Katerina Akulich
Habit formation and lifestyle change specialist. Author of the Science of Habits course on habit formation.
Last week I published a survey on habits and lifestyle. Many of you responded and answered the survey questions. Thank you very much! (By the way, the survey is still ongoing, I invite you to participate.)
From this study (which does not claim to be scientific), I learned a lot of interesting things. For example, how we explain to ourselves why we play sports less often than we would like. Below I present the most popular reasons given by participants and study participants, explaining why sports did not become a habit for them. I also give my comments to each of the answers.
Reason 1. “I don’t find the right time in my daily routine”
Finding the right trigger (time-place-situation) for a new habit is really not always easy. If you can’t come up with the perfect trigger for sports, start experimenting. For example, try warming up (if this is your target habit) at different times of the day: in the morning immediately after using the toilet; before breakfast, while the kettle is boiling; at lunchtime, before going to the dining room; in the evening, when they came home and changed into home clothes, and so on.
Often successful solutions that we can’t think of come up on our own when we start trying something.
Also think about how you can organically fit several small sports habits into different moments of the day (for example, in the morning before work, walk one stop, then take the rest by transport; do a light warm-up at your workplace before lunch; go up to an apartment without an elevator, if high floor). Three small habits are often easier to fit into a routine than one big one.
Tips for diversifying your workouts
1. CHANGE YOUR TRAINING. This method is suitable when you are tired of doing the same exercises, there is a way out - replace the exercises with similar ones, swap them, change the training program, or at least swap the days of training different muscle groups.
2. PSYCHOLOGICAL TRICK. The essence of it is that before going to the training itself, convince yourself that you will only do stretching and abs, since there is no mood or desire at all. After this execution, tell yourself, okay, I’ll do 2-3 more sets of exercises and that’s it. Moving forward in small steps and convincing yourself little by little, the training may be less intense, but completed to the end.
The most important thing is to come and start, and then everything will move forward gradually; if, after all, the desire specifically disappears, you can finish at any time. But as practice shows, people still reach the end of the workout with a goal, even if they reduce its volume.
3. PRE-WORKOUT SUPPLEMENTS. They include psychoactive substances - caffeine, guarana, yohimbe, they stimulate the nervous system, increasing the desire to go to training. They need to be taken 20-30 minutes before the start of the workout so that they have time to act, just don’t use every workout, but only when you don’t want to, you feel like you’re tired or you have a hard workout ahead.
4. COMPETITION AND DISPUTE. An excellent way of motivation, especially for men, when there are so many beautiful girls around, they don’t want to lose their faces. A competitive drive will perfectly diversify your training and give you the opportunity to progress, for example, do pull-ups with someone using the ladder principle, or ask one of your visitors how many times can you do push-ups?! Then try to exceed the announced result.
5. FIND A PARTNER. Training together is always inspiring, the mere thought that your partner will become better will spur you on, and if you train together with your loved one, your motivation rises even more, doing one thing, breathing and walking in the same direction in complete mutual understanding is super.
Train with benefit and may your craving for training never go away, good luck to everyone!
Reason 2. “Lack of motivation / willpower / lazy”
Relying on willpower and motivation is a losing strategy when it comes to forming healthy habits. No matter how strong your motivation is, from time to time it will conflict with your short-term desires.
Willpower is also a variable quantity; it is affected by your mood, well-being, fatigue, and the actions of others. To compensate for the inconsistency of willpower and motivation, it makes sense to purposefully (that is, relying on evidence-based psychology and neurobiology) to form healthy habits.
You haven't recovered
Do you still feel a burning sensation or pain in your muscles from previous sports activities? These are signs of sore throat or, as it is also called, delayed muscle pain syndrome. Serious pumping leads to micro-tears of muscle tissue. This is good, because in the process of its recovery you will become stronger. But if you start exercising at a time when these tears have not yet healed, there is a chance that you will lead to injury. If you feel that, for example, your biceps have not yet rested, focus on your leg muscles or don’t go to training at all.
Reason 3. “I get up late and don’t have time to exercise in the morning”
Here I want to warn against the following development of events: “Yeah, in order to have time to play sports, I need to get up earlier, so tomorrow I’ll start getting up earlier and doing physical activity! Problem solved! With a high probability, neither one nor the other will happen (neither sports nor getting up early).
Getting up early is a whole set of habits that, in my opinion, need to be worked on separately. First, you should figure out your daily routine, and then work on the habit of playing sports during the freed-up hours, spreading these projects over time.
How to motivate yourself to exercise
Don't have enough motivation to force yourself to exercise? Options to choose from.
Good reward
Not impressed by goals like “good health”, “well-being in adulthood”, “beautiful body in a few months” and the like? Create a more tangible reward. Please yourself after each workout with healthy treats, small gifts or other amenities. The Pulitzer Prize winner explains how the Habit Loop works in three steps.
First comes a sign that provokes the brain to launch a habitual action, then the action itself and the result - a reward. The most important stage is the last one. It shows you the benefits of the activity, the brain is tuned to a positive result in any case, the habit loop starts easily and quickly.
How does this scheme work for gym goers? Sign: Pack your bag for the gym. Action: Practice. Reward: eat your favorite healthy dish while watching an episode of your favorite TV series. You choose the reward according to your taste. Soon, motivation will come from within, and the brain will associate heavy physical activity with the upcoming release of endorphins.
Public promise
If you care about the opinions of others about you as a reliable, purposeful and responsible person, then a public promise will be an excellent motivation. Tell your plans to a friend, family, loved one, co-worker, or any other person who is an authority figure for you. You can even inform everyone about your plans by posting a photo with a number on the scales on a social network, or promise to upload photos from the gym three or four times a week. You can set a goal and promise a friend if he fails, to pay him a certain amount.
Jeremy Goldhaber-Fiebert, Ph.D., talks about the effectiveness of the approach, citing the well-known stickK website developed by economists. On the site, the site visitor declares a certain intention, promising to donate a certain amount if it does not come true. Research shows that people do not want to part with money, so they are more willing to fulfill a promise.
Positive thinking
Learn to think positively. Getting up early is usually depressing and ruins your mood, but imagine how pleasant it will be to stretch out on the couch in front of the TV in the evening or have dinner at your favorite cafe, and the anticipation will brighten up the morning minutes. The mood improves and incentive appears. The reason is simple: visualization is the main companion of motivation. Same with training. It’s easier to force yourself to do sports, imagining how in a few months you will go on vacation to the beach and take spectacular pictures.
Gabriel Ettingen, Ph.D., talks about meeting important conditions. He has written several books, and in one of them (Rethinking Positive Thinking) he described a detailed structure of positive thinking that produces the desired results.
What does it consist of?
- A clear understanding of what you want.
- Presentation of the result, and definition of what it is associated with and what it entails.
- Identify possible obstacles.
- Several ways to overcome potential difficulties.
Fifty respondents who decided to eat healthy food took part in the study. Those who clearly understood the benefits of following the PP rules were more successful in achieving results.
Cash reward
Many are convinced that money rules the world. The statement is exaggerated and controversial, but it can help achieve results. The likelihood of financial reward motivates sports achievements. According to University of California Dr. Gary Charness, monetary rewards will significantly increase the strength of aspiration.
Teenagers can offer such a scheme to their parents, and wives to their husbands, but it is much better to use the Gym-pact web service. The community pays for fruitful training at the expense of truants.
Reason 4. “Boring / not fun / hard”
Here I see two options:
- Experiment with yourself and try many different sports activities in search of the one that will bring you pleasure.
- Purposefully form the habit of doing some simple basic warm-up. When a task is in a state of habit (behavior “on autopilot”, with little awareness), your attitude towards the process already plays a minor role. That is, it’s no longer so important to you whether you like the process or not, you get involved in it “without regaining consciousness” (like, for example, brushing your teeth in the morning).
A draft dodger is an inventive person. The most ridiculous ways to avoid the army
It's time for your loved one to retire
As reported by the 1+1 TV channel, two years ago a 24-year-old man married an 81-year-old woman. “Molodukha” is a disabled person of the first group, so the cunning lad automatically became her guardian and lost the enviable honor of serving in the Ukrainian army. However, he neglects his duties and visits his wife very rarely, as the grandmother’s neighbors told reporters.
A five-year-old boy was drafted into the Ukrainian army
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The local military registration and enlistment office knows about this situation, but they can’t do anything. According to the law, guardianship is the basis for deferment from military service.
The leader of the Russian Ukrainians “Parus” movement, Yuriy Kot, told the Kharkov agency that this situation is quite common. Young people do not want to serve in the Armed Forces of Ukraine and are finding different ways to avoid joining the army.
In addition to good reasons, disabled parents, young children, dependents and health problems, they are looking for various loopholes just to “get by.”
According to Yuri Kot, young men have children, buy medical certificates, move and even become priests. And even completely fantastic confessions. This opportunity is so in demand that the clergyman offered to join the ranks of the clergy for three thousand hryvnia in order to evade mobilization.
But it's expensive. For 255 hryvnia you can buy a military ID directly at the military registration and enlistment office. True, you still need to know who to knock on.
Hooliganism and self-harm
Despite the fact that in Russia the service life of conscripts was reduced to one year and the possibility of alternative service was introduced, compatriots also strive to dodge and not repay their debt to their homeland under any circumstances.
Military registration and enlistment offices will take everyone away - While waiting for the army under a contract, conscripts will have their registration “cancelled”
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The Internet is teeming with various sites on which draft dodgers post recipes that, in their opinion, will help them avoid conscription. All of them, to put it mildly, are of dubious quality. Because they mainly contain advice regarding damage to one’s own health.
For example, some alternatively gifted well-wishers advise smoking rolled-up cigarettes stuffed with tea leaves. They say that the conscript is then discharged due to interruptions in his heart rhythm.
Some people with blue eyes advise swallowing a piece of foam rubber to simulate a tumor in the stomach. However, they are silent about the fact that this “brick” will then have to be removed during abdominal surgery.
No less dangerous is the advice to swallow bread crumbs containing some active chemical. There is a story going around among the conscripts that one of their comrades ended up with a perforated stomach ulcer.
The Internet is also replete with stories where draft dodgers manage to avoid being drafted into the army, not with a carcass, but with a scarecrow. True, they are all told from the words of friends, and do not inspire much faith.
In particular, the story about the theft of documents from the office when the inspector was absent for some reason seems completely incredible. Allegedly, the conscript climbed out the window and then stayed with his girlfriend for a week. And they didn’t look for him, since he took the documents and seemed to disappear from the radar.
There was also anecdotal advice to injure the collarbone. During a forced march, the backpack and machine gun will rub it, the father-commanders will take pity on the sick man and send him home.
Despite the prevalence of tutorials on self-harm, there are still few fools. The most popular are tips on faking numerous mental disorders.
Armchair experts from among half-educated doctors advise drooling and barking at the military registration and enlistment office.
There is an opinion on the Internet that you can easily get out of service if you cover yourself from head to toe with tattoos and piercings. The handsome man will definitely be sent for examination, and then it will be up to his acting talent or lack thereof, the young and green are sure.
Remarkable acting talent and tattoos
You can, of course, wave away the military commissar with a cross, threaten the doctors with an aspen stake, or, gently stroking a stuffed owl, whisper: “Soon we will return to Hogwarts.” However, we should not forget that very experienced people sit on the draft commissions. The amateur exercises of draft dodgers make absolutely no impression on them.
Media: Military registration and enlistment offices will begin conscripting unregistered citizens into the army
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One psychiatrist, speaking on condition of anonymity, said attempts to avoid conscription are usually quite ridiculous.
“The success rate of the mowing cannot be said to be high, since from the military registration and enlistment office he will be sent for an inpatient three-week examination to the expert department, and people with very solid experience work there,” the doctor said.
Moreover, data on boys’ health begins to be collected at school. Conscripts are examined by doctors several times, they are asked relevant questions, and a suddenly manifested mental illness will immediately arouse suspicion.
“A simple example: I was healthy for a long time, had excellent test results, positive characteristics, good grades at school, was declared healthy, and suddenly starts talking nonsense... This is especially noticeable when all past visits were attempts to refer to other specialists, but in “In the end it was unsuccessful,” the psychiatrist noted.
He emphasized that without significant acting experience, it is almost impossible to deceive doctors.
“Moreover, you will then spend three weeks in the expert department, where more experienced specialists will monitor you around the clock,” the doctor said.
Service loophole. Why did the army simplify early demobilization?
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However, he admitted that people who are interested in body modification raise serious suspicions, and excessive body painting is grounds for examination.
But he dispelled the myth that non-traditional sexual orientation is an automatic ticket to freedom.
According to the psychiatrist, the only real opportunity to “opt out” from the army is a certificate stating that you are registered with the appropriate institution. But in this case, you must ask yourself: are you ready to defend this right several times a year in the company of real mentally ill people?
"No results"
In order for there to be a result, you must first correctly define the task and set the appropriate goal. If you want to become more muscular, lean and fit, then you need to clearly formulate a training plan and nutrition program.
It is very important to set truly achievable (small to begin with) goals. For example, if you want to lose a few pounds, run on the treadmill for 10 minutes every day.
Have you lost weight? Don't stop there - always move forward. Your workouts should be interesting and varied to avoid your muscles getting used to the same type of activity.
