Talk Yourself Into It

When I run on the treadmill I always do guided runs.  I find stationary cardio SO BORING and find that someone else creating a playlist and planning a run and then chatting to me during the run takes my mind off of it and makes it much more enjoyable.  A few nights ago I did a run with an instructor I hadn’t tried before and he shared some advice from his mother that resonated with me, that advice was – talk yourself into it.

We spend a lot of our time in our heads making decisions and I can tell you, as a lifelong procrastinator, there are always going to be ways to talk yourself out of something…reasons you can skip it, do it later, delegate it to someone else…but if there are always ways to talk yourself out of it, there are probably ways to talk yourself into it too.

I’m well known in my classes for always providing modifications to the moves we’re doing…I do it because I remember walking into a class and feeling like even bodyweight squats were extremely hard, so when someone said “jump squats” I wanted to run from the room crying. Had I not seen other people in the class modifying or been provided alternatives from the instructor I might have felt defeated and never come back.  Now having said that, when I provide the modifier I also try to encourage people to start with the hardest version of the move first and do as many as they can that way and then switch to the modifier when they need to.  So if the move is push-ups, absolutely do them from your knees but start on your toes, even if you can only go down an inch, it’s something to build on.

I did push-ups from my knees for so long without ever even trying any from my toes until one day I thought, lets see, and I did four (and like a half).  They were shaky and slow and extremely hard but I was able to do them and had I not talked myself into just trying, I would have still thought I couldn’t do a single one from my toes.

The point is, you won’t know unless you try and sometimes talking yourself into just trying (especially if it’s the first time you’re doing something) is the hardest part of doing anything.

The reasons NOT to do something are easy – it might be hard.  It might not work.  You don’t know how.  You don’t have time.  You might look silly/stupid/clumsy/weak and embarass yourself.  Fear is a powerful emotion and these are easy to cling to – they’re so easy that often they shut the door on even considering any alternatives.

But we NEED to look at the alternatives. A court of law that only hears one side of the argument wouldn’t be very effective – neither is making a decision for ourselves only using the negative half of the arguments.  The arguments to talk yourself into it might seem less flashy, they might not invoke as great of an emotional response, they might not create the sense of urgency you need to overcome the ones to talk yourself out of it…but put them together and, if you had good enough reasons to want to do something in the first place, they often are more than enough to drown out the negative noise. You might feel better for having done what you said you would.  You will maintain your integrity.  You will keep a promise to yourself (the most important ones).  You might learn something new.  You might be GREAT at the thing you set out to do.  You’re being brave and facing your fears.  You’re taking a step towards your goal. 

When I decided to become a personal trainer, I was an Executive Assistant and Physician Coordinator.  My life was at a desk, on a computer, coordinating schedules and booking meetings, taking minutes, wrangling physician’s to do their paperwork, getting things signed, and supervising and training for switchboard…and, of course, “other duties as assigned”.  If one of the seven executives I reported to needed something – I did it.  I even did all the printing and organizing of all the materials for one of them when they were working on their MBA.  I had been in and out of the gym since my 20s and I understood how to train, but hadn’t gotten consistent with it until the previous six months.  Becoming a personal trainer was a complete 180 from what I currently did…from anything I had ever done and when I first thought about it, there were maybe 1000 reasons to not do it.  And even when I decided to do it, there were about 500 good reasons to wait…I told my husband and my now boss that I was going to do it, eventually, but that I wasn’t ready yet…and they both encouraged me to just do the course…that the only way I was going to be ready, was to start.

And THAT is the thing with motivation; we think we need it to start, but really we need to start to be motivated.  If we wait until we’re ready to do the things we set out to, the majority of the time we’ll never get ourselves to the starting line.  The feeling of doing something we wanted to do is the greatest motivator there is.  If you have your “WHY”, the reason you want to do it, then THAT is what gets you started…the motivation you get from that forward momentum is what keeps you moving forward.

By the time I was done with the personal training course I saw that I was in fact ready.  I had learned a lot and had a passion for helping others learn what I had…but only one-on-one, I was convinced I could not teach group classes.  But then I realized that not everyone can do one-on-one training and that I could help more people doing group classes.  The idea terrified me and I didn’t WANT to do it, but I knew I WANTED to want to do it, and the only way that could happen was, to just do it.  So I taught a class, and I survived…I was too quiet and my music messed up and my transitions were sloppy…but everyone there was supportive and when I taught another one it was a little better.

Is every class I teach now great?  No.  I have days where I try something and it doesn’t take.  When I use a new playlist and it’s meh.  When I fail to see that I put in too much shoulders and not enough glutes, or I’m just not there with the same energy.  But I’ve walked out of each class alive and having learned something…and now I can’t imagine doing anything else with my life.  I wasn’t motivated when I started…I got motivated from starting.

The negatives…the what if’s, the fear of failure/rejection/embarrassment, the stay small and in your comfort zone thinking…it’s always going to be there, but if you really want to, you can talk yourself into something nearly as easily as you can talk yourself out of it…because sure, it’s always possible that it won’t go well, that’s life; but as Erin Hanson put it:

So the next time the negative noise is trying to convince you to quit – talk back.  Talk yourself into it and see what changes.