Ironman Texas, Week 1 Training: DONE

And not without some hiccups, to be sure. As the saying goes: it’s often the start that stops you.

I had forgotten what it was like to make the transition from physically active to training mode and that humbled me last week.

Ironman training is an awful lot like pushing the rock… up hill… and you’re always tired and hungry. In a nutshell, that was my experience last week.

You see, when you start something new, you have probably the most obstacles you’ll ever have in the whole process: logistics to figure out, new time management considerations, new energy demands, changes to your schedule, more sleep requirements but likely less time to sleep… the list goes on.

And because of all those new obstacles, the resistance to change is REAL.

When I was in high school physics class I learned of the law of inertia. It goes something like this: objects at rest will tend to stay at rest and objects in motion will tend to stay in motion, unless acted on by some outside force.

To overcome inertia, you have to create some force in your life. Moreover, the force needs to be big enough or consistently applied to get that ball rolling. Even further: it helps to reduce friction as much as possible.

Here are some strategies I’m finding helpful in my quest to overcome inertia:

Play It Out

When I’m waffling back and forth over whether or not I should do something, one of my favorite strategies is to play out my potential decisions to their logical conclusion. Let’s say I wake up at 5am and I’m trying to decide whether or not to go swim. If I don’t do it, I know that later in the day I will be overwhelmed and frustrated that I have to go after work. I hate that feeling. If I get up and go, I know I’ll feel accomplished by 7am and that working out before work helps me focus. When you put it that way, that decision becomes much easier.

Act As If

When we’re beginning a new goal plan, part of the resistance to adhere to those required steps comes from the fact that we cannot see ourselves as the kind of person that would do such a thing… yet. Rather than thinking “I don’t feel like swimming this morning”, we can start to ask ourselves “what would a serious triathlete do?”. Then, we must act as if we are that person already. When you connect your behavior to the future identity you’d like to have, the gap between who you are and who you want to be narrows quickly.

Time-Block It In

One big trap that I often fall into is not hard-scheduling my training sessions into my calendar. When it’s not blocked off, it’s easy for me to push it off or think I’ll get to it later. But, when I pre-plan and proactively schedule training sessions into my day, I know what to expect for my day and I protect my time and boundaries. Training time is training time… that’s it!

Don’t Let Yourself Off of the Hook

If there is one thing I know about myself, it’s that if something is difficult or uncomfortable, before anything else, I will look to see if there is a way out of it. I found myself doing that a lot this past week. If you’re looking for a reason to not do something, you will always find it. And if you try and rationalize something in your mind, you’ll always find a way. When you notice yourself wanting to avoid the situation, that’s your sign to double-down and follow through. Chances are if your first instinct is avoidance, it’s the very thing you should not be avoiding.

Celebrate Small Wins

Let’s be real… when you’re starting something new, things are not going to be 100% totally and completely perfect. They just aren’t. And if you measure success only according to whether or not you were perfect, you’re going to feel like a failure every time. You have to get granular and look for the wins, even if they’re small. When it comes to overcoming inertia, the small wins matter. In fact, stacking small wins is EXACTLY what gets the job done.