Mental Moment-Chunking Out Time
There are a lot of ‘definitions’ for chunking and one of those that I use quite frequently includes the following: realistically figuring out how much time is appropriate to participate in an activity regardless of what you’ve done in the past, chunking out that time and scheduling it. An example of this comes from a conversation I had the other day with a guy who used to be a competitive marathon runner. Life got in the way and he stopped training and competing in marathons. He’s tried several time to ‘come back’ but feels as though he lost his motivation. Here’s some of the reasons for that:
- He was expecting his mind and body to be OK picking up where he left off…
- because of that he was setting himself up for failure every time he worked out…
- and then he stopped workout.
- losing motivation to potentially ever do another marathon.
When you think about it in that order it does makes sense that he would lose motivation. This is a very common scenario. Even people who have never worked out or run a marathon (many times) have grandiose expectations of what they should be able to do and in a relatively short amount of time. I’ve worked with so many people who have this notion that when they start working out that it needs to be 1-hour. And although this might be you, imagine never having worked out (or not having worked out much) and jumping in for an hour (setting yourself up for failure, stopping working out and losing motivation to ever workout again!) everyday.
Lets get real and be realistic:
- Figure out how much time is realistic based on how much you’ve been doing
- Figure out how much is realistic given your life (work, school, family, social time, etc.)
- Figure out where you have time in your schedule
- Figure out what you can add into your day, i.e. parking further away, taking the stairs, cardio gardening/grocery shopping/house cleaning
And chunk it out:
- I have 10 minutes in the morning to do a few yoga postures
- I have 10 minutes after I put the kids down for a nap to do cardio-house cleaning
- I have 10 minutes to walk
- I have 10 minutes to walk/jog
- I have 30 minutes 2 times a week to go to the gym
- I have 10 minutes in the morning and 10 minutes in the afternoon…
You can also do this with food:
- I am going to start drinking more water: you might start with 8oz a day (versus going for the big gulp 64oz)
- I am going to start eating more fruits: 1 fruit 3 x’s a week (very the recommended amount for each and every day)
- I am going eat less sugar: split desserts or have 1 less dessert a week (very cutting desserts completely out)
One of my clients has been struggling with eating healthy. There are a lot of reasons for this but I have to say that one of the biggest reasons was because he didn’t understand that there were options and that he was in control of those options. For example, lunch was a huge problem. He always wanted to pasta but knew he should have the salad but what he didn’t realize is that he could have a salad with some protein and a small portion of pasta. Everyday he felt deprived. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing (which is another challenging in all of this).
Take control and set yourself up for success! Write it down and check it off!
Happy start of the week!
Dr. Michelle
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