Big, sweeping changes are overrated.
It doesn’t take a total lifestyle overhaul to get fit, lose weight, or build strength and muscle. And change is hard. It takes more than willpower or discipline or “just try harder” peptalks.
It takes a mindset shift and a lot of strategies and tools, as well as awareness of what will actually work for us, not what we think we “should” be doing. We’re all different!
One solid, proven strategy for change is the kaisen approach. Kaisen is the Japanese strategy for behavior change that uses tiny, continuous improvements.
You can think of this as getting 1% better everyday. Going from zero exercise to hitting the gym for an hour 5 times a week is a tall order.
Examples:
- floss 1 tooth
- take 2,500 steps a day
- march in place 1 minute
- do 1 squat
Whatever you choose should feel ridiculously easy. This approach not only gives us little wins every day to build momentum to keep going, but also makes it super easy to get back on track after missing a day. It’s not a huge screw-up to overcome mentally and physically.
And frequently, doing these tiny actions leads to bigger actions that really move the dial in the right direction without the pressure of having to hit certain higher metrics in order to “count” (eg exercising 5 minutes versus 30-60 minutes).
Everyone starts at the beginning, even fitness pros! It starts with bodyweight exercises, than adding 5 lbs., then 10 lbs., until you get to where you want to be.