THE LIFESTYLE ENTREPRENEUR

Read time - 2 minutes

Prioritizing Wellness

In this issue:

• Why most people fail at their health

• My yo-yo history

• What needs to change

• How to make it stick

One my core principles is that we need to prioritize our physical and mental health above all else in order to live our best life.

This means on a daily basis - our health, and activities required to maintain it - are scheduled, prioritized, and adhered to.

This mentality stands that if you prioritize your health - exercise, sleep, nutrition, stress, mindfulness - you perform better in all other aspects of life.

I know firsthand this approach works. My productive ability, ability to be present with family and friends, and overall performance in life is directly correlated to how I’m caring for myself.

I also know the science backs me up - The top three drivers for cognitive performance over our lifetime are:

• Sleep

• Exercise

• Nutrition

In that order.

I think you get the point. And I think most of my readers are aligned intellectually to this concept.

So why is it impossible for you to prioritize your health on a consistent basis?

I know, it hurts to be called out. Don’t worry I am you, and I’ll give a brief insight into my sad yo-yo fitness past.

No need to feel bad though. If you exercise at all you’re already in the minority in the US.

According to the CDC only 28% of americans get their recommended amount of strength and cardio training, which are:

• 150 minutes of moderate cardio or 75 minutes of intense cardio per week

• 2x a week strength training

These guidelines are completely useless, but they at least indicate what the masses are doing and what the averages are.

The problem for you is that where you stack up probably varies widely depending on what time of year, and what year it is, right?

Some months you’ve got a pretty solid program going, you’re eating well, managing your drinking.

Other months you’re letting it all hang out living like John Daly.

Ok maybe not John Daly, but you get my point.

If you’re like most people I know:

• You’ve always been someone who’s trying to get in shape.

• As opposed to being someone who embodies a life of fitness.

There is a sea of difference between these two people.

A difference that implies that fitness isn't a goal you’re perpetually trying to achieve; it's already an established part of your identity and daily routine.

Your goal is to become the second person.

Once you’re the second person - you don’t really have to worry about falling off your fitness program - it’s just not going to happen.

Getting there is really hard though, and it requires three main things:

• An identity change

• An environmental overhaul

• Discipline

It also requires a long time horizon. I’m not even talking about years versus months - I’m talking decades versus years.

My Yo-Yo History

Put simply I was the first person, someone who’s always trying to get in shape, my whole life.

• Highschool and college athletics (division 3 lacrosse what’s up!)

• Marine Corps Infantry (Some of my fittest years although we fought in 2 wars which makes you get out of shape pretty seriously)

• MBA (My fattest years)

• 3M (My corporate years)

• CrossFit (My gym owner years)

• The baby years (enough said)

The above is a journey of getting in great shape (for me) for a season, something changing in my life, letting my fitness fall off, and starting over.

Over and over, for my whole life. Until a couple things changed.

I separated from my wife, I started jiu jitsu, my kids got past the baby stage and into the running around everywhere stage.

Put more simply:

• An environment change allowed behavioral change

• I committed to much longer term goals

• I became a different person

This didn’t happen overnight, but it kind of happened overnight.

The combination of:

1. Years of effort and failure

2. Rapid environmental change that gave me more time to myself briefly

3. Finding something (jiu jitsu) that I wanted to do forever

4. Seeing my kids grow up and wanting to be a good example for them

Made the change like a switch for me.

Since then I’ve had weeks where my health game gets derailed, but we’re talking one week. I never miss workouts anymore. I never let my nutrition fall apart other than periodic meals. I drink minimal alcohol. I’m always focusing on good sleep.

And I can tell you, after a lifetime of yo-yo’ing, it feels amazing.

Ok I get it, how do I stop yo-yo’ing my fitness?

Heed this great quote of unknown origin (so I’m going to claim it):

If nothing changes, nothing changes - Mike Jones

There are infinite head games and limiting beliefs that can be at play here, and while identity shift is the primary requirement of becoming a different person, I’m going to focus on environment here.

That’s because I think momentum is important.

And if we believe we should prioritize our health, it can’t move to the front if everything in life stays the same:

• Kids aren’t going anywhere for awhile

• Job is becoming more demanding every day

• Parents are getting old

• You know you need to spend time with friends to be happy

• Hobbies

There’s literally not enough time in the day to take care of your fitness. And if I tell you that you should prioritize your workout over going to your kids’ soccer practice, you’re not going to listen to me right?

I didn’t think so.

So here are some specific ways to change your environment to allow things to flow.

The tactics

I’m going to cover three areas for today:

1. Future selfing & goal setting

2. Schedule adjustments

3. Creating time within your day

Future Selfing & goal setting

"If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there.” - Mike Jones

JUST KIDDING - That quote is from Alice in Wonderland

Future selfing is a relatively simple concept with infinite frameworks and models for application from the world’s lifestyle gurus.

My simple approach is this:

• Define who you want to become in the future, answer the following questions:

  • What date?

  • Where do you live?

  • How much money do you make?

  • What kind of house do you live in?

  • What is your perfect day like?

  • What is your fitness and nutrition like???

• Be as specific as possible in defining your future self

• Identify attributes and behaviors that are keeping you from becoming that person

• Develop a plan to work on those attributes

• Apply your future self to your goal setting

My favorite thought leader in this area is Benjamin Hardy, author of “10x is the new 2x”

Here is a video of him describing his methodology on future-selfing.

Goal Setting is a simple concept of actually establishing long, medium, and short-term goals, putting them down on paper, and measuring yourself against them daily, quarterly, and yearly.

I outlined my exact goal setting methodology in The Lifestyle Entrepreneur #8

Health related goals should be in the top 3 for life planning. Start with this, and use it, and see your life change in unexpected ways.

Schedule Adjustments

Long-term adjustments to your schedule are recommended for lasting change.

• If your job doesn’t allow any time for exercise, change your job

• If your partner isn’t supportive of your health activities, change your partner or change partners

The above are long-term changes of course, but I’m serious. If your job doesn’t allow you to exercise - figure out a way to change your job in the long-term.

That’s one of the reasons why I’ve become an EOS Implementer - I want to help fellow entrepreneurs get what they want out of life - and the easiest way to do that is to improve their business. Until they do that they’re usually a prisoner to it.

That’s long-term.

Here are some short-term schedule adjustments I recommend:

• Tell your partner, team, boss, you’re prioritizing your fitness and want that time to be respected

• Put it on the calendar and treat it like business meetings

• Sign up for a program that doesn’t require any thinking - e.g. classes where you just show up.

• Do it first thing in the day - most high achievers I know who have also mastered their fitness game, workout first thing in the morning.

  Pro tip - lay your workout clothes the night before to reduce friction

I could probably list out ten more tactics - the bottom line on schedule is - you need to create space for your health, communicate to your life’s stakeholders that it’s a priority, and stick with it.

It’s very simple - not easy.

Making Time

You ever notice the people who seem to be able to do 10x more than everyone else?

Those people exist if you haven’t met them. There are many reasons they’re so much more productive than everyone else, one of them is they know how to create time for things.

In fitness that mostly means stacking movement on top of the rest of your life. Here are a few ways I do it, hopefully one or two will inspire you:

• Walk everywhere - walking is foundational and will literally make your life better:

  • Turn meetings into walks

  • Take the stairs instead of escalators and elevators

  • Walk to restaurants, grocery stores, etc

  • Walk with your kids

  • Walk with your partner

• Do mini-workouts:

  • Do 10 sets of pushups each time you break for work - I bet you can get 50 per day easy

  • Do workouts at your kids’ practices and games - 10 sets of 10 pushups and 20 air squats as fast as possible will crush anyone

• Something > Nothing:

  • Don’t have time for a big 1 hour workout? Have a list of 10-20 minute workouts you can do quickly

• Combine play with workouts:

  • Anything you do with your kids can be active - e.g. I practiced volleyball with my daughter last night, it was a fun workout

  • Infinite workouts can be done at the playground

• Turn walking into rucking:

  • Zone 2 workouts (breathing heavy but light enough to have a conversation) - add weight to any walk and make it more of a workout

Those are just ideas that came off the top of my mind in a few minutes.

The point is - you don’t need elaborate workout programs, classes, or even gyms at all to get fit. You need to move.

Within the 24 hours in the day all you need is 20-40 minutes to get fitter than most people.

The challenge is finding creative ways to get movement in.

Hopefully these areas are helpful to you, especially if you’re on a downstroke in your fitness.

If you are - the worst thing you can do is wait until after the holidays to start.

Please don’t do that.

Take what I wrote, spend 20 minutes putting together a plan, and start small.

Talk to you next week,

Mike