Why does this feel controversial to talk about? I know that it shouldn’t be, to encourage others to want to improve themselves, but for some reason it does. Now that I have that out there, let’s just dive into this.

I believe the reason why people fail is because they start off way too aggressively with whatever they’re trying to improve, or they just don’t start at all. The amount of times that I’ve heard people say that they want to lose weight or get healthy and then immediately hit the gym for 3 hours is countless. They burn out after the first couple of days and have to take a break. Hundreds of dollars and pounds of whey protein later, the person is usually heavier and unhealthier than they started.

I know there are other reasons why people don’t go to the gym: time, intimidation, being approached and talked to, etc. But why is it always 100% or nothing?

Me: “How’s the workout going?”

Friend: “It’s going good. Did 20 minutes of walking today.”

Me: “Awesome. Are you going to continue tomorrow?”

Friend: “Yes!”

One Day Later.

Friend: “Did my workout today.”

Me: “Great. How long did you walk?”

Friend: “I did 45 minutes and I increased my pace. I can barely move now.”

Me: “Why not slowly increase to 45 minutes at that pace?”

Friend: “I can do it now. It feels good.”

Another couple of days later.

Me: “How’s the workout going?”

Friend: “I didn’t have a chance to do it for the last couple of days. My job…my family…my…”

And that’s how that ends.

What they’ve failed to realize is that working out is not just physically exhausting, it’s also a time commitment. Adding additional time to your day may seem easy, but more often than not, it’s not. There are a few individuals that I’ve successfully driven the point across with.

For those that I know have the time, I encourage for them to start off with 30 minutes per day. For those that don’t, much less (10 to 15 minutes). Have your timer going on your phone. As soon as you hit it, stop it, open your notes and log the date and workout length. Tomorrow, increase it by a small timeframe (as low as 5 seconds). In roughly 2 weeks, you’ll have gained about a minute worth of exercise. The best part is, you will have spent 2 weeks exercising.

There’s something about the commitment. It doesn’t have to be a future goal, just a daily goal. These are the things that I have to do every single day. If it’s exercise, start small and build up. It’s the same strength training tactic that’s preached over and over again: progressive overloading. It means to gradually increase the weight, frequency, or number of reps. Let’s say that you’re on the bench press. Your first week or two, you’ll have no idea how many reps you can do or the weight, but that’s your experimentation phase. I promise that as long as you log it, you’ll get it quickly. After a couple of weeks, you see that you’re able to do 5 sets of 12 reps at the following increments (why 5 sets at 12 reps? It’s just something that you read about and want to give it a shot):

• 12@135
• 12@135
• 12@115
• 12@105
• 12@95

Not bad. What should you do on your next workout? It’s important to jot down how you felt. Was the last set extremely difficult? Was the first set surprisingly easy? Seems like it since you could do the same weight in your next set. But how much more can you go? Try increasing it by 5 pounds? That’s just 2.5 lbs on each side. After a few days, you try the following and you succeed.

• 12@140
• 12@135
• 12@115
• 12@105
• 12@95

After another couple of days, you realize that you can do more on the last set. Maybe match the previous set.

• 12@140
• 12@135
• 12@115
• 12@105
• 12@105

And so on, and so on. That’s what’s meant by progressive overloading. You’re making small increments. Imagine where you’ll be in a year if you keep doing this. But it’s the time commitment. Do you have time each day to do this? If you say no, then scale back? Do you have time to do 3 sets instead of 5? You don’t have time to go to the gym at all? Can you afford a bench press at home or do you have the space? No, again? How about push-ups? Can you do pushups? Of course you can and you have the time. How long does it take to do one pushup? Maybe 10 seconds by the time you get into the position, perform the pushup, and come back up. You think you don’t have the time? Start with one pushup today. Tomorrow, do 2. Try to increase by 1 push-up until you hit some plateau. Keep repeating that each day until you get to a specific goal. Let’s say that’s 50 pushups. Keep repeating that. It’s not ideal to do pushups every day, so maybe once you get there, do them every other day. In between those days, do crunches. Can’t do one single pushup? How about an assisted pushup? The point is just do something. Commit to something every single day and make sure that you don’t miss it. Log it or you will forget.

Enough exercise examples. How about writing? I’ve committed to writing an article a day and have been doing so for the past few months. It’s crazy how the ideas just flow each day.

How about a business example? I once asked our sales staff to make 2 phone calls per day. The answer, “there’s absolutely no way. I’m beyond busy.” So I sat with them and sporadically asked, “can you call this account and offer them this deal?” They’ve completely forgotten about the request by now. What we found out was that after about 2 weeks, the average sales-person was doing 40 phone-calls per week. That’s 8 per day outgoing. They didn’t notice a difference in their work. They actually made more sales and more money. It’s about commitment and being true to yourself.

When I go through my schedule with friends, they think that I’m lying. Most importantly, my family life does not suffer. My entire schedule is built around that. I always tell people that I understand that my motivation is beyond natural and that I don’t expect anyone to follow my routines. It makes for difficult conversations since people do get defensive. I’ve gotten away from talking about my day with anyone unless they approach and ask me about it first. And even then I’m careful not to overshare.

But this is the internet and I thought I’d write about it. It’s my daily article and it’s Thanksgiving Day. Even though I primarily write about programming, there’s not enough time today to write a thorough programming article. So here’s one on motivation. How’s your motivation been lately?

P.S. This has nothing to do with corporate America and the work-culture we have here. Nothing in this article is meant to be controversial. Let’s just work on improving ourselves, however that may be. Thanks for reading.