Track everything. If you want to improve something you have to measure it. You do this with your job, why not with your family or your body? Want more time together as a family? Well exactly how much are you getting now? Want to be stronger? Exactly how strong are you now?
Here’s how to start.
Get out a sheet of paper. Write down some goals. These can be anything, but lets work with a fitness example. If you're like most people your goals probably look like this.
- Get leaner
- Get stronger
- Eat healthier
Let’s stop there, those are way too vague and don’t really mean anything. If I get a really back stomach bug and all day long I’m throwing up everything in my stomach plus some… will I get leaner? Yep. If turn into a couch potato, eating whatever I want all day long and gain 50 lbs of fat… will I get stronger? I’ll have to if still want physically move around. And eating healthier? Sure, plain oreos are probably healthier than deep fried oreos. So, step 2, go back and rewrite those into something like these:
- Lose 5% body fat
- Put 40 lbs on my deadlift PR
- Eat more colorful vegetables (other than green ones)
Good, let’s use goal “c”, eat more colorful vegetables. Track everything you can think of that would affect that goal. How many total vegetables do you eat in a day right now? How many of those vegetables are a color other than green? Now add an extra 1 serving/day of non-green vegetables every 3 days… two weeks later, voila! Goal reached.
- Do “A”. How do you feel?
- Do “B”. How do you feel different than when you did A?
Now you have no excuse, set a goal, measure everything that affects it, then succeed.