Last week in a CrossFit class, I did 48 box jumps and climbed a rope several times. Usually I struggle to do 10 box jumps.
One of the reasons I love to make my workout my first activity of the day is that it sets me up to start the day with big wins, and the momentum they give me going into the day.
The confidence I feel after reaching a new goal or milestone in my physical endeavors often carries over to other areas of life.
When I increase my weights or nail a move that has challenged me, I feel invigorated.
Empowered. Unstoppable. Undefeatable. Invincible.
I sail out of the gym on a cloud of glory, ready to take on the world.
If I can do that, there’s nothing I can’t do.
The challenge is that as you progress in development, milestones and personal bests don’t come as often. This principle is universal — it is true in any endeavor.
Even worse are the days when I don’t feel good about my workouts. The human body is complex under the best of circumstances. We can have an ability to achieve something one day and then the next day, we can’t replicate it.
It’s common and normal to have days when I feel like I am not making progress; or where I feel that I wasn’t able to do what I wanted to do.
Sometimes, no matter how hard I focus, I can’t seem to get my body to execute on my vision.
And this is where my particular challenge surfaces. On those days when I feel like I didn’t hit my mark, I can leave feeling defeated.
On those days, I sometimes leave the gym feeling like I’m living under a cloud of hopelessness and despair. And that can set me up for a day where it seems like nothing can go right.
The flip side of drawing confidence from the big wins is that the defeats loom equally large. This is a good place for me to practice equanimity. But more on that another time
For many people, feeling a lack of progress puts an end to their practice. Our built-in negativity bias leaves us more likely to remember the bad days.
For many people, a bad day becomes a catalyst for taking the next day off. The memory of the bad day then lingers, creating an energetic barrier to going back.
One way I’ve maintained my consistency over a long period of time is by having multiple reason and outcomes connected to my practice.
I don’t exercise only for the big milestones and the heavy lifts. I have many reasons. Some of these reasons relate to the process, rather than to the outcome.
- Exercise invigorates me.
- It helps me plug in my brain.
- It gets my creative juices flowing.
- It helps me connect with my body.
- It’s my time for myself.
There are certainly days where one or more these reasons also don’t play out. The idea, though, is that by having so many reasons to exercise I create multiple pull factors.
I don’t rely only on the results to keep me coming back.
And if it happens that none of these factors feel relevant in the moment, I’ve still got one more:
The body needs to move.
This strategy of connecting a practice to multiple motivating reasons is one I’ve used in other areas too, including my daily meditation practice and my blog.
The more reasons you can find to do something, the easier it will be to maintain a consistent practice over the long arc of time.
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