Finding discipline

Introduction

On episode 657 of the 40+ Fitness Podcast, we discuss finding discipline in your health and fitness journey. 

Your Best Self Workshop – 40plusfitness.com/best.

Episode Notes

Coach Allan:
Hey, Raz. How are things?

Rachel:
Good, Allan. How are you today?

Coach Allan:
I am excellent. Thank you.

Rachel:
Good. That's good to hear.

Coach Allan:
Tammy's back.

Rachel:
So Yay. That's good.

Coach Allan:
So that's been good. And then, yes, I'm I'm in the the throes right now of launching my, workshop that starts in just a few days on on the second. That's a 5 day workshop, and it's for mindset and stuff. So some of the things we're talking about here, if this is an area where you struggle, that's what we're gonna do for those 5 sessions across 5 days. They are recorded. You know, as a bonus, I'll make those recordings available to the folks for a period of time, and there is a community, because I got a a review. The last one I did, I think I did it on a Saturday, and I did it. It it was like 4 hours. The review I got was a 3 star. It's the only 3 star review I've ever gotten. And, she said it was too long, and because no well, she said it was too long. It should have probably been broken up into at least 2 sessions.

Rachel:
Mhmm.

Coach Allan:
And and then she said because none of us none of the participants knew each other, no one was talking. Even though I was trying to solicit their involvement through the chat and through talking, no one would speak up, and she thinks that's because there wasn't a place for them to kinda get to know each other beforehand. So this has both of those. But, obviously, you know, join now. They're they're already in there having their party. So, you're gonna wanna go check it out. But it's at 40plusfitness.com/best. I'm calling it your best self workshop. Basically, everything you need to build a rock solid mindset and motivation to get you wherever you wanna go in your health and fitness.

Rachel:
That's awesome. That sounds like fun.

Coach Allan:
Alright. So what have you been up to?

Rachel:
Good. I I ran this morning, Allan. I ran 7 miles, and I am tired. I need a nap. Yeah. But it was a good run, and I have run club actually tonight. So I'm taking my break, getting my fueling in and some hydration, and I'll be ready to go again later tonight.

Coach Allan:
Yeah. So it's still kinda warm up there.

Rachel:
It is a little toasty, but it's okay. It it'll, I'm enjoying every minute of the summer.

Coach Allan:
Good. Good. Good. Alright. Are you ready to talk about discipline?

Rachel:
Sure.

Coach Allan:
Today, I wanna talk about a word used quite a bit on health and fitness, forums and Facebook groups and things like that, and the word is discipline. So today, I'm gonna help you find discipline if that's what we're really looking for. I'll describe the way this conversation typically goes. So we'll be on Facebook. There's a group. Someone's really struggling. Okay? They can't stick to the way of eating. They can't do the workouts, just, you know, a myriad of different reasons, excuses, if you will, for why they they cannot do what they want to do, and I think most of us can relate to that at some level.

Then somebody will step in and say, you just have to have discipline. You just have to get discipline. And they don't I decided, okay. 1, I don't think that's the right word. I decided I was just gonna go ahead and look it up. Okay? And in the Oxford Dictionary, it defines discipline as the practice of training people to obey rules or a code of behavior using punishment to correct disobedience. I don't want that. Is that what you want? And and I guess what really bothers me when they throw out that statement, you just have to be disciplined.

You have to find discipline or be disciplined. When they put that out there, it's not really helping the individual because the individual who's asking the question wants to be obedient. They want to be able to follow these rules. They want to obey the code of behavior. And so they want these things, but they're not quite there. And so just telling them to do it is like when I say, I don't know how. I can't fly. And they're like, well, just fly.

Just do it. And and you and you again, I if I don't know how to do it, I can't do it. So I wanted to talk a little bit about that because if you feel like you don't have discipline, or that you don't have what you need to be successful, we gotta figure that out. So the first thing is, do you really feel like you need punishment to comply? And I think for most of us, the answer is no. But the unfortunate thing is we have that voice in our head that does punish us over and over and over again. So we are punished when we feel guilt and remorse and shame and all those different things for not complying with a certain way of eating or a certain diet or a certain exercise program or just showing up, and it's just not working. So if you're struggling to eat right, to move right, to do some of these things, I don't think you need discipline. I don't think you need punishment.

I think you need a plan. And today, I'm gonna talk through the steps that you should take to go ahead and get a good plan going for yourself, one that will help you get this done. Okay? One that will get you to a point where you basically are disciplined, if you will. You are obedient. You are obeying these codes of behavior. You've got a plan. You need a plan to get there. So your plan should start with accountability.

Most of us skip this point. We just start doing the thing, and then we stop doing the thing because it's hard. We start doing the thing, and then after a while, we don't see results, so we quit doing the thing. So what you need is you need some accountability. And so who are you bringing on your team? Because this is the team sport. Getting healthy and fit is not an individual sport. Who are you bringing on your team to hold you accountable? Should you hire a coach, a personal trainer, or a nutritionist that you'll report back to? Do you have friends and family that will that will call you out when you're not following through? That you you know, if you've told them you wanna do this and then you don't, they're gonna feel disappointed in you. Do you have those people? Now me, personally, I look for as much accountability as I can get when I'm going into something like this.

And so as you start thinking about your journey, who is there to hold you accountable? Now maybe you're saying to yourself, I can't afford to hire a coach. And the truth is that's just a self limiting belief. You probably can, but what you haven't done is you haven't committed to change. Because when you're committed, you do what's necessary. You make things happen. So let me tell you a little story about what I went through when I was struggling. So I wanted to change. I really did.

And I tried, and I tried, and I tried, and I failed, and I failed, and I failed. And I found myself 8 years down the line in worse shape than I was when I started. I was heavier. I was less healthy. I was less fit, and I was miserable. And then I was on a call with my daughter, and she said to me, daddy, will you come watch me do a CrossFit competition? And that hit me in the gut because I had never really thought of myself as a spectator in her life. I always wanted to be a participant. I wanted to be able to do things with her, not watch her.

And so I sat down, and I I had this and I sat I tell people I do this all the time, and I do. I have this meeting with myself. Okay? And I was asking myself, why is this so hard? Why is losing weight? Why is getting fit? Why is being healthy so hard? And I've done hard things before. I've done some very hard things before. And that's when it hit me. I had committed to those other things. I had not yet committed to this. So when I was committed to doing something, I put in the hours.

I spent the money. So the CPA exam that I took, okay, back then, it was a 4 part exam. The pass rate on that was astronomically hard. It was harder than the than the medical board. It was harder than law bar exam. It was it was the most difficult professional exam I think you could take. There were 4 parts. You took over 2 and a half days.

If you didn't get a minimum score on some of them, you couldn't keep any of them, and you have to come back and take all 4 again. And so I was committed to pass the exam on the first try. And so what did that look like? Well, that looked like every waking moment that I was not working full time, which I had a full time job. I wasn't working or I wasn't in school. I was studying. And even when I was in school, I was taping taking subjects that were gonna be on the exam. So I literally studied every waking moment for 3 solid months. I bought cassette tapes that I could play in my car and under my bed when I was asleep.

I bought some software. It's most at that point in time, it was the most expensive thing I had bought. It was the software that I got to study was more expensive than the computer, and computers were not cheap back then. So I'd financed a computer so I could be at home studying, and I bought this software package, And I could so I could basically take the take the practice exams over and over and over again. I I and I bought all these Gleim books, all these books that I could just they had questions. They had discussion, and I would go through those books every day. That's commitment. That's investment.

Investing time, effort, and money. So when I finally did realize that's what I needed for my health and fitness, I made that commitment. And because of my work conditions that made it difficult, I couldn't really hire a trainer and meet with a trainer all the time, and there were no online trainers. I spent tens of 1,000 of dollars to become a personal trainer, to learn what I needed to know to fix myself. I don't recommend you to go that route. It's easier today. I paid for a session with a nutritionist because I wanted to get my stuff self started. I didn't wanna wait until I was getting into the nutrition part of my education, so I paid for a nutritionist to sit down and and come up with a plan for me.

Okay. I got a DEXA scan, and with that DEXA scan, I had the ugly fat jelly picture of myself where I could see that half of my body was fat. Nearly half of my body weight was fat, and I could see it on that picture. And then I signed up for a Tough Mudder with my daughter, and that's a hard race. I didn't want to let her down. I wanted to do the race with her. I wanted to be that person. I wanted to be a participant doing something I knew my daughter would enjoy that would challenge her and definitely challenge me.

So all of these things that I did there were commitment. And so once I had commitment and some accountability because, yeah, signing up for Tough Mudder and my daughter knowing November we're gonna go do a Tough Mudder, I have to show up. I have to do the work. I did. Okay? So what I want you to do now to start this whole process by building a team that will hold you accountable, And you're going to have to invest in yourself. Nobody's ever gotten there free. They just haven't. You have to invest in either some education and accountability.

You have to invest time, effort, and money. And that's what it's gonna take. If you invest in yourself, you're never gonna regret it. I never have. So make an investment, get the accountability and support you need, and then you're ready for the next step. Now, the next step in the plan is also very important, and this is where you have to put into your headspace that you are the CEO of your body. You're making all of the decisions for your body. You decide your movement.

You decide your nutrition. You decide your thoughts. You decide your stress levels that you're gonna accept. You decide your sleep. You decide all of that. Okay? So as the CEO, if you really wanna make sure this happens, then as a CEO, you've gotta put the things in place that will help you get there. Losing weight and getting stronger is not hard. We as the CEO have not made it easy yet.

Okay. So what are some ways that we can make it easier on ourself? Okay. And then as we're talking about being the CEO, we're talking about self management. So the first thing that you're gonna do is that you're gonna start setting goals for yourself. You're not gonna go at this half baked. You're not gonna say, okay. I'm gonna lift weights a little, and I'm gonna move a little. I'm gonna go to the gym a few times.

I'm gonna eat better. But you you're not measuring that. That's not a goal. You're not gonna do it. Set goals that you can measure and get done, and then just knock them out one right after the other as you progress. The next thing you wanna look at is ways that you can use friction to make this easier. And what I mean by friction is, okay, if I know I have a weakness for cookies, I do not want them sitting on the counter when I get home from work or I'm gonna be eating some cookies. Okay.

I had a a client, and she had a habit. So each day, she'd come in from work, and she would go by and pick up the mail out of the mailbox, and she'd go into the kitchen. She'd plop the mail on the countertop there, open up the cabinet, and start snacking while she opened up the mail. And she realized that this snacking was really making it difficult for her to be successful at weight loss. So what did she do? Well, first off, she didn't go into the in the kitchen to open the mail. She went into the living room, sat at the coffee table sat at the on the couch with the coffee table, and that's where she'd open the meals. So the snacks weren't in her face. That's friction.

Not having the stuff in your house is friction. But you also want to reduce friction for things that you want to do. So having a gym that's 20 miles away isn't really a good idea because there's gonna be days you just don't feel like making that drive. But having one in your house or having one that's really, really close to your house that maybe you could even walk to, that you're gonna drive by on your way to work every morning, that's reducing friction. Coming up with workouts you can do at home, reducing friction. And then the next thing is learning from mistakes. Okay? As a CEO, your business is gonna make mistakes, or things are just gonna happen. Okay? Your your body you're gonna do things that you don't mean to do.

And what you wanna do as a CEO is to analyze that and figure out why it happened and see what you can do to prevent it. So I've told this story before, and if you've heard it, apologize, but I'm gonna say it again. When I was first getting in this, I committed, and I was like, okay. So I'm gonna work out from 2 to 3 o'clock in the afternoon at the gym closest to my house and closest to my work. I lived about an hour away from the gym. So to reduce friction at gyms, I had a gym I had a gym membership in Louisiana where I live, and I had a gym membership in Arkansas where I worked. And then eventually, I built my own home gym because I wanted to. I had 3 gyms, basically, access to 3 different gyms.

So I realized because I would get to work, I would go to get changed for the gym, and sometimes there'd just be something missing from the bag. It might be the t shirt. It might be the shorts. It might be socks. One day, it was a shoe. I had one shoe in the bag, and the other shoe was not in the bag. And I don't know how that happened, but I realized that I was probably subconsciously sabotaging my own self. So that mistake was costing me workouts that I didn't wanna miss, but, invariably, I must have because I kept not packing my bag properly.

So I printed out and laminated a piece of paper that had a list of everything that needed to be in that bag. Everything. And I would sit there each night, and I'd go each down each item that was supposed to be on that that was on that list and make sure it went into the bag. I would pack up the bag, put that list in there, close the bag, and then I would take it over and set it by the door that I was gonna use in the morning to go walk out to the carport. And I would have to step over it to go outside. So it was there. I was gonna grab it, and I I was gonna have it. That reduced the number of times I didn't work out, which meant I was more consistent, which means I got better results.

So learning from your mistakes is a big part of this journey. Don't let them break you down. Look. Don't let them make you fail. Just learn from them and move on. Forgive yourself, learn from them, and move on. Okay? And then the final bit that you're gonna wanna do as a CEO is you're gonna wanna understand who you are because some of us are wired certain ways, and some of us are wired other ways. I'm an all or nothing guy.

Okay? If if I'm on, I'm way on. If I'm off, I'm way off. There's no moderation in practically anything I do. Almost none. And so I can't go in with the plan that I'm going to moderate my sugar intake, or I'm gonna moderate my alcohol intake, or I'm gonna moderate my exercise. Once I start getting into those things, I'm all in. So good or bad, it is what it is, and I need to understand that about myself so that I'm setting up a plan that works with that. I also need to understand my mindset.

Okay? And I have a quiz at 40plusfitness.com/quiz that'll help you find your health and fitness mindset. Most of the time, these mindsets are blocking us. We're these mindsets are stepping in the way, and they're keeping us from being successful. But once you know what that mindset is, you can go ahead and and do some work on yourself and flip that mindset. So what I know about myself is that right now, I'm what I call an atlas. Well, an atlas is someone who needs direction. I need to know where I'm going. I need to have something big or something I'm going toward in front of me.

If I don't, I begin to meander. I I don't feel like I'm accomplishing anything, and I'm not I don't really feel motivated to do anything. So by me knowing that I I need to have some things in front of me, I like to challenge myself with different stuff. And that's you heard the tough mutter. That was that part of my mindset coming out was I want something big and scary in front of me, so I'll do the work because I have a lot of work to do. And I did. You might have a different mindset and need to do something slightly different. So if you go take that quiz, 40plusfitness.com/quiz, takes about 60 seconds.

It's absolutely free. You'll get a free a free report custom for you and your mindset type, and it's gonna give you some guidance on how you can use your mindset as a superpower. And once you tackle that first mindset, you may need to look at some others. I did. And then as you work through those, now you have a plan. And so as you go through this and you realize, okay. I am committed. I have accountability.

I am the CEO, and I'm making this easier and easier as I go, and I'm correcting my mistakes. Then what you're gonna start to notice is that this becomes a part of you. The things that you're doing are a part of your habits and values. The thought of not doing them doesn't make sense to you, and you begin to identify as a healthy and fit person. And as the weight comes off, this is who you are. Okay? And when these guys on the social media, say you need, I you know, discipline, they already identify as someone who does the work. So they don't they don't look back and think, well, I needed accountability. I needed, you know, to commit, and I need it because those things probably happened so early in their life, they don't even remember that happening.

You know, they they probably don't remember a high school coach telling them they need to lift weights if they wanna make the football team. They probably don't remember going out with the team and not wanting to be the slowest, weakest guy or girl. They probably don't remember a lot of that stuff. But all that stuff happened at one point in their life, and then they began to identify as someone who is healthy and fit and eats good food, does the movement, does the things. That's who they are. Now you're gonna do that too. As you get through this, you're gonna feel like this is just a part of you, and it'll be hard for you to understand someone else struggling with it, but I want you to. So don't be asked like they are.

If you see someone complaining on Facebook that they just aren't getting anywhere, realize they just don't have commitment, and they don't have a plan. So I hope this was helpful. Just to kinda summarize this again. As you look at this health and fitness journey, it's not supposed to be hard. Okay? It's not. We make it hard. We make it hard because maybe we're just not committed enough. We're not doing the stuff.

We make it hard because we don't build a team for accountability, and we make it hard because we don't step up and take ownership of ourselves and self manage as the CEO of ourselves. And then we don't do these things consistently enough that they become our values and habits, and we begin to identify as the person we're supposed to be. So if you'll take the time to do this, make the commitment, do the stuff, you will get results.

Coach Allan:
Welcome back, Raz.

Rachel:
Hey, Allan. This was a really great discussion. I mean, discipline is definitely not a super fun word, and the Nike adage, just do it, is just it's not that easy. It just takes time to develop, and I love starting with accountability. I really think that having people in your life that can support you or having, you know, run like, I talk about run clubs all the time. Having something on the schedule and having people expecting you to be there is really a great place to start.

Coach Allan:
Yes. If you can count on them. So a lot of times, I think what people do is they they start out great. They've got you know, they tell someone, I, you know, I want you to help me do this. And the person's like, absolutely. Or, you know, it's a relative or something. You're gonna walk after work. And then something happens.

Coach Allan:
They break their foot. They, you know, their hours change. Something happens, and they're not showing up.

Rachel:
Mhmm.

Coach Allan:
And that support's not there, and then you quit doing the thing. And so if you're going to look at accountability, you have to realize that accountability is a limited resource. It will run out. It will end at some point. You can get into better and better accountability. Obviously, a group is gonna be better than an individual because the individual could go away. If you're gonna hire a coach, you know, how long are you gonna hire them, and what are you gonna use them for, and everything there. So there are ways to get accountability quickly, and then there are ways to make sure that you have a more robust accountability.

Coach Allan:
And so you should be working on that, but don't stop there. You need to start working on yourself, and that's self management and then getting habits and values because we have all these ruts in our in our mind that what we used to do and how we used to do things. And so if you tell your spouse, it's like, I'm gonna eat this certain way.

Rachel:
Mhmm.

Coach Allan:
And they're like, well, I don't really wanna eat that way. And you're like, that's okay. And then they come home with, a very large pizza that's your favorite kind of pizza. And you're like, well, pizza isn't on the plan. I have my food already in the refrigerator ready to warm up and go, and they're eating pizza. And now you're eating pizza. And and so, you know, you gotta realize that some of the accountability and things that you have are actually were pulling you in the other direction. And if you don't set up good structure and you don't get into the, okay, I am the boss myself and setting your own rules and and putting strategies in place so that you know? Because, again, if you came home and had to cook and that pizza's sitting there, you are definitely eating the pizza because you're not gonna take the time to cook a meal.

Coach Allan:
But if you had your stuff pre prepped

Rachel:
Mhmm.

Coach Allan:
It's a little easier to do. And but all this has to be built out, and it has to be built out to work for you. And that's why it's such a struggle when someone will be on there, and they're really upset, and they're they can't understand why they keep failing. Mhmm. And then some dude just pipes up and says, you just gotta have discipline. And I'm like…

Rachel:
If only I have that easy. Right?

Coach Allan:
It doesn't work. Like, it doesn't work like that. Discipline is something that you've earned through doing all these things. Even if you did it when you were a teenager, you don't remember it. But, you know, as a 14 year old walks into a gym and falls in love with the gym and the people there, he had accountability. He had all the guys at the gym that were his friends.

Rachel:
Mhmm.

Coach Allan:
He got and then he got the values and the habits of going to the gym all the time. Had he started hanging out with the wrong kids that were out drinking and smoking, he would have dropped the gym in a minute. Mhmm. And then that would have been his peer group, and that would have been his path. And then he would be in his forties saying, hey, you know, I can't change. I can't figure this out. And someone else would be telling him, well, get some discipline. So that that was just what upset me is I I know I know where folks are coming from when they're struggling.

Rachel:
Mhmm.

Coach Allan:
And, you know, social media can be a harsh, harsh thing. So if someone is out there and you're struggling and you've said something and they're, like, just get some discipline, just don't listen to them. That they're not there to help you. They they think they've got everything figured out. And, you know, I'm happy they're healthy, but it's it's not gonna help you, to think that you're missing something or that something's wrong with you. Because

Rachel:
Oh, yeah.

Coach Allan:
You lack the the willpower and the discipline today to do what you need to do.

Rachel:
Well, it's just not one thing. There is no one magic bullet or one thing that is going to turn the page on anybody's health and fitness journey. I mean, it takes all these different things, and it takes a ton of practice. Discipline, accountability, being the CEO of your own body. I mean, these are things that just do not happen overnight. And and we're all after it. We all wanna get to the end quicker. But as soon as you can just get out the calendar and start putting some things down on paper or a journal or something, like, all of these different things will lead you on the right path towards the right outcome, but it's definitely not an overnight thing.

Coach Allan:
Yeah. And and I think that's the struggle is they they see successful people and think they got successful by doing what they just told you to do, and that's that's not how it works.

Rachel:
Everybody is so unique. We all have our, strengths, and we all have our weaknesses. And we just need to we all take different paths on how to achieve the same outcome, and and that's just being healthier and fitter.

Coach Allan:
Yeah. I'm glad that they're on these forums asking questions because they they're trying to get help. They're trying to surround themselves with people so they're they're at least in the right ballpark for what they need. I just wish there weren't so many people out there, you know, pooh pooh ing what they're trying to do. Right. Like like they're like they're broken. You know? You should just be able to do this. And, you know, too many times, yeah, people will sit there and say, well, okay.

Coach Allan:
I know I need to do this. I know I need to do that. I know and they start doing things, but they're not doing the things that matter, like setting this foundation first and then implementing the things that will get them where they wanna go. But, they just think, well, I know I got a diet, so I'm just gonna, you know, start eating salads every day. And, you know, not that that's a terrible thing, but you'll get 3 weeks into it, and you'll be so sick of salad that…

Rachel:
Oh my gosh. Yeah.

Coach Allan:
And then so you stop eating the salad. Or, you know, someone goes out and says, well, we're doing a lunch order over at the Italian place. Do you want something? You're looking at your pathetic little salad. You know? Like, I want something. And so, again, it's just too hard to do if you don't set these these foundational things in place. And that's why most people really, really struggle with this is they think there's something wrong with them when it's not. It's that's how we're wired and what we're gonna do until we take the time to really establish the structure. And then when we have the structure, it makes it easier and easier, and the longer we do it, the more it becomes a habit and a value.

Coach Allan:
And then, yes, now you're standing there thinking you've got the to do what you need to do. You can say no to dessert with no problem. Mhmm. Say no to pizza with no problem, and do what you do your thing. If if you have these things in place, it that it that gets easier and easier.

Rachel:
It does. It and that's just the point. It gets easier over time. And one of the things you had mentioned towards the end of your discussion was learning from your mistakes. I mean, come on. We all make mistakes. If we know that that's our weakness, if pizza's our weakness or ice cream's our weakness, you know, we can add that, friction and and kind of remove the the make the way that it gets so easy to access ice cream. If cookies are your thing, don't buy the cookies. But it's not that easy, you know? It just takes time to to figure that out.

Coach Allan:
Yeah. Well, you know, they they had these donuts, and and when I get off the elevator, and you could smell them, they just hit you. It's like, oh gosh. And then all the people are at the break room chumming like sharks, and I'm like, okay. They've got spud nuts here. I go straight to my office. Mhmm. I grab a bag of nuts, and then I go into the break room to pour my coffee.

Coach Allan:
And I sit there nibbling the nuts because what I know is that's gonna provide friction. It's gonna keep me away from those those wonderful, wonderful donuts. But at the same time, I also then had a rule. Okay? And the rule was if there were spud nuts in the break room, they wouldn't eat them all. Mhmm. So I so the rule for the rest of the day was I had to if I needed to use the bathroom or I I needed I wanted to refresh on my coffee, I couldn't do it on this floor. I had to go to a different floor. And so that meant I was walking out, walking down down the stairs.

Coach Allan:
I would stay away from our break room because our to go to the bathroom, I'd have to walk by the break room To get coffee, I'd have to go in the break room. So what I found was it's just better for me to walk in the opposite direction, go down the stairwell, and go on the next floor. I end up putting in more steps those days.

Rachel:
Absolutely.

Coach Allan:
And I get a lot more done because I'm, you know, I'm I'm taking my coffee break and my pee break at the same time. Mhmm. So but I get a lot more steps in was the thing. And, again, friction, just putting friction in there, which was Yeah. A learning thing that didn't just happen. That was a practice.

Rachel:
Yep. I love that. It just takes a minute to think of these different unique ways to avoid some of the things that, are weaknesses to us. I love it.

Coach Allan:
Yeah. Alright. Well, I'll talk to you next week. Great.

Rachel:
Take care, Allan.

Your Best Self Workshop – 40plusfitness.com/best.

Music by Dave Gerhart

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