“Hi Logan. I trust you. I am Claudiu and I can relate to the first part of your personal story with the scrawny kid. Unfortunately I don’t have the faintest idea about the feeling of the second part where you became the man. I am 47 and I am still the kid. Still scrawny and less of a man every day. I promised myself too often I would start but my courage disappears as soon as I gather it up. If I could only buy one program from you, would 80/20 challenge be it? Appreciate it.”
Great question!
If you haven’t already read this article:
It is one of the favorite articles I’ve ever written and based on the response a lot of people resonated with it.
Understand that physical training was the catalyst for what I consider my transformation from boy to man. It is certainly not the only way, but in this day and age, it is an important one.
Now I need to drill down on this statement, as it is the most relevant in there.
“I promised myself too often I would start but my courage disappears as soon as I gather it up.”
I don’t think it is about courage. Courage is facing something that you fear. Do you really fear working out?
There very well may be fear that you could fail once again, but that isn’t fear of working out itself.
Courage is not needed! What you need to gather instead is momentum. And momentum is easy to gather…if you know how. Here is what I mean.
And I’ll use The 80/20 Strength Challenge as an example.
I designed this program to only take one hour a week.
My guess is, based on the story of pasts failures that might be too much for you, Claudiu.
We’ll build towards that but first, let’s gain some momentum.
For the first two weeks, all I want you to do is a single set of each exercise twice a week. Pushups. Bodyweight squats. Inverted rows. Hanging knee raises. Whatever level of strength is suitable to you.
This will take all of about ten minutes per week. And you’re not allowed to do any more than this.
Can you handle that?
Can you make an unbreakable promise to yourself with such a low level of time expenditure really needed?
A big problem many people have is that this shoot for the moon in their visions of the future. The problem is that this can be demotivating. So we’re purposefully going to aim very small.
Basically, it is easier to do this small amount of work, then to not do it.
If that goes well, the next two weeks I want you to bump it up to five-minute supersets. Here you may end up doing three sets or so of each exercise back to back.
Four times a week and this is a commitment of just twenty minutes.
The following two weeks change it to ten minutes each.
And after that to the regular fifteen-minute supersets.
By this time, you’ll have momentum going for you. The habit will be moving.
You’ll be feeling better because, even with this small amount of work, you’ll be feeling stronger and more energized.
You’ll be feeling more like an accomplished man.
…and most importantly, you’ll want to keep going.
That is what I would recommend.
Anyone else can also use this “modified” 80/20 Strength Challenge plan if they need to ease into it.