Fitness Goals for People Who’d Rather Have a Nap

I actually started writing this yesterday (Sunday) because I needed a distraction. My anxiety was through the roof, and the thought of work on Monday was sitting heavily in the back of my mind. I didn’t want to think about it, but I also couldn’t stop thinking about it.

I’m tired. Tired of trying to help people. Tired of feeling like no matter what I do, I’m wrong in someone’s eyes.

I briefly wondered if maybe I should just become a health and fitness influencer and start charging you all for the privilege of being my therapists so I could quit my day job. Then I could spend my days talking about how I transformed my life through mindset and visualisation while sipping a matcha yerba mate latte with almond milk and doing yogalates or whatever the latest wellness trend happens to be.

But instead of spiralling about my anxiety and questioning all of my life choices, I figured I should focus on the topic of today’s post. Since it’s Monday, that means motivation, or at least my very broad interpretation of it.

In the last series, I looked at breaking a habit that I’d outgrown. This month is about rebuilding a habit I actually want back in my life. I’m going to look at what the experts say about habit formation and compare it with what has historically worked for me.

The Surprisingly Effective Art of Half-Arsed Success

I was dreading work today because it is a daily slog of endurance draining my mental currency and my willpower. So if I’m going to re-establish a fitness habit this month with a pinned ankle and a mutinous mind, I have to use the counter-strategy to the one I talked about last month: reducing the friction and drastically reframing what actually counts as a win. Pre-break, a workout didn’t count unless I nearly died on the floor. To re-establish this habit without burning out, I need to lower the bar to a realistic level.

The guru of habits, James Clear, talks about the ‘two-minute version’ of a habit being the minimum standard for success. For me, my inner Army Corporal will absolutely not allow a pathetic two minutes, but he will accept 10 minutes with my heart rate elevated. At least 4 days per week.

An Exhausting Internal Meeting That Should Have Been an Email

To ensure I achieve this goal (at the very least) I need a clear plan. Previously, I just ‘winged it’. I’d wake at 4:00 am and try to decide then and there whether I was going to the gym right then, on the way to work, during my lunch break, or after work. This is a monumentally bad idea. It usually goes a little something like this:

• 4:00 am: The alarm screams.
  • Tired Brain: “Let’s sleep now. The floor is cold, the car is cold, I am cold. We will crush a workout at lunch and be way more efficient.”
  • Inner Corporal: “Do not approve. But will accept. It better be a high-intensity soul-crusher.”
• 12:30 pm: Buried under emails and workplace anxiety.
  • Tired Brain: “If I leave my desk right now, the building will catch fire. Let’s push it to 5:00 pm. A post-work decompress makes way more sense.”
  • Inner Corporal: (Slightly weaker) “Tactical retreat. Hit it hard at five.”
• 5:01 pm: Sitting in the car, staring blankly through the windscreen.
  • Tired Brain: “I will actually weep on the rowing machine. I’ll go home, get an early night, and do a double session tomorrow.”
  • Inner Corporal: (Completely unconscious, defeated by decision fatigue).

James Clear points out that by not locking in a time, I was forcing my anxious, burnt-out brain to host a hostile hostage negotiation with itself all day long. By 5:01 pm, the willpower bank was completely bankrupt.

PT APP: Because I Can No Longer Be Trusted with Decisions

But getting through the gym doors is only half the battle. Once I’m actually there, a second, equally dangerous trap is waiting for me: sheer boredom. Right now, with a pinned ankle, I can’t just throw myself into a chaotic, high-intensity circuit to get a quick dopamine buzz. If I walk into the gym without a very clear routine plan, my brain looks at the machines, gets overwhelmed by what I can’t do, and decides everything is an exhausting chore.

So, I’m channelling Goldilocks and finding a challenge of “just right” difficulty. If a workout is too easy or repetitive, I’ll get bored and quit. If it’s too complicated for my current physical limits, I’ll get frustrated and quit. I used to use an app called Ladder, which I absolutely loved, but the workouts unfortunately don’t cater for the broken. So I Googled, and I’m going to try a new app called FITBOD, where supposedly you can tell it exactly where you are broken and it will tailor your plan.

Hopefully this will make it easy. Instead of standing around getting uninspired by rehab weights, I plug in the headphones, turn on the app, and my inner Corporal can sit back and chill while the App PT takes the reins. The routine is locked in so I don’t have to think—the dopamine hit will just have to come from ticking off the boxes and tracking micro-progressions, rather than waiting for magical inspiration to strike.

With the what sorted out, here is the when. My plan for this week is:

• Monday & Friday: On the way to work.
• Tuesday: A 4:00 am session.
• Wednesday: Dependent on how the kids are going and what my schedule looks like on the day. If not too crazy, this will be my lunchtime session—otherwise, it’s a 4:00 am-er.

Let’s see how that plays out this week. If it works, I will continue. If not, I will adjust next week.

I’ll report back next Monday on whether the system held up, or if my inner Corporal lost the battle to a plate of evening toast. Wish me luck.

(P.S. Sorry for all the Simpson Memes – was just one of those days!)