The side hustle show, one of the many different podcasts I listen to had an episode on time hacking it is certainly worth a listen and if you are interested in the topic of setting up your own business the side hustle podcast is fantastic. One of the topics or ideas in the show that spurred me to “pen” this article was the idea of a new days resolution. The thinking is encapsulated quite nicely in the following quote
It doesn’t matter what happened yesterday, how much of a disaster or mess the previous 24 hours where. We all get a brand new day to act differently, a new 24 hours that we can spend how we want.
This line of thinking or “philosophy” is something that I believe applies beautifully to strength training, nutrition or fitness. It doesn’t matter who you are at some point in time you are going to have a bad set, day, week or month. Training and diet are chronic in nature if you apply yourself to it the way most people who read this blog will then it will affect you emotionally when things aren’t going your way. Diet is even more oppressive when you are cutting weight or trying to get in shape your fitness and health goals become your lifestyle and can be very difficult to unwind from.
It also got me thinking about those who want to get in shape but haven’t joined a gym yet or those who want to get stronger but didn’t have the time to go to the gym today. Life doesn’t always allow us to achieve the fitness goals or the wants in our lives on a day to day basis often outweigh what we want to achieve our nice to haves.
It doesn’t matter how things went today however we can flush it and plan on what we are going to do tomorrow, the day after or the following week. The future is easily changeable all we need to do is plan our actions and carry them out. How do we plan out our future actions….
Figuring out what is important in your day to day schedule.
Rock Tasks – These are your must dos on a day to day basis the non negotiable tasks that if you don’t carry out there will be serious repercussions the next day.
Fitness Rocks the content of which are of course goal specific
- Resistance Training Programme
- Sports Specific Practice (for athletes)
- Conditioning for athletes or people looking to get in shape
- Your whole food diet
- Your sleep.
- Getting a convenient and appropriate training venue
- Hydration
These items are non negotiable and need to be prioritised in your fitness life they might bow to your real life Rock tasks (family and work) but if you want to get anywhere in your training life then you need these Rocks in your day.
Pebble Tasks – These are important tasks but they can be put prioritised out of your day and done later down the road with no or small ill consequence.
Fitness Pebbles
- Conditioning for strength athletes
- Optimisation of nutrition (timing, better food sources etc)
- Recovery Strategies (ice baths, skins etc)
- Mobility / Prehab
- Massage
Pebbles are important but should never be prioritised over rock tasks they make a positive impact on your goal and should be put into your schedule when the Rocks are firmly in place and automatically happening consistently in your day.
Sand Tasks – These are the wants or tasks that might be getting towards optimisation.
Fitness Sand
- Reading articles, watching youtube videos, reading books or further “athlete” education.
- Supplementation
- Specific problem solving programming
- Sports Science implementation (HRV, Bar speed etc)
Sand tasks will add some provable vaue to what you do on a day to day value but are by no means mission critical not achieving them in your day will not hamper you achieving your goal but they might speed up the progress if implemented.
Water Tasks – These are filler tasks, matter of little importance that can add some value towards your end goal but aren’t mission critical.
Fitness Water
- Social Media
- Lifting Videos
- Hodgetwin vidoes
- Crossfit
Water tasks are fun that you can add in when you have some spare time in your day but if you were never to do them then it would make zero difference to your goal achievement.
Making a New day’s resolution.
Forget about waiting till new years day to make a whole raft of new years resolution on your fitness, health and strength goals. Your going to mess them up eventually and will only get to make new ones every 12 months. The good thing about a new day is that there are 365 new starts every year that you can use as a motivator to achieve new goals or targets.
New Day resolutions that will guarantee you achieve your fitness goals.
- Achieve all of your Rock tasks
- Achieve all of your Pebble tasks
- Fit in your sand tasks if you have time
- Fit in your water tasks if you enjoy it.
Seems pretty easy when you look at it but how many people on this website have spent more time on the misc, youtube or t-nation than they have actually training or doing food prep this week? You are the people who this article is aimed at stop filling your day up with water and get prioritising!
Marc
