Jack Canfield breaks down why people get stuck planning instead of doing. Schedule activities in the morning, use visible cues like laid-out clothes, find an accountability partner, and make your commitment public. Willpower fades as the day goes on, so act early.
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You know, one of my favorite quotes is from Jim Rohn, who said, you can't hire someone else to do your push ups for you. There are certain things in life you have to do yourself. That might include meditation, exercise, writing your book, practicing the piano, or practicing a speech, or practicing your sales presentation, whatever it might be. There are certain things you have to do. The problem for a lot of us is, is we get stuck in what I call preparation mode. Let's say you're going to exercise more. So you go to the store and you buy the perfect Nike workout gear, or you go to Lululemon and you get the perfect yoga pants and the yoga top and you buy the perfect yoga mat and the yoga blocks that you're going to need to support you. And so we get all this gear and then maybe we go online and we order a program. You know, I did that. I bought Tony Horton's 10 minutes in the morning program, PX90, a qigong program, a yoga program, a tai chi program. I had all these CDs piled up on my dresser of things I was going to do, but I wasn't doing them. And so the reality is we can get ready, get ready, get ready, get ready, get ready, buy a gym membership that we never used. You know, most gyms would go out of business if everyone showed up. We bought a gym membership, you know, by February or March, most people aren't coming anymore. And so the reality is that you've really got to have some tools and some methods to keep yourself in action. I want to share with us some of what those are today. You know, I remember me, I was going to run once and I bought Runner's World magazine. I bought a book on running. I bought the perfect running shoes. But until I put those shoes on and got out in the world, nothing was going to happen. And so I'm going to give you a couple of tips about how to get into action and actually stay in action so you're not just getting ready. Number one, put whatever you're going to do on your schedule. If it's not scheduled, if it's just on a to do list, you're probably not going to do it. And research shows when you're building a new habit. Start first thing in the morning now, maybe get up a half hour earlier. And that's when you meditate or that's when you exercise, or that's when you do your yoga or stretch or your qigong exercises, whatever it might be. You know, most of the people I know that are super Successful, get up early and they'll exercise. They'll usually read for an hour. Many people write for an hour because that's you're really fresh in the morning. You can write and meditate before they write, etc. So the morning is good. And the other thing to do is if you can put something in place that will require you to almost trip over it. Like if you're going to go running in the morning, put your running shoes and shorts and shirt or sweatshirt, whatever, if it's cold outside and put it on the floor so you have to kind of trip over on your way to the bathroom so you are ready to go in the morning. So that's another way to do that. But get it on your schedule. The second thing you want to do is if you can do it with a partner. Like, I started really exercising when I was doing it with my wife. She expected me to show up because I told her I was going to. I used to play racquetball when I worked at the Job Corps Center a number of years ago. Every day after work I would go with my friend Greg and we would go to the racquetball court. And that was a standing schedule and I couldn't back out of it because he's going to be waiting there for me to do it. So same thing. If you're going to go running, maybe there's a person that lives in a neighborhood, you're going to meet them at your front door at 6:30 in the morning. So go ahead and do that. Number three, I want you to go. And there's something called willpower fatigue. That's why, by the way, it's important to start in the morning because as the day wanes on, your willpower actually goes down. And so if you put everything. I'm going to do it at the end of the day. Quite often your day goes longer than you thought. By the time you get home, you're exhausted. All you want to do is fall on the couch and watch TV and really not do the thing that you're scheduled to do. Another thing is to hire an instructor. Someone where you have to show up. Like I have a Pilates instructor where I show up for Pilates class twice a week when I'm in town and she's waiting for me and I'm paying good money to do that. I also have a core fitness trainer that I have. I go to a class once a week. And so that's someone I know who's waiting for me and is teaching me to do it correctly. Especially if you're starting to do things like weightlifting and things like that. You want someone who can teach you how to do it correctly so you're not injuring yourself. And the same with yoga. You know, I actually hurt my back because I was doing yoga exercises with the mentality of me when I was a football player, which is more, is better, stretch further, etc. And there's a certain level at which if you stretch too far, you're actually straining the muscles and the muscles pull back against you actually ruptured a disc in my back. We don't want you to do that. Also make a public declaration of what you're going to do. Research shows that simply by writing a goal down, telling someone you're going to do it, and having an accountability partner to tell if you did it or not increases your likelihood of achieving it by about 37%. And so just three simple things will help you make sure you get it done. So finally, give yourself a reward like you have a process. I'm going to do aerobic exercise or I'm going to run, I'm going to get on the elliptical every morning. That's a process goal. And you have a results goal, something you want to do. I want to lose weight, I want to get more fit, I want to buff up, I want to be more relaxed, whatever it might be. And then give yourself a reward at the end of a, say a 30 day or a 60 or a 90 day period. If I do that, I'm going to buy that thing I want. I'm going to go to this great restaurant, I'm going to, you know, go to the spa for a day or get a facial, whatever it might be. And then also build in a consequence. One of my friends made the commitment that he was going to learn to dive. Now he's Jewish and he made the commitment that if he didn't learn to dive by the end of the summer, which was August 30, he was going to write a check to the KKK, the Ku Klux Klan, for $1,000, an organization that he abhors, some group that doesn't like Jews. And so that was such an abhorrent thing to have to do. And he made sure he got the goal accomplished. So building a reward, building a consequence, have an accountability partner, make sure you start it, if you can, early in the morning, do it with someone else, if possible, have an instructor. And I promise you, if you do these things, you're going to get more done and you're going to be really happy that you did, and you're going to be more fulfilled because you've achieved your goals. Hey, thanks for watching today and if you like what you saw, make sure to like it, share. Share it with a friend who may need it and subscribe to my channel if you'd like to receive more videos like this, and if you'd like more information about the topic we talked about today, go to my website@jackcampfield.com for some resources that you can use to apply even more of what you learned today. Thanks again for watching. Sa.
