Adapt, Overcome, Succeed: A New Approach to Health Goals

A few weeks ago I posted a blog post which talked about what to do when you inevitably veer off track of your goal. We discussed how having a growth mindset allows us to learn from our mistakes and make corrections to actions and behaviors to help avoid making the same mistake the next time. The hard part about this process is knowing what corrections and changes to your actions and behaviors you need to make.

In order to illustrate how to decide what to do in order to get back on track, let’s go back to our same example from last week’s blog post.

Here is the groundwork from last week…

Say you set the goal of being consistent with exercise and you start out with a goal of exercising 3 days a week and going on a hike or bike ride with your significant other one day a week. In fact you get super specific and say that you are going to strength train 2 days a week before work, do 1 day of high intensity exercise and use your hike or bike ride as a day of low intensity exercise.

Love it!

You start out very consistent with this goal but about 2 months in your significant other ends up having a big work project come up and they can no longer join you on your bike or hike. You find it quite boring to be hiking or biking by yourself and quickly you find yourself making excuses not to do it.

Then a month later you leave for vacation for a week and temporarily you stop your exercise routine (rightfully so), but say you will jump right back in when you get back home.

However after returning home, you come down with a cold and are laid out flat in bed for a week solid.

Now it has been 2 weeks since you have been to the gym to strength train or do your HIIT session and even longer since you have gone on your hike or bike ride.

It has also been 2 weeks since you have been at work and you return to a massive amount of stuff to catch up on. To make things worse, you gave your kids your cold and now they are home from school. With so much on your plate your energy is drained and you have no motivation to do anything else. In fact what sounds really good now is ordering some pizza, having a couple cocktails, and watching TV.

In last week’s post we also used the below infographic from Precision Nutrition to illustrate what to do next. After you realize you are off track and remind yourself this is an opportunity to apply a growth mindset you can take 1 of 4 actions. We talked about actions 3 and 4 last week, but what about actions 1 and 2?

In our exercise example above the action you might take after falling off track with your exercise is to jump right back into the same exercise routine, it was working at the start after all.

In my opinion this is almost always a mistake…what happens when you once again go on vacation, get sick, or lose your exercise partner?

You guessed it, you are likely to fall right back into the same result!

This is true of so many changes we try to make.

Maybe you try a new diet, try to incorporate meditation or journaling, or try to stop scrolling social media before bed.

You might be successful with these endeavors initially but then for one reason or another fall off track. Then when you decide to get back to the change you jump right back into the same thing you were doing beforehand.

Why do the same thing over and over again when it is not working?

Why do keto if you find yourself going on a 6 month carb binge….over and over again?

Why do the same workout if you find yourself burnt out and injured….over and over again?

Why keep trying to cut out social media if you find yourself sucked right back in….over and over again?

I think you get my point.

The reason why everyone tends to revert back to what they have done in the past, whether it serves them or not, is that it is comfortable, it is safe, it is familiar, it is known.

That wasn’t true though the first time you tried keto, or did a crazy workout, or tried to cut out social media. Back then doing those things was probably scary and uncomfortable.

But guess what? The first time you did it you probably learned a ton!

I am not saying that you should never try something more than once. If you tried keto and you didn’t get the results you wanted, by all means try keto again. It is OK to give something a couple of tries before giving up on it. However, if you have tried the same approach several times and you keep finding that it doesn’t stick or doesn’t give you the results you want, it is probably time to switch things up.

This means trying something new, and that will be scary.

However, while it might be scary it also provides the biggest opportunity for growth, learning and SUCCESS!

If keto hasn’t been working the past 5 times you have tried it, why not try the opposite? What if you did a higher carb moderate fat approach?

If the same high intensity workout is unsustainable why not try lower intensity workouts with one high intensity workout every few weeks?

If cutting out all social media is impossible for you can you limit your social media usage to a specific time in the day instead?

These might not be the approaches that the people around you are using to reach their goals (maybe ask yourself if they really are reaching their goals and maintaining them or are just stuck in the same loop you are) and it might not be the sexiest approach either. Hell, it might also go against what “the science” says is the right approach.

All that doesn’t matter, the only thing that matters is that it works for YOU!

So when you find yourself off track and you are looking for the next action or environmental change to make, think outside the box. It doesn’t need to be a massive change in direction from what you were doing before, even a small tweak to what you were doing before can make a massive difference in the outcome.

It will feel uncomfortable, unfamiliar, scary, and difficult, but tell yourself that these feelings mean that it also has the best chance of success. You have to explore all options in order to find the one that works for you, and the only way to do that is to put yourself in unfamiliar situations.

Don’t choose the difficult but easy option (the thing you know), choose the difficult but difficult option (the one that you don’t know)!

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