#25: The New Year isn't magic...

Hey friends,

I like to use the end of the year to talk about a topic that many people struggle with: trying to wait for the “perfect time” to focus in on their fitness goals.

So this week, I’ll talk about how you aren’t magically going to be more motivated on January 1st, how to avoid burnout, and why taking consistent small steps is your best path to success.

Weekly Action Point

❌ 📱 For this week, try to avoid looking at your phone for the first 30 minutes after waking up 📱❌ 

Many people use their phone for their alarm. They turn off their alarm, and then immediately start scrolling social media, reading emails, checking their fantasy football team, etc.

There are a variety of negatives to checking your phone immediately after waking up. I thought this article from Forbes highlighted a couple interesting points.

Maybe in the future I’ll talk about this in more depth, but for this week just try it out and see how it feels. Turn off your alarm, and then no phone for 30 minutes after waking up.

No such thing as the ‘perfect time’

July and December are the two months with the lowest gym membership utilization rates (in Minnesota). July utlization is down because people are typically doing things outside or traveling in the peak of summer.

December is down for two main reasons: the holidays, and people pushing off their goals to the new year.

It’s extremely common for people to care less about their fitness goals in December, telling themselves in January they are really going to get serious.

Things are going to be different in the New Year they tell themselves. “This will be the year I take my fitness seriously.”

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there is zero difference between December 31st and January 1st.

You aren’t going to wake up in the new year an entirely different person. The things that are difficult now will be just as difficult in the New Year.

And even though nothing is actually different, people will try and make a whole bunch of changes thinking that they’ll stick.

They’ll change their diet, start going to the gym more consistently, and often times completely overhaul their fitness regimen for the New Year.

December has the lowest gym utilization rates of the year, and January has the highest of the year. Interesting to see such a stark contrast in only a month isn’t it?

The issue with this: making a bunch of big changes all at once will not lead to improving habits and consistency over the long term. Maybe you’ll be fired up for a couple weeks, but then fizzle out once you realize it’s still difficult and still takes a long time to see results. You’ll burn out and be right back to where you were before the New Year.

I use the New Year as an example because it’s only three weeks away, however people use loads of different things in life as excuses to wait for the ‘perfect time’ to get serious on their fitness goals.

“I’ll wait until after my trip to get started.”

“It’s Thursday and I’m really going to buckle down starting on Monday.”

“When the kids get older, then I’ll have more time to focus on my fitness.”

“As soon as my job settles down I’ll be 100% focused on my fitness.”

These are just four examples, but the list is endless.

Have you ever told yourself a similar narrative? I know I have.

Life is always going to be busy. There will never be a magical event or time that makes fitness any easier. And the time you waste waiting for the perfect time is time you could have spent moving in the right direction.

The key is trying to take small baby steps every single day to build habits over the long term.

How do you do that?

Well, for starters you should actually do the things I suggest in the weekly action point.

I intentionally make the weekly action point small, simple, and with a low time commitment.

They aren’t earth shattering, but doing them consistently over the long term is how you build habits and momentum.

Next week, I’m going to continue this discussion by talking about New Years resolutions and what I think you should be doing instead to encourage goals you will actually stick to.

I plan to help out with the “how” for building small habits next week.

Ben’s Best

🍽️ Lazy meal idea for the week:

1. Grab a rotisserie chicken from Costco. I think I got one for $4.36 and had enough chicken for 5 meals.

2. Choose rice or potato as a side. I used microwaveable Bibigo sticky rice (also found at Costco) for some meals. For the other meals I chopped a sweet potato up into cubes and put it in the air fryer.

3. Pick a vegetable. Since the point of this was a lazy meal, I used frozen grean beans.

4. The most imporant part: make a quick homemade Thai peanut sauce with the following:

- 3 TBSP of PB2 powerdered peanut butter
- 1 TBSP of maple syrup
- 2 TSP of soy sauce
- sriracha (more if you like spicy, less if you want it sweeter)
- add a splash of water at a time until it’s a sauce consistency

This is a crazy simple and delicious meal idea, because who wants to put a ton of effort into a weeknight dinner after work?

If you want a little more effort, here is the meal prep that I’m making for this week. I’ve posted this recipe before a while back, but it’s so good that I keep coming back to it.

stealth_health_life

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🎙️ Podcasts that I loved this week:

• Mind Pump 2481: If You Are Not Building Muscle This Is Why

• Huberman Lab: Morgan Housel: Understand & Apply the Psychology of Money to Gain Greater Happiness

Have an amazing week!

Ben