Optimize Movement: How to Overcome 5 Barriers to Fitness & Movement | Ft Ashley Negron

Welcome to the Optimizing Beyond podcast. I'm Josh Nagron, and this show is all about sharing lessons, ideas, and strategies that sharpen your thinking, strengthen your habits, and push you to grow beyond comfort zones. Let's dive in. Welcome back to the show. Today we want to talk about optimizing your movement, fitness, And staying healthy in today's day and age where America is arguably in the worst shape ever. And as we age, I think we're starting to see people pay the consequences of their bad decisions, especially in health and in lack of movement over time. These are the kind of things that can compound and you can really start to see the consequences of people's daily decisions that have aggregated over decades now and can really have severe consequences to people's lives. And then also something you said to me that I has stuck with me for a long time of people will say that they're willing to die for their family, but are you willing to live for them? So let's get into it.

Yep.

So starting out, I think there are 5 big barriers to getting people into regular movement. And those 5 are pain and discomfort, of course, having time or making it a priority, all or nothing thinking that's fueled by perfectionism, Confusion of what to do or discouragement when you don't see the results that you want. And lastly, isolation, not a good support group or good community to help fuel those things. So let's get into those. And so Ashley, both of us not coming from an athlete or physically fit childhood, what of those 5 is the ones that were the biggest hurdles for you?

Yeah, I think initially for me, it was that whole like pain and discomfort thing, because I hadn't grown up learning how to push physically. In fact, I pretty much hated anything that had to do with any kind of physical movement for a long time. Yeah, learning to be in pain and to be uncomfortable and to learn to embrace that. And then I think there was this whole, what's the right word, self-consciousness element to working out that I felt like people were going to be judging me or being like, oh look, she doesn't know what she's doing, she doesn't know how to use that machine, or she can't run very fast, or whatever that it may be, right? Like that self-doubt, that self-critical component that so so often keeps us from, um, taking that step and, and doing that. And so I think initially for me, you know, those were, those were big barriers to that. And in fact, in my early mid-20s, I was having a lot of physical joint issues and was spending a lot of time at the chiropractor. And I'll never— and I had put on, um, you know, a decent amount of weight. And I'll never forget him telling me that if you don't figure out how to start physically moving and being physically active at this current pace, you're going to be crippled by time that you're 50. And I was like, yeah, no, I'm not. And so that was kind of that whole smack in the face for me, right? Like that— are you willing to live for your family, right? Like, I didn't want to put you in that position at 50 years old, that I'm crippled and we can't go do things and we can't go enjoy things because I haven't taken care of my body. And so that was a turning point and a very pivotal fork-in-the-road moment for me to decide. I have to make a conscious decision to do something about it.

Hmm.

Um, you know, and, and that moment is gonna look different for everybody. And, and in that, like, I asked a couple of friends like, hey, would you start like working out with me? And it was like, okay, cool. We're gonna go like 3 days a week and we're just gonna walk laps. Like we're gonna go to the gym and we're gonna just even like walk laps and talk and turned it into something fun, right? Because that was time together, but it was physically moving and doing something. And then it was like, okay, well now we're gonna go do some weight things. And, and you guys just showed us how to do some things with the weights. And so it was— it's finding somebody and then just choosing to embrace the suck, really.

Yeah, I mean, I'd say for me too, like, I— in high school, I was— I didn't play any sports throughout school. We moved every year to 2 years, so there wasn't really any connection to any sports programs because, again, we were constantly moving. And so the only thing that was constant was band. And so there wasn't a lot of physicality to that, obviously. And so I think for me, it was the being worried what would think. So when I graduated high school, I was probably barely 5'5 and was 120, 125 pounds, skin and bones. And so I still remember my freshman year of college when a couple guys on my floor were like, hey, want to go lift? I'm like, I don't even know what that means. And so bench pressing the bar, like the barbell, and I remember 45 pounds being heavy and then starting out with 5 pounds on each side. So I'm sure Donnie and Matt would remember those days. And so I think for me, once I got over— because I had somebody that asked me to go, like you said, that group is so important. They were experienced, they knew what they were doing. And so I think for me, not feeling the judgment and having them being willing to teach me things, I think that took that fear away. And then when you're first starting anything, the rewards can start to stack up, right? You can start to see progress, especially when you're starting from nothing. And so, you know, having hardly any muscle mass whatsoever, you can start Especially as a guy, start to see that build, that there's a little bit of addiction that comes with that. And you're like, oh my gosh, this is awesome. Like, how much more could I do? And you start eating more and all those things. But you said something earlier that I think is a very important reframe that people need to consider, because we talked about those 5 barriers to working out. You know, if you have one in those categories, or maybe one that we didn't mention, you know, please share it in the comments. So the reframe is, you know, choose your hard, right? Yeah. So yes, some sort of movement, any type of movement is typically not easy, especially when you dial up the intensity and the difficulty over time so that your body doesn't get used to whatever you're doing. But if you make the choice, the conscious or unconscious choice to not move regularly, then you're going to have a different kind of hard. Like you were describing that the chiropractor was like, hey dude, if you don't get this in check, your second half of your life is going to be Right. Wicked hard, right?

Yep.

And so I know a lot of people talk about the conversations that they have with their doctors in their mid-30s or 40s where the doctor is having this come-to-Jesus meeting with them. Thankfully, you had one in your 20s, which is awesome. So I think that people don't always have those conversations early in life, and then they're smacked with it later. Maybe they have a stroke or a surprise heart attack, or maybe some concerning labs where the doctor's like, hey, these markers are crazy. If you don't get this in check, bad things will happen. Sometimes there can be a blessing in that, where someone will make a life transformation. But if you don't, what kind of hard are you going to be faced with? So we like to say choose your hard, right? Choose the hard now, eat the frog now, and finding a way of movement that, that you can stomach, per se, and, and keep your health in a way where you can still have quality movement in your, what they, you know, in your golden years.

Right? Yeah. Well, that makes me think like a few years ago, we went on a trip to Zion National Park and had actually climbed the Angels— Angels Landing there in Zion. And that was— yeah, that was one of the more physically tough things that we've ever done.

Super tough.

But the crazy thing is, is that a couple of days later, we were on one of the trams going to a different part of the park. And there was an older gentleman who was chatting with the people next to us. And they were asking him— he was by himself. And they were asking him, hey, what are you doing? What have you been hiking? He's like, yeah, no, I just— I hiked Angels Landing yesterday. Oh my gosh, that's crazy. Well, how, how old are you? He was in his late 70s and he had hiked Angels Landing the day before. And he's like, yeah, I try to come do this every few years. Right. And then a couple of years ago, my running partner and I met a gentleman while we were running a half marathon who was in his early 70s and he had never ran before, but his son was running the marathon. And so he decided, you know what, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do the half marathon. And he was walk jogging and we stayed with him. For a majority of that half marathon. And so that's, that's the kind of physically what I want to do now that's hard. Yes. Like getting up early, making the time for that, being disciplined. It's hard now, but I want to be able to go do things when we are older. I want to be able to go on trips with our nieces and nephews. I want to be able to bend over and pick up something because I dropped it. I want to be able to go up and down stairs. I want to be able to get up off the toilet, right? Like those are the kinds of things that you, you train for now so that as we get older, life, life is a little bit easier. They actually say that your amount of muscle mass in your legs is a direct predictor to longevity of life. And so—

That's right.

Put in, put in the work, do those things for such a quality of life later.

Not to get too deep into some rabbit holes, but that claim by a lot of doctors recently has been huge, that muscle mass is a huge indicator of longevity. potential. And so I think that's important for all people to understand. I think women get nervous to do weights and those kinds of things. I think if you dig into the physiology, you'll understand that it is not possible without drug intervention for a woman to get wicked jacked if they do weights. Biologically, that's not how it works. So if you are a woman that is avoiding And you're like, I'm cardio only because I don't want to get big. Like, that's not going to happen. I mean, you can, you can YouTube spiral for hours to know I'm right. So, but if you just want to take my word for it, you're good. Weights is super important for your skeleton to get denser and stronger. And for, for women, it's going to be your muscle mass is going to get denser, not, not, not bigger typically from a size perspective, but that density is also going to help you with that longevity factor. For the guys, similar concept. It's going to be density and size, but the more you can do weights as a part of your routine, that's why it's important. So you see ratios and there's, there's so many different things that you can do. And getting into the nitty-gritty is not what we're going to cover today, but strength has to be a part of the formula. If you are cardio only, you're going to be missing a dynamic component of that. I used to be strength only. Now I do CrossFit. I do enjoy the mix because the focus started changing. I referenced in one of our previous episodes, Matt Johnson.

Yeah.

I remember he made this this transition before me. So he used to— he's, he's one of the guys that got me into weightlifting. And I was a little frustrated when he stopped lifting because he's like, well, I want to get into like cardio and like running. And I'm like, this guy, like he's getting into all this stupid stuff. I was not interested in cardio whatsoever. But cardiovascular health has its importance too. So it's this thing of, of trying to, trying to blend the things. But, but yeah, strength is so important.

Well, and what's funny is I would say I was actually the opposite. I started more in the cardio world and then added the weightlifting and realized like, oh, my cardio actually got better once I started lifting and I was stronger. My, my mile times got so much faster and I could go longer and farther because I had been doing the weightlifting and because I had done that. Being able to actually end up deciding and training for and running a marathon would not have been possible had I not been doing the weightlifting beforehand.

Mm-hmm.

My body would not have been able to have sustained that amount of mileage and time and all of those things. So yeah, you definitely need both of those things in order to be healthy.

Yeah, no, absolutely. So I want to run through some, some 5 best tips for someone who's looking to get into movement more in their lives. The first one we picked was getting into something that you enjoy, or what I could maybe classify as most tolerate. So share with us like how this helped you get into movement, especially both of us growing up not having that be a habit or anything of importance.

Yeah, well, like I mentioned earlier, I think my fitness journey started with just like walking with my friend Tammy, right? And so we both had decided like, hey, we need to get healthier, we need to lose some weight. And so, hey, let's do that together. And so we just started walking laps around the gym on the walking track, and then we added doing some weights. And then a bunch of us decided that we were gonna run the Joplin Memorial 5K altogether. And then a group of us girls decided like, oh, hey, that was okay. We did that. Like, let's train for a half marathon. And so started running and training, and there was a whole crew of people together, right? And I think that for me was what— I didn't necessarily love the running component, but I loved the community element of learning to do that together. Now, we weren't all the same pace. We didn't all run the same mile times. We all did different cadences, whatever that looked like, right? But we all met at a friend's house that was right by the trail at a certain time on a weekend, and then we'd all go out and run at the same time. We'd finish at different times, but then somebody else might come back and say, hey, let me finish running with you. I'm gonna, you know, put in a little bit of extra or whatever that that looks like. Um, and it, it was so much easier to do together. And I actually found like, I enjoy this, you know? And that was in, um, 2012. And since then, um, I've ran More half marathons than I can count. And like I said earlier, like trained for a full marathon and still like actually have figured out a cadence and enjoy running and have set some running goals for myself for, for 2026 at almost, you know, approaching 41. I would've never imagined that I would still be doing that now. And so yeah, it's finding something that, that you can tolerate, whatever that, that looks like. Right. And so yeah, just, I don't know. I've had to learn to embrace, as we say, like in CrossFit, like Just embrace the suck. Like, it's gonna suck, but it's for a short period of time. It's what, not even an hour in your day? Like, do the hard thing.

Yeah.

Your day will be so much better because you've done the hard thing. And, and sometimes you, I don't know, it just have to show up and you just have to do it. You don't have to like it, but you know, in the grand scheme of things, in the, in the long, in the long term, that that's the best decision that you could make is just to show up and just to do it.

Yeah. And that's number 2, like embrace the discomfort, embrace the pain, which, you know, is easy to say, but there is some brain mechanisms that help you at the end of those things. When, when we engage something that's, that's not going to be easy and we see it through, there is a dopamine reward at the end of that.

Mm-hmm.

Um, I know some people, they, they're able to tap into that very effectively. And other people are like, no, I'm good. You know, but if you're able to tap into that, it can be a very powerful thing. I can tell you that almost every week there's at least one MetCon, one workout that I, when I'm in the middle of, the fight or flight activates and I'm like, man, I don't really want to finish this. And I don't care what anyone thinks if I just walk out of this place. But I can tell you that when I don't, and I, you know, when I, when I choose not to do that and to see it through, Then in a certain respect, there's something cool knowing that, especially in the morning, which is why I like to work out in the morning. There's something really cool about knowing you just tackled the hardest, likely the hardest thing that you're gonna engage with that day and you saw it through and that everything else is gonna be easier. Like there's just, there's something cool about that that I think is pretty powerful. Number 3 is just start, right? You mentioned that you just started walking with Tammy. So a lot of people ask me, for fitness advice, you know, hey, what should I do? And it's sometimes tough to answer that question 'cause it depends on that person, their previous experience, their current physical capabilities, and also their motivations and discipline. And so, I kind of have to answer that custom for everybody, but starting small is a lot of times a big part of my advice, right?

Mm-hmm.

So, I have the pleasure of knowing a good number of people who have lost 50 to over 100 pounds in the last 3 to 5 years, And these people have been incredible. And a lot of them, I wanna say probably over 70% of them started by walking. And that is so incredible. And they just started stacking things, maybe started walking for 15 minutes, then 20, or speeding it up. Or there's so much variability that you can do. It's starting small. I like to say it's to get away from the all-or-nothing mentality. Right?

Correct.

It's like, well, I have to do this for a billion hours and I have to do it every single day. And you set just all of these, it's akin to when people say, this drives me crazy, when people are like, I'm not eating dessert ever again. I'm like, what is going on? No, that is not the right, it's not sustainable. Like, that's just so crazy. So, doing that in fitness is just as dumb. So, I really think start small, whether, you know, let's, for example, I'm gonna walk for 20 minutes at a good clip listening to, you can build entire, playlists that are a certain beat per minute.

Mm-hmm.

And you can like, I'm gonna walk to that, to, to all of these songs in my playlist. And then you can bump it up. Now you can integrate Spotify and, and Apple Music with your ChatGPT, and you can say, hey, make me a playlist of all of these beat per minute. And then when you get that to a good spot, you can be, okay, now make me one for a little faster. And you can commit to that. 20 minutes, 3 days a week. Boom. Done. Then when you're like, I'm bored, or that's too easy, I'm not challenged anymore, then we can look at spicing it up.

Yeah, starting small. Jelly Roll has been talking a lot lately about his transformation and in losing so much weight, right? And he had Dr. Gary Brecka help him with this weight loss transformation naturally, right? And they talk about like the first thing that Gary told him to do was to walk to the mailbox and back. That was it for the first like week. It was literally walking to the mailbox. And then it was, okay, now we're gonna walk to this light pole and back, and now we're gonna do this and back, right? And so it literally, like, he just started by walking, and then he started walking up the hill, and then he started walking down the hill, or he, you know, whatever that it was. And there's so many videos that you can go and, and watch Jelly Roll talk about this journey, but he did— he just started small with that one little thing, right? That was the only change that he made, was he got up and he started moving. And then he started habit stacking. We've talked about habit stacking before. In other podcasts, and so you don't want to just make this whole like declarative statement, right? And just saying, "Oh my gosh, I'm gonna go from nothing to five days a week in the gym, and I'm gonna start eating healthy. I'm gonna do all my meal prepping. I'm gonna do all these things, right?" You have literally just set yourself up for failure. You're you're gonna make it like three days before you're like, "Yeah, forget this. This is too much work," because you've you went from completely one way to the other in in the snap of a finger, and. That's, that's too much for most of us. We don't have the habits and the patterns built in to make a dramatic change like that. So pick one thing. Say, I'm going to go walk XYZ, or, I'm going to do whatever. And then maybe it's also, in addition to the movement, there's one food choice that you make. One small thing, just one. It doesn't need to be this whole dramatic. And then when you tackle that, you start stacking little things on top of it in that continual movement. Yeah, the all-or-nothing approach doesn't work for most of us. The cold turkey, the dramatic lifestyle shifts just, just don't work for most of us. So start small.

It's true. Now, the 4th one is tie it to something meaningful. Now, this can be something with to do with your kids or your spouse, or if you have enough self-respect and self-love, maybe even for yourself. And so one of my favorite stories is one of my dear friends was getting his life together. He's lost well over 100 pounds now. And it's just so incredible to see that transformation. And he was putting in a lot of work in the evenings typically, or he would do it in the morning, but have to go to bed earlier with the family staying up. And so it was eating into his family time basically. And I remember that it was causing some friction in the family and his youngest daughter walked up to him one day while he was working out and she says, hey, why are you, you know, why are you doing this so much? You know, 'cause she recognized that it a big time commitment. And he says, well, I want to be there to walk you down the aisle someday when you get married, versus not being able to be there, and someone else having to do that. And she was like, okay, thank you. And then that was it. But that tiny moment was something that was so powerful for him. He was like, man, and she appreciated it. And that was just a moment that I'm sure he'll never forget. And so tie it to something meaningful. If you're not going to do it for yourself, if you're not quite there yet with your With your confidence or the way you look at yourself, if you've still got a little self-loathing formula to work through, then maybe you do it for someone you love, right? If you're not gonna do it for yourself, do it for them and use that as some fuel. I don't know if it's always the best fuel depending on, you know, where you're getting it from. If it can spark you into some movement, I'm okay with that. And so find that motivation, whether it is, yeah, to be there for your spouse, like you said, in older age, or be there for your kids. We saw when we went to Alaska on our Alaskan cruise, I think we brought down the average age on that ship.

Yes.

But it was cool to see a lot of families were doing like this multi-generational thing, right? Like where the, you know, the, the, the grandparents were there, the parents, and then the kids. And so to see 3 generations on that ship, and there was definitely a different assortment of capabilities there. There were some that all 3 generations could do cool experiences together, and then there were some where they were pretty limited. Props to them for going anyway, but there's definitely that quality difference that we could observe, right? Yep.

Yeah, I'll never forget sitting at breakfast and the family behind us was planning for a hike that day, right? And there was, you know, 3 generations sitting there, mom, dad, Grandparents and the kiddos, and yeah, they were taking a baby and they were going to go hike around and were figuring out the trails and all those kinds of things. And so it was just really cool to hear that you know that this this family was choosing to to be physically active and that the grandparents were were capable of that. You know, we take trips where we we want to be physically active. We always say that we walk so we can eat and laugh about it, but it's it's partially true, right? Like I want to be able to be physically active so that when we take a trip and I need to walk 20,000 steps a day or go hike a marathon over 3 days, like, I am physically capable of doing that. I may be tired and I may be exhausted, but my body can keep going. You know, there's so much that you miss out on if you're not physically able to move.

Hmm.

And I am so grateful for that chiropractor who looked me in the eye and said, hey, I want more for you than where we're at right now. right now. And, and that I listened, that I chose to do the work, and, and now can go, oh yeah, like, I'm, I'm so glad. Look at the things that I've accomplished over the last, um, well, you know, now this would have been like 15 years, um, the things that I've done and the goals that I've set and the things that I've been able to accomplish that never— I, you know, without that push and that shove, I don't know that I would have naturally done that on my own, right?

Yeah, no, absolutely. And that leads into the last one of Yeah. Finding a community to do movement with. I think we've touched on that. And that's what got both of us started, finding a class or a club or even a group. Pickleball is like all the rage right now. I mean, it's negative degrees outside with the wind chill today with like 8 to 10 inches on the ground. But, you know, finding a type of movement that you can do with others is something that can naturally build that community aspect. Also, that that need for not being alone. But then also, it forges relationships. And it also has built-in accountability where people are like, they're looking for you. And they'll miss you when you're not there. And then they might even ask you, hey, where were you yesterday? You didn't make it. And so like, I was going to partner with you with that, and you weren't here. And, you know, there's this feeling like, oh, man, I got to be there. And so that can— I think we could talk for hours about how the community aspect has been been really powerful for us. We spoke about a couple episodes ago about how CrossFit, we found a lot of amazing, meaningful relationships over the last 8 years doing that. And so it can be something that'd be super rewarding for you.

Absolutely. Yeah. The community element of not doing it by yourself is so, so important. So don't be afraid. Like, if you're someone who is physically active and you're into fitness, like, invite people to come along. Be like, hey, do you want to, you know, you want to come with me? Like, my gym's offering a free week or whatever. Most gyms have that kind of a bring-a-friend thing. And so just—

Mm-hmm.

Show up, invite, invite people. Um, try, try new things, try learning new, new skills. You never know what may be something that you truly enjoy. You know, our friend Trey is the one who got us into pickleball, and I was like, pickleball? I'm not a racket sport kind of a girl. I have no hand-eye coordination, whatever. Turns out It's so fun and it's something that we've been playing now for a couple of years. And as it's happened, like we've gotten more people into it and brought people along. And now there's this whole crew of us that play together and have a blast doing it. The community that we have built as a part of that is just something that's been so, so fun and those relationships that have been forged. And so yeah, find people to do it with and try. Don't be afraid to try new things. You genuinely never know what it is that you may find. enjoy. Yeah, CrossFit and pickleball are 2 things I never ever thought in a million years. If you'd have told 20-year-old me we'd be doing those 2 things, I would have laughed at you. Don't— yeah, don't be afraid to try it. Try new things.

Yeah. And, and that's something that I was thinking about earlier, to not be afraid of the evolution and the change. I mean, decades ago, what I was into was strictly lifting and racquetball. And I played racquetball every single day in college. It was awesome. And it was something that kept my ligaments strong and I was able to get my heart rate up because, you know, straight lifting wasn't doing that. I made fun of CrossFit for probably 15 years before I actually started it. I was like, oh, you're just gonna hurt yourself, you know, whatever. So don't be afraid of having different seasons of fitness either.

Absolutely.

So sometimes you're like, no, I found what I love. I'm gonna keep doing it. Perfect. If staying in your lane is what keeps you moving, awesome. For those of you who get bored with it and you're like, man, like I'm just tired of this. This is beating up my body. you know, sometimes doing the, the same type of fitness for so long, it's— you'll see certain athletes, especially in the elite level, you'll see certain athletes start to cross-train certain things, and then they get even better at their select sport, right?

Mm-hmm.

They're like, oh, this, uh, this Olympic runner started doing some, some lifting or some whatever. Or I think of, uh, Michael Jordan when he, uh, was getting destroyed by the Pistons over and over, and he's like, no, I need to gain some weight. I need to do some weight training, and this will help change my body in a way where I be more dominant in the sport. So don't be afraid to explore different types of fitness if you're getting bored. The same thing can make you feel overwhelmed. And so what's, what's beautiful about it is with fitness, there's so many different things you can do that the options can be paralyzing. But also, if you get bored, you got options. So it can kind of help you on both sides. So find something that you enjoy or at least tolerate. But then also, like, if you get bored with it, that's fine. There's like a billion different things that you can do, and you don't have to do them alone. So it can be so, so powerful. So towards the end, I want to transition into the mental component of, of movement, right? Because what you said to me was that our bodies are an outward expression of our minds. Can you kind of walk me through what you were thinking about when you said that?

Yeah, I think so. This is just a reflection of my own life. When I am dialed in, and I am really like working on my fitness, I I notice that my mind is less cluttered. There's a lot less things that are battling going on. But when I start to let my fitness slip, that's also when my mind is cluttered or overwhelmed or stressed or those kinds of things. And that's actually when I need to be putting in the most amount of work, right? I feel like this is actually something like I'm currently challenging myself with as, you know, my role at work has shifted and it's definitely more stressful than it has been. But I don't want to make that an excuse to not put in the work in the gym. Right. And so I think that the way in which that we treat our bodies and what we allow, what we put in, what we allow, what we eat, what we drink, all those kinds of things can be a direct reflection of what is going on mentally for us. Are we mentally clear? Are we pushing? Are we just staying stagnant? So many different phrases could be used for that. And so I think our bodies are not meant to carry all of this extra weight. They aren't meant to digest all of the fast food and all of those things, right? Like, we were not created for that. And so when we, when we indulge in that, I also think that it mentally affects our ability to think clearly, to process things well, to be the best version of ourselves. It doesn't have to just be, you know, we've talked about so many ways about being the best version of yourselves when it comes to controlling our thoughts, controlling our emotions, all those things. But physically is just as important as mentally. And it took me a lot of years to learn, to learn that and to choose to do that. You know, I, I started to realize, um, you know, a couple of weeks ago, like, I didn't have any specific goals physically for 2026. And then I was just kind of aimlessly putting in half-hearted work in the gym and maybe making excuses to not always show up, um, and, and not to do the, the physical work and going, okay, hang on a minute. You need a goal and you need something that you're going to work towards, or 2026 is going to slip by and you're not going to be where you want to be by the middle end of the year. And so, you know, I set a pretty lofty goal for myself when it came to running for this year, and I'm excited to see what's going to happen with that. And actually, I need to set a reward for myself for meeting that goal by the end of this year. You set so many other goals in other places, in other areas of your life. Set it in physical things too. Right? Like, maybe it's that you've got a certain lift that you want to work on and you're going to spend that time. Maybe it's that you're looking for, um, to get a mile time at a certain thing, or, oh, I want to run farther than I've ever ran before, or, oh, I want to do this workout faster than I've ever done it before. Decide what that is going to be and then tell other people about it, right? Like now, like I've told you, I've told my running partner, I've told one of our coaches Like, I've told people, so they're gonna hold me accountable. And when they see me working on this running goal, they're gonna go, awesome, great. How is that? How's that going? There's so many other ways that we are disciplined and we make, we set guardrails for ourselves mentally, emotionally, spiritually. We need to be doing the same things physically. We can't just leave that up to chance and to go, oh, like, it'll be fine. I can, I can figure that out. You know? And, and so that's kind of my own personal processing that I've been doing. And I think that that phrase of like, our bodies are a reflection of what's going on in our mind. That's kind of where that concept came from for me, is that personally what I'm walking through right now.

And it's also some things that you can practice mentally from an identity standpoint can also be— can also dovetail into that. As far as, you know, some things that we've talked about, one of the greatest books on habits, Atomic Habits by James Clear, he talks about just some of that internal dialogue that you use in your mind about fitness. And so, for example, the The thought that a lot of people have is, ugh, I need to work out. And he would suggest that you replace that with, I'm the type of person— it's an identity statement— I'm the type of person that works out. And so it changes your view and your internal dialogue. And words matter, internal words just as much as external words. I mean, we could— we should probably talk about that in a future episode.

Yes.

But that being said, there is something transformative and powerful about saying that you are the type of person in and believing that you're the type of person that works out versus, I need to work out, I need to work out, because that is a statement of duty and typically connected with the thought that you don't want to. That will, that will be a change that I think is meaningful. Another practical thought on identity is never missing twice. This is another James Clear thought.

Mm-hmm.

If you miss the gym on one day, make the commitment to not miss the next day. Never miss twice. And so that starts to build that going. What I like about the never miss twice is as a recovering perfectionist myself, I like the never miss twice because it insinuates you will miss. And there's a lot of people out there, usually 50 to 60% of them, that are perfectionists or recovering perfectionists, that, that it's— it goes into the all-or-nothing mentality of like, no, I'm gonna go to the gym. And then when they miss one day, then they also eat like garbage that day and everything goes out the window. And then it's that much harder to do the next day. And then before you know it, an entire month has passed where your entire commitment's gone and it's trashed because of So make that commitment. Never miss twice. Make— be the kind of person that never misses twice, right? And then lastly, I want to cover the mental work of some of the fears involved in starting movement, like the fear of looking dumb or the fear of failing or the fear of pain and soreness, which is going to be the uncomfortability of movement. I think that, like we've talked about, those communities can really help. For both of us, it was people that brought us into movement. For you, it was walking or running, and for me, it was lifting. And these people were super gracious. They were either starting on our same level or they were more experienced than us and they were happy we were there. I remember when I first started CrossFit, I had never done a single Olympic lift. So starting those was super awkward. My mobility wasn't ready for those kinds of movements. I, I remember not feeling judged by the people that were there. And it seems like in those types of communities, They remember when they were new, right? And they didn't know anything. And so coaches and long-established members, they kind of love coming alongside newbies and being like, hey, super glad you're here. Like, how can I help you? And it's super fun to kind of help someone that's new. When we're afraid of trying something new, we all have this archetype of this jerk face that is just going to be there judging us. Mm-hmm. And most of the time people are more obsessed with themselves than they are about us. And 9 times out of 10, nobody's even noticing you unless you're Brian Regan in Bopping around on the scaffolding in the gym thinking it's a machine. I want to close, Ashley, with talking about how we navigated getting into fitness at different stages of our lives, right?

Mm-hmm.

And so for us, it was something that I had been in movement for a long time since college before we were married. And that was not something that was a part of your life till many, many years later.

Mm-hmm.

I know for me, I wanted you to be a part of that. I wanted you to go with me every day, but that's not a habit that you had established So for me, I needed to work on having patience with you to build that routine over time, to not have resentment when you wouldn't go. You know, say like in the evening we would talk about us going and then in the morning you would hit the snooze button and decide not to. And so I know I had to work on letting those moments go and not being frustrated.

Mm-hmm.

But walk us through, like, from your perspective, how it was getting into that habit. What changed from it being inconsistent to consistent?

You know, I think for me, yeah, there was a lot of years of not, not doing it together. Our schedules are a little bit different in that, you know, we, we don't have kids that somebody has to stay at home with. And so I know for couples, like, you've got to find what rhythm works for you. But yeah, I, I think it's an area to be gracious and, and patient and then just to lead the way, right? Like, like in a lot of other areas, like be the one to set that example. We just had to learn to be gracious and patient with each other and then to encourage once the other person started, right? Like, but to just be encouraging once the other person started, and then to commiserate when we were both sore together. Or, you know, I'll never forget how sore I was after my very first CrossFit workout, and to go, yep, nope, I totally understand, I feel that. And to build habits around that together. Maybe it's stretching together in the evenings, or it's setting that bedtime routine together, you know. And, and I know for people that everybody's lives are different, and so that may not be a practical thing, but For us, it's that we go to the gym at the same time together. Um, you know, and we have lots of friends that show up with their spouses. And I think that's, that's something that's huge too, is that when you suffer and put your health and make that a priority together, there is something that is bonding about that. Even if you're not doing the same thing, like we go to the gym at the same time, but I don't always do the CrossFit workout in, in class. And I'm not always, you know, doing the exact same thing as you, but there is something about going together. at the same time, right?

Mm-hmm.

And it's, it's about building that habit together. But, you know, if, if you're the person that has that habit and your spouse doesn't, like, just be patient, pave the way, set the standard. You never know what that's planting in them. Um, and, and then, um, don't nag, but, you know, maybe be thinking about a friend that could invite them or, um, some— someone else that could help them along in that journey. Oftentimes those that are the very, very closest to us are the last person that can actually like push for that in our lives. It has to be other people like outside of that that tell us those hard truths or that invite us to come along. It can't necessarily be our spouse. And so be thinking about people that, that can come alongside that, that person for you, um, and to help walk them on that path. Or also like finding something that you as a family can do. Um, we have lots of, of friends whose kiddos are playing pickleball with us, right? because that's a family activity and they enjoy it and they want to do that. And then, you know, all after we've all been playing for this period of time, those kids are better than the rest of us, right? Um, but it's something that they enjoy and that they're good at. So, um, finding something that you can do as a family together. We have friends that just started a self-defense class as a family, like practical, but also like something that they can work out and do together.

So look for those ways that you can incorporate fitness into everybody in the whole Yeah, I can, I can say that when you joined me regularly, that was, was something that changed the dynamic for me and made it more enjoyable. It wasn't going to make me go more because I was already going every day. But for me, it was something that was a shared experience with you. And I think helped build our relationship because we had that, like we talked about before in previous episodes about that shared experience, that shared suffering, like you touched on, like we were both super sore together, we went through that same experience, it's just something else to bond over and make your relationship stronger, which I think has huge benefits. So if there's a way that you can find movement with somebody that you love, perfect strangers are okay too. But if you can do that with somebody that you love, like a dear friend, one of your kids, or your spouse, I think there's a lot of benefits that can come out of that. So hope you found some practical steps of finding a way that you can find some movement without too much pressure and invest in your future. you in a physical aspect, uh, that always has mental benefits as well. Doing hard things physically does make it easier to do hard mental things too.

Mm-hmm.

So as always, thanks for listening to the Optimizing Beyond podcast. Remember, growth happens when you take action. So subscribe, share this with a friend, and most importantly, put what you learned into practice, because as we know, daily anything changes everything.