5 Keys to Sustainable Improvement

For over 11 years, I’ve started every day with a workout. For a long time I believed that as long as I showed up consistently and did something, eventually I would see improvement in my strength and conditioning.

That belief proved to be wrong.

If you want to get stronger in a way that is sustainable, showing up every day is a start — but only a start.

Consistency is the “table stakes:” it’s the buy-in for the actual work. Obviously, you can’t do anything if you’re not showing up. But it’s what happens in the container of that time that moves the needle — or doesn’t.

Through various experiments over the years I’ve identified certain criteria — beyond showing up — that are essential for making sustainable progress.

Although I’m talking about workouts here, this isn’t only about workouts. These criteria apply to any place in life where we desire to “get stronger,” develop sustainable growth, or scale our efforts.

5 Keys to Sustainable Improvement

(1) Clarity on Your Outcome

Before you begin training, you must be clear on the outcome you desire from your efforts.

Do you want to build strength? Improve your conditioning? Run a marathon? Develop agility?

The internet is filled with suggestions of things you could do. Having a clear outcome will help you hone focus on what will actually make a difference.

(2) A Program Tailored to Your Outcome

If you want to make progress toward your desired outcome, you need a coherent program targeted to that outcome.

Random exercises each time you show up to the gym will not help you meet your outcomes, just like taking various different workshops or going to different conferences won’t help you grow a business.

A program is a coherent and strategic plan for the things you need to do to meet your objectives. It is a curriculum that meets you where you are and builds on itself over time.

(3) Guided Training on Technique and Skills

Achieving an outcome requires focused training on the skills and techniques that lay the foundation for what you seek to accomplish.

Repetition of the status quo only reinforces the status quo.

Doing more of what isn’t effective, or moving without proper alignment or technique, won’t make you stronger — it will leave you injured.

If you place the pressure on the wrong part of your foot when you run, adding more miles to your runs will eventually cause issues in your knees and hips.

Here’s where a lot of people miss the mark: they think a single training session is enough to learn a new skill.

Whether you’re grooving a new movement pattern in the gym, learning how to code a website, or working on mastering sales skills, effective training requires frequent and prolonged repetition of the ideas and concepts.

Skills build in layers, over time. It’s like learning a language. You must master the alphabet before you learn to read words. Once you start reading words, you can string together sentences. But it still takes time before you can fully understand what’s being said.

Similarly, a single session with a coach or trainer can introduce you to the alphabet, but without more it will be hard to progress to reading and understanding the sentences.

As you develop facility with the fundamentals, you can add nuances on top of that foundation. This requires a regular schedule of focused training with an expert, trainer, or coach who can guide you through the process.

(4) Supervised Practice

Learning new skills is a waste of time if you don’t implement what you’ve learned.

If you’ve ever learned how to play an instrument, you know that weekly lessons with a music teacher aren’t enough to generate progress. Between lessons, you must practice.

Here is another place where most people miss the mark: they don’t engage in the right type of practice.

If you go home from your piano lesson and play the wrong notes as you practice your scales, you’re not going to become a great musician.

Because it takes time for new neural pathways to form, the best way to practice is with supervision: to have someone observing you or checking in as you’re practicing. They can ensure you are practicing the skill as you’ve learned it.

(5) Feedback

Supervised practice requires more than just a “body double.” Implicit in the concept of supervised practice is that the person who is observing you is qualified to give you feedback.

Feedback is how we learn to change our habitual patterns.

Ideally the feedback would be contemporaneous with the practice: the person observing you interrupts you when you start to go into old patterns.

Without someone who can interrupt the errant techniques in the moment, your practice will only reinforce ineffective patterns.

A next-best alternative is someone who can review your work and point out where you fell into old patterns or didn’t correctly execute, ideally before your next practice session.

For example, the period of time when I made the most progress in my weightlifting was when I worked with a coach who reviewed my practice videos and gave me feedback on my form before my next training session.

Receiving feedback when it’s fresh can help us plan better for our next practice session.

5 Keys to Sustainable Improvement