Tell me if this pattern sounds familiar to you.
One of my clients (let’s call him Elliot) went to court every three months. Aggressive diet. New training plan. The complete deal.
And it would work… for a few weeks. Then life would do what life does – motivation would wane, work would get stressful, there would be a sick child to care for, a vacation – and the whole thing would unravel.
Three months later the cycle would begin again. Only this time everything felt a little worse. The scale went up, his knees hurt more, and he still felt out of breath as he walked up the stairs.
He decidedly said to himself: “I just have to try harder this time.”
When I sat down with Elliot to develop his coaching plan, we realized that although each previous attempt felt like progress in the short term, the system was failing him in the long term.
As my friend and rebel leader Steve Kamb writes in his upcoming book So try again:
“If we try harder to do something that wasn’t already working, we waste energy that could be used to find a better solution.”
So that’s what Elliot and I did – we stopped putting energy into the thing that wasn’t working.
(By the way: Steve is hosting a live Q&A session TONIGHT just for people who pre-ordered the book! If you would like to join us and read the first two chapters of the book two weeks early, join us HowToTryAgain.com for details and next steps!)
A lesson from the beach
If you’ve been to the beach, you’ve probably seen the signs warning of rip currents.
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The absurd thing about them is that if someone pulls you out to sea, you shouldn’t swim AGAINST them. You will exhaust yourself and not win.
Actually you should swim sideways. Parallel to the shore.
And if you can’t escape the flood? Float or step on water.
You don’t get any closer to the beach – but you don’t get exhausted either. Staying calm and staying afloat is the crucial first step to getting back to safety.
This is the P in the PACT framework that Steve writes about in his book – pause.
Not a one-time emergency measure. It’s a skill we can use again and again when needed.
And that’s exactly what was missing from Elliot’s previous attempts. When we revised his plan, we didn’t assume what his “optimal day” would look like.
We began with the question: “How do we stay afloat when life throws us into a rip current?”
This is what most fitness plans are missingand what I saw Strictly speaking work with clients hundreds and thousands of times in Nerd Fitness Coaching.
Progress is not about achieving peak performance all the time, forever. It’s about learning how to switch between periods of maintenance and periods of focused effort.
Ultimately, this is the strategy that leads us to our goal.
I get it!
The appeal of “continuous optimization” and “just give more” FEELS good.
As Steve says:
“Seeing positive movement toward a goal gives us that warm, fuzzy feeling and sense of control that we’re doing things better. And when we’re NOT making progress? We feel like we’re falling behind.”
This feeling is the trap. This is what sent Elliot into an unsustainable sprint every three months.
And science is also on our side.
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We can maintain muscle and strength a third of our normal training volume for weeks.
So if you are overloaded at work and reduce your 4 day program to one short session, you won’t lose ground, you’ll stay afloat. You may not win, but you won’t lose either.
That’s the difference between the yo-yo and the stairs.
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Here’s how to put a break plan into action
When your energy is low, you’re juggling 50 kajillion things, and you’re stressed out – what can you fall back on to keep your head above water?
For Elliot it looked like this:
- A quick breakfast protein shake that he really liked and was easy to make
- A short bodyweight workout (~15 mins) 2x/week
- Push-ups while the coffee brews.
After we implemented this, it stopped crashing after a few weeks.
For you, your “treading water” plan might look like this:
- A shorter version of a workout you already love
- Stock up on protein-rich frozen meals that you can take with you in a pinch
- A brain dump before bed to get everything that’s on your mind onto one page
- Take short exercise breaks throughout the day – 20 squats before lunch, a 5-minute walk before your next meeting, etc.
There is no right or wrong answer here. Experiment to find what works best for you.
Steve has a line I want to leave you with:
“A pause is not a step backwards. Compared to making things worse, a pause is the right next step.”
When life throws you into a tidal wave, you feel the urge to put your head down and swim harder. This is what backfires. Instead, pause and tread water until you are no longer in the current.
You got that. 💪
Still floating,
-Frosted
