overall stress load
2. Work on your rest/recovery. Whatever that means to you. Probably not golf though
3. Work on your thinking. If you’re one of those people who can’t meditate, learn to meditate
4. It might not be a bad idea to see a therapist, psychologist etc. Someone who went to more than a Sunday school to work with the mind
Any of these easy? Certainly not. But the good news is that as you improve your self-regulation, you’ll also improve many other aspects of your health. Instead of just spending time trying to master one-dimensional self-control.
-J