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Envy [Are you making a fair comparison?]
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By the time this Lockdown finishes, we won’t have been in the club for about two thirds of the last year.

Notice we never say we’ve been closed?

We’ve been “purely online”.

I knew right from the start that terms like “closed” would put people in a mindset that wouldn’t help.

Whilst we haven’t been seeing people in person, we’ve been in contact online a lot more.

We always have been, of course.

Our service was never just what happened for the few hours a week that we’d see people in the flesh.

But there has definitely been a lot more ‘virtual’ contact.

On some days I’ve exchanged messages with well over one hundred different people.

And, as often happens, certain themes come up more than once.

It was to do with the time and effort required to do some of the things people were struggling to do.

As many workouts as they might like.

Eating how they considered to be ideal.

That kinda thing.

And we get that.

Life is busy and challenging.

Now more than ever.

But………

What the human brain is very good at doing………

Is thinking we can’t do this theoretically ‘optimum’ version of things………

And deciding the next best thing is, essentially, nothing.

To ‘write off’ that day / week / month.

With a view to ‘starting again’.

When “It’s a better time”.

Which, of course, it never is.

Whilst we might struggle to do this theoretically optimum version……..

They’ll always be stuff we can do.

And the best place to start is usually in the stuff that takes little to no time.

Eating the same as we would’ve but a bit less takes less time and effort (physically) than eating more.

There are near infinite swaps we can make to our food that will drop our daily calories and / or improve some other measure of ‘healthy eating’.

Just because a pot noodle or Dominoes is less effort than a three course meal cooked from scratch, doesn’t mean there aren’t other choices we could make.

I was having an exchange along these lines with a member the other day.

We’ll call him Mark.

Because that’s his name.

Me: “What’s the version of “better” that requires the least (or no) actual effort?

Mark: “Well just substituting bits (I’m definitely going for least / zero extra effort) – e.g. I’d have a baked sweet potato instead of a white potato. In terms of lunch time meals I tend to prep for a few days so it’s there in the fridge”

“Sounds good to me. Anytime it involves much in the way of ‘effort’ it probably won’t happen”

“I think that’s definitely the nub of it for me”

“It’s the nub for everyone I’ve ever known”

And it’s true.

We might be OK putting a certain amount of time and energy into something.

But only when we enjoy that process, to a reasonable degree at least.

We may have lengthy workouts and spend hours cooking – but only when we find that, at least, sufficiently tolerable.

Any time it starts to feel like an effort, it probably won’t last all that long.

Not for Mark.

Not for us.

Not for you.

So – what are the changes you can make that require little to no “effort”?

Much love,

Jon ‘small lump or protuberance’ Hall

Jon Hall
Jon Hall

When not helping people to transform their lives and bodies, Jon can usually be found either playing with his kids or taxi-ing them around. If you'd like to find out more about what we do at RISE then enter your details in the box to the right or bottom of this page or at myrise.co.uk - this is the same way every single one of the hundreds who've described this as "one of the best decisions I've ever made" took their first step.