In my last article, I described why we should start exercising, and at the very least, moving more, in order to optimally affect our psychological and physical wellbeing, and to offset potentially negative consequences. It was a relatively brief article and was very straightforward. In fact, I am not sure that any of the information was new, perhaps just a nice reminder or general food for thought—a few readers may have got inspired, a few may have yawned or sighed, and a few may be doing these things already. There is one common denominator between the readers though, and that is that we all know what we need to do already. We ‘know’ we need to move more. After all, that’s what our ancestors did – you know, the ones who walked through the snowy mountains and over the harsh desert terrain just to get a bite to eat, a sip of water, or some shelter. We can also list off the probable consequences of being a couch potato—and children could likely tell you too. We ‘know’ that the ease of various services and technology means that we don’t have to live each day as if it was a matter of life or death (which was pretty good motivation in the past). And yet we still don’t move or exercise. We ignore our health; we take our beauty and any helpful genetics for granted (selfie filters also do wonders for ignoring reality); we make promises to ourselves that we “WILL start tomorrow”; we look at ourselves in the mirror and convince ourselves that we are in better shape than the next person, and we also get stuck on the latest ‘hack’, telling ourselves that in 30 days we “will” be perfect forever more (and we imagine ourselves gloriously defeating any other person who tirelessly works out every day). People around the world spend hundreds of millions on quick fix / massive turnaround promises—whether it be pills, potions, classes, trainers or the like—and yet so many repeatedly lose steam in the days and weeks to follow. Why is that?

Some may say it simply boils down to psychological weakness, a dislike of pushing or exerting oneself, a lack of motivation or discipline, resistance to authority (!), unclear goals and drivers, and so forth. Absolutely, these can apply in certain cases, but I usually see a whole lot of other factors also. First of all, I like to look at a persons’ diet, general habits, and other lifestyle factors or circumstances that may impact their overall wellbeing, energy levels, time management, support systems, and dedication to self-improvement.  Studies often cite the impact of high stress, lack of emotional control, loneliness, irregular sleep patterns, smoking, alcohol, multiple medications, and a poor or unstable diet to be considerable influences in unhelpful coping strategies and ill health also.

On top of that (yes, it keeps going), as psychologists we can’t just meet someone and give them a pill for their difficulty in getting started (I’ve always wanted a magic wand, believe me!). We have to evaluate all the above, and then assess a broader range of information. This could be anything from hearing about a person’s ‘positives and negatives’ from their day / week / month / year / decade / childhood. We also sift through facets of their personality and ego; their background of difficulties, successes and failures including self-sabotage, typical coping strategies, and degree of willingness to take responsibility for problems in their lives; relationships, role models and opponents; traumas, possible projection and transference, value systems, their grudges and prejudices, and cognitive ‘rules’ about health and life … all to make hypotheses and conclusions as to what has prevented them from being the person they want to be, and how to help them overcome their difficulties to achieve it. It’s a complex puzzle to unfurl, even if it doesn’t actually take more than a few sessions to start getting a clear picture, and so clearly a one size theory (eg., “lack of motivation”) cannot fit all. Most importantly, this explains why the quick-fix approaches are often destined to fail. But, ironically, getting started can actually be simpler than one believes.

The majority of people that I meet, want, and likely need, to understand themselves in order to learn how to push themselves forward. If they have excess weight and don’t exercise, it’s usually because they feel they can’t, or they feel that something prohibits them, and so they don’t—and yet ironically they are unhappy because of it. Telling people to “Stop thinking and start doing” or “Go hard or go home” or “Good things come to those who sweat” will only work with a select few. For myself, many things need to be aligned first in order of ease and simplicity, and my goal is always to fly under the radar of the ego in order to get them moving and continuing to move in the longer term. Whilst the following is by no means exhaustive, here are a few small tips on how to get started.

Firstly, whatever it is that you want to do, make it super easy for yourself to achieve and build from there—park all your rules and beliefs about what has and hasn’t worked in the past, and about what is and isn’t possible, and be open to trying another strategy. Get creative. Be adaptable. And create accountability where you can—tell people!

Secondly, people need to be able to get in touch with their own conscious mind—how it talks to them. Do I listen intently when my mind tells me it will be so tiring to go and walk around the block in the heat after a hard day at work when I already have to go and make dinner for the family? And thus do I make the decision to postpone yet again to ease that ‘pain’ (inevitably and ironically resulting in the pain of guilt and perceived failure later?). Or do I listen to it, acknowledge it briefly like a person saying “Hi” to me in the street, and ‘go for a walk anyway’. It is that which will help us start overcoming the most difficult of odds. The ability to step outside oneself and objectively and consciously ask whether what your mind is saying to you is helping you or hurting you. As mentioned previously, there will always come a time that you can no longer deny or avoid the most painful fact of all—having done nothing at all when you had the chance.

You see, you’ll notice how your mind is like a frenemy. One minute it is all soothing and comforting and listing multiple reasons why we need to stay home, get comfy, eat the pizza, drink the drink, and take it easy. It feels so good, and it all works just like the addiction pathways that light up when someone gets a ‘hit’ of whatever substance (like chocolate). Unfortunately, the next minute you’ll notice how the berating-self-talk starts up just as soon as you indulge too much—spent too much time on the couch for the third night in a row? “I’ll always be lazy”. Too much junk food? “I’ll never be healthy”; “See, you’ll never lose that weight / be toned / …..” (or whatever is your weak point). The guilt will then have you making promises to yourself about being better tomorrow….

Taking longer lasting action is about stepping back and rising above that frenemy and learning to love the process you want to engage in (and loving yourself for doing it!), as well as doing things so that your frenemy self doesn’t notice too much. For instance, deciding to drink one glass of water upon rising is far easier than telling yourself you need to drink 10 glasses of water every day, starting tomorrow, for the rest of your life. The former is still safe as such and is thus far more doable.

Of note, I always see that people with firm clear goals who achieve the greatest results, can easily focus on the positive aspects of what they need to do, no matter how difficult it is; whilst someone who is wavering on the path of “I need to / I should …” seem to focus on only the negative factors—the heat outside; the tiredness they feel; the lack of time they have; the fear of seeing someone they know, and so forth. They get so involved in thinking that they think themselves right out of what they want to do. Their value of being healthy (especially if it is not strong) disappears for that moment as they drown in unhelpful words, and that’s when they are no longer ‘conscious’ and will inevitably make unhelpful decisions. When we are not thinking clearly, we are unable to take the right path, nor take responsibility or be fully accountable. This is also when we blame others / life and so forth for why we haven’t got started or kept up. In essence, not being fully present, essentially “allows” people to get away with not truly caring / thinking about their health, for up to years at a time. We need to be more fearful about this fact as a population. Again, it’s about learning how our minds speak to us and turning down the ‘records’ they play based on all our past experiences and so forth. We also need to identify the types of unhelpful choices people make in weaker (yet critical) moments, and teach them more meaningful ways of looking after themselves – ways that resonate so strongly, that the thought of not doing something healthy becomes aversive to them.

In the next article I would like to explore the real difficulties and challenges that those with chronic illness (and their loved ones) can face on a day-to-day basis. Depending on feedback, I may tease apart other relevant aspects, such as what to say to the children when a parent or loved one is diagnosed with illness also. This is not a progression of articles that in any way implies that a lack of exercise or other lifestyle factors are primarily or ultimately responsible for the diagnosis of illness and disease; it is more to show the ‘other side’ of the (oft perceived as boring) encouragement to exercise and be healthy—the reality that is faced when suddenly we don’t have as many choices as we once had regarding our health.