You have things the wrong way around

Hey, welcome to the Daniel Clough Podcast. I'm Daniel Clough, and on this podcast I cover the power of building foundational health habits in your life. I also share strategies that can help you build your own foundational health habits so that you can become the best version of yourself. In today's episode, I cover how hard it is to commit to training programs, diets, new behaviors, or quite frankly, making any big and new change in your life. But I have a feeling that you might be making it harder than it has to be. You might just have things the wrong way around. Intrigued? Well, listen on. What I'm going to explain today is going to feel really counterintuitive to you. But if you stick with me through this short episode, you might just realise that the way you've been going about trying to become a fit, healthy, and better version of yourself is perhaps the wrong way around. Have you ever noticed that often the best and the right thing to do is sometimes not what you would expect at all. And only from trying something time and time again with poor results do you out of desperation do something that is counterintuitive, and only then do things finally click. In fact, sometimes the counterintuitive thing that you did isn't even that much of a conscious decision. It only came about after throwing your hands in the air and finally giving up on something, and only then did trying something completely different jump out at you. I'll share an example of something in my own life. I used to be a very detailed goal setter. I'm talking Tony Robbins on steroids. I had 5-year goals for every area of my life, and each goal was broken down into 1-year, 9-month, 6-month, 3-month, and 30-day goals. And I had a very long and elaborate routine each week so that I could plan my week to try and achieve these. I was utterly convinced that this was the right and the only way to be successful and happy. The bottom line? Yes, it helped me be successful at some things, but it was a miserable way to live life. There was no wiggle room for deviation, and I found myself constantly replanning my goals when something changed, which by the way, it always did. In fact, I felt that sometimes I was spending more time replanning my goals than actually working towards them. After reaching peak meltdown for about the thousandth time, I gave up entirely on goal setting. I then went through a no-goals period of my life, which of course was a very counterintuitive thing for me to do at the time, but I was just at my wit's end with it all. That didn't work out particularly well either. It turns out that you kind of need to have a sense of where you want to be going if you're going to organize yourself well on a day-to-day basis. And nowadays I've settled somewhere in the middle, and I think I'm about the most productive and happiest I've ever been in my life. But it did take that counterintuitive action to end the vicious cycle of frustration and poor results. And it's funny how we will try and do something over and over again, even though it repeatedly isn't working. All right, now let's bring it back to health, fitness, and habits. How many times have you tried to commit to a new training program, or diet, or even healthy behavior, but you've only managed to stick to it for, say, like a week? Or perhaps you've lasted a month. Hell, maybe you're one of the lucky ones and you lasted even a few months. But like every other time, you weren't able to stick it out much longer than that. Now, I used to be exactly the same. I tried every training program and diet under the sun, and I could tell you the ins and outs of them all. But I just couldn't seem to make any of them a consistent behavior. I just couldn't get anything to stick. And as a result, well, I didn't get many results. And now I know why. I was going about it the wrong way around. And here's the problem: I just wasn't the type of person who was capable of sticking to training programs, diets, or advanced habits. So it was inevitable that I would only last so long, despite having the best of intentions. Instead of jumping into a new training or diet program or a fancy new habit, I needed to buckle down and build a set of foundational health habits. I needed to build a base layer of capability. Someone who slept well, someone who didn't consume alcohol, someone who moderated their caffeine intake, someone who ate enough protein, someone who was well hydrated, someone who ate mostly whole foods, and someone who walked a lot. I was going to become someone who was highly disciplined, someone who was confident, and someone who looked good and felt good about themselves. Importantly, someone who was capable of doing the things that I wanted to do, and I was going to be super patient about it and take my time with it. And fast forward to today, I now find it easy to train for 2 hours a day. Throughout the week, I'm doing a mixture of weight training, interval training, Zone 2 cardio, walking, and mobility work. I now find it much easier to be in control of my nutrition. I track my calories, my macronutrients—so protein, carbohydrates, and fat—I eat mostly whole foods, and I can influence with a fair amount of precision what I want my body composition to be. And I can only do that now because I went through a process of rebuilding myself. It's the base of the pyramid metaphor that I like to use. The foundational health habits are the base of the pyramid. It's essentially a base layer of capability. And when you build that base layer of capability, you end up building a person that is now capable of doing so much more than a person who does not have those foundational health habits down. And now whatever I decide to turn my attention to, i.e., the layers above, I have a hell of an easier time sticking to them. Whatever type of activity, or diet, or even something in my career that I decide to do, I'm now coming at it from a place of capability. And that's why you probably have things the wrong way around. Forget jumping into new training programs, new diets, or trying to give up or start something new and big in your life. Instead, slowly rebuild yourself. Become the type of person who is capable of making big changes in your life, and build that base layer of the pyramid. Build foundational health habits into your life. If you do things that way around, I guarantee your life is going to be and will feel very different. I'll give you one last example in case you're not convinced. Do you know someone who all of a sudden committed to a big physical challenge? Maybe it was a half marathon or climbing a mountain, something like that. And I say all of a sudden because for that person it usually comes as a bit out of character because they're not usually the type of person that you would associate doing that type of thing. Now, of course, it's very impressive to see them commit to a training program to achieve whatever big physical challenge they signed up to. And most of the time, they are fairly consistent with the training program, and they go on to achieve that big physical challenge, and are very pleased to have done so. As they should be! But now notice— how many of those people go on to consistently continue their training? If your experience is the same as mine, actually very few. So why is that? Well, it's because for the most part, the sheer accountability that comes from committing to it publicly, as well as getting sponsored by close friends and family, helps them put in the work and it pulls them over the finish line. And that's why as soon as that goes away, what they're left with is just themselves and now the option to continue that type of training or not. And for the most part, it usually dies off. And it goes back to what I've been talking about in this episode. They are not fundamentally the type of person who is capable of sustaining that type of training and effort over the long term. The accountability factor catapulted them into it, and it was propping things up all along, and it was only ever going to last for a fixed period of time. Now I want to be clear, I'm not trying to dismiss people taking on big challenges and putting in the work to get them done. It's super impressive. In fact, it's maybe even more impressive given that deep down they had to attack it from a place of not being prepared or being capable to do that type of thing. But what you don't want is hacks. You want to become the type of person that can put in the work day in, day out, week in, week out, month in, month out, and to sustain it over many years. And if you want to do that, you have to build that base layer of capability, discipline, and confidence. You need to build the type of person that can do those types of things that you want to do. And that's where the foundational health habits come in. You have to build that base layer of the pyramid. If you want any help or advice on how to get started with that, you know where I am. Just reach out.