Christmas is over. Well, we are in that limbo phase where people don't really know what day it is, and maybe you are still having turkey and ham sandwiches. But, for the most part, we now set our sights on the New Year.
2020 has flown by, and I imagine many of your goals for the year were derailed by the pandemic, so what's it going to be for 2021?
Of course, some of you may be yawning already. Over the next week or so, you will be inundated by goal-setting discussions from fitness professionals. Some will tell you to set New Years Resolutions. Some will tell you to avoid them. Some will say it's the best time to diet, and some will say it's the worst.
I am going to be a pessimist and tell you that you're probably not going to change much at all. You will likely do just as you have done before.
Okay, harsh, but let me justify this claim by suggesting that trying to remove a couple of your worst behaviours is probably better than expecting your whole behaviours to be replaced by new ones.
There are two ways we can move towards a new goal:
- Via Positiva: Progress through addition.
- Via Negativa: Progress through subtraction.
Personally, I typically recommend that people focus on the latter first, and then the former (there is crossover, of course). The classic example is the case where you go to your doctor with the complaint "it hurts when I do this", to which they reply "so don't do that". Yes, it's a joke, and it's not a solution, but a start!
What this looks like in practice is the process of asking "what do I currently do / expose myself to that takes me further from the things I would like?". For example...
Nutrition: Rather than worrying about what the best foods you could eat would be, start by removing foods / meals / behaviours that tend to push you off track most often. This means you don't actually have to worry about what is best, but simply set some boundaries against what is worst.
Exercise: What are the barriers that stop you from getting to the gym? Is it time? Pain? Instead of focusing on what the perfect programme might be, work on removing those barriers so that you can actually get to the gym and train productively in the first place.
Reading: Don't set the goal of reading 300 books. Ask yourself what takes time away from reading. This might mean deleting social media apps to create more time. From there, once that barrier is removed, the reading time will begin to add up, and the benefits will create a feed-forward cycle.
Sleep: Everyone always asks "what can I do to improve my sleep?". The reality is that this is the perfect case of Via Negativa. Removing barriers (blue light exposure before bed, staying on social media late, having coffee late in the day, etc.) is generally a lot more effective than anything you can add (supplements, drugs).
Stress: Same story as above. It's not about what you can add, but rather what you can take away. One of my biggest stressors is social media; I end up in stupid arguments with people who have no interest in actually arguing in good faith, and then I'm the one who stresses about it. So, I just avoid it (mostly). This is far more effective for me than adding 10 minutes of meditation to counter an hour arguing...
You get the point.
Adding things to your life often costs money, time, and cognitive resources to figure out what is best, how to implement it, etc. Therefore, starting out by removing harm is the way forward. It is absolutely not as attractive, of course, as people love the feeling of doing something new, but trust me, this is the way.
In summary, goal setting can be very helpful, but I'd ask you to consider the actual mechanism or process of moving toward that goal. As a heuristic (not a hard law), start with the process of subtraction before you worry about addition.
- Gary
