Develop a Good Habit, One Step at a Time

It’s finally February, and you may be no closer to getting started on your fitness journey. Maybe you don’t have a plan and you’re frustrated. The best solution is to get back to the basics.

Before you start, you have to decide on how to approach a program to start walking, running, or exercising in general.

The exercise program you select will be successful once you develop it into a habit you repeat. One way to improve the habit is to set a reward, like focusing on the loss of unwanted pounds or that colorful T-shirt after the completion of a race.

Do you have control over your mornings or evenings? Select what time of day you’ll devote to your program and be consistent. Establish how much time you have available.

An added motivation is to have a partner join you. The starting point could be from a local coffee shop or within a neighborhood. Have each person discuss what they want to get out of the program. You’ll probably discover you have some shared goals. You can set a challenge, like in 90 days all of you will enter a 5K (3.1 miles) race together. All you need is one completion and the T-shirt will validate the work all of you devoted to training.

A future runner spoke to me about how she was up to two miles during training but had an injury and never went back. Now she wants to get back to doing a 5K. While I considered helping her with her training, I first gave her a homework assignment answering the following questions:

How bad do you want it?

How many days a week do you have available to run?

What is it you are looking for?

Do you think this is going to be easy?

What was the most you ran before?

How long did you run?

What kept you from getting back to running?

What fears do you have about running, if any?

Do you have the confidence in yourself?

The questions above I direct back to you. In order to have anything work, you need to be honest with yourself. It’s easy to make an excuse for not exercising, and it’s your way of saying that you don’t care enough about your health.

Here’s another exercise: Using a blank sheet of paper, draw a line down the center. The left side is a plus sign and the right is a negative sign. You know what’s coming: list the positive benefits of a regular exercise program on the left and negative on the right.

In doing this, you can see for yourself that physical activity is probably a positive habit. Since I don’t have any formal training, I can’t quote sound medical opinions or other long articles to read. What I know has been learned through trial and error.

I can direct you to do an internet search to look up a 5K training program (there are many out there) and with all of them you have to do some running. The piece they don’t mention is that you’ll have to train your mind to build up your self-confidence that you can achieve those 3.1 miles. You can complete one, then duplicate it each month until it becomes a habit.

Once the feet start moving, all you have to do is go along with the program and let your body take over.

I was speaking to a person today who told me that once he retires next year he’ll have more time to focus on his exercise program. I asked what was stopping him from starting now. I told him that I had an excuse because of my surgery, but I’m exercising now.

I left him with a statement, “Don’t promise me that you will start—promise yourself.”

Do you think willpower has anything to do with your exercise program? Willpower can be your strength to carry out a decision, like starting your exercise program.

Before I started running, I was a pipe smoker. I stopped once and threw all of my pipes away, but within two months I was spending money to get more pipes. Then I started running, and it only took less than a week to realize that smoking and running did not mix.

I was forced to make a decision: What did I love the most? Was the pipe smoking going to provide positive benefits? Would I be able to run while smoking a pipe?

Last July, when I was at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, I was having thoughts of running a marathon in October. But once I fully digested what I had gone through, I had an immediate change of plans. I set a new goal of running a 10-mile race in March 2018. At the time, it was a dream, and it was painful to think about that as someone who was doing 60-70 miles a week and at one point I clocked 100 miles in a week.

I developed a powerful habit. I had to snap back to reality.

Into my third month of recovery, I was reduced to not being able to run even a quarter of a mile. I felt like running was over as tears came to my eyes. I had to put my mind back at Square One and the face facts that I had a long road to go.

I put the following routine into place: I would run three miles four days a week, and on Saturday I would go longer—5 or 6 miles. I did that for three weeks, then I bumped it up to eight miles. Last Saturday, I went for a 10-mile run and completed it, and it felt good; the last two miles the wheels were shaky, but I did it.

Now, I just have to duplicate the distance. There’s no pressure because the race isn’t until the end of March. I have ample time to perfect the 10 miles. I’m not concerned about time. I’ll give my maximum effort and that’s what counts.

So, no texting or games until you do your homework assignment. What’s your plan going to be?

Good luck and best wishes. Hope to see you on the run!