am<\/em> more fit!<\/p>\nThe thing is, that article?\u00a0 Buddy, I stand by it.\u00a0 It is honest, no kidding, a great way to get started.\u00a0 Little, incremental goals have an enormous positive effect over time.<\/p>\n
The Japanese use this concept in the workplace (they call it kaizen, which is usually translated loosely into English as “continual improvement”).\u00a0 The thing is, these are not great, dramatic leaps of improvement, but daily, incremental tiny little things.<\/p>\n
To give you an idea:<\/p>\n
When I started swimming in July ’06, I was swimming 400 yards in 20 minutes, and that was my cardio.\u00a0 Walking?\u00a0 Bite me!\u00a0 That made my feet hurt and my calves cramp up.\u00a0 (Yes, I was walking every day in Oct ’03.\u00a0 I stopped working out for about a year.\u00a0 Not making that mistake again.\u00a0 I lose fitness fast, dammit).<\/p>\n
Now, I swim a mile in ~45 minutes.\u00a0 Ideally I’d like to be able to swim a mile in half an hour.\u00a0 That’s gonna be awhile, I think.<\/p>\n
When I started lifting in July ’06, I was squatting 30lbs.<\/p>\n
I’m squatting 85lbs now, and have gotten a lot more serious about lifting.\u00a0 I’ve got my eye on squatting 100lbs as my next mid-range goal.\u00a0 I’m years away from the ultimate goal of squatting my bodyweight.\u00a0 That’s okay.\u00a0 I like to keep my eyes on the little goals.<\/p>\n
Thing is, I have little <\/em>goals for every single workout.\u00a0 In the weight room, I’m either increasing a rep each workout, or I’m increasing weight.\u00a0\u00a0 In the pool, I’ll either try to swim for a longer distance, or a shorter time.<\/p>\nSo where does this end?<\/p>\n
It doesn’t.\u00a0 It’s an open-ended system.\u00a0 These tiny little goals are enough to keep me interested, and they’ll change and refine over time.\u00a0 I’m 39.\u00a0 There’s certainly a limit to where I can go physically.\u00a0 But I don’t really look ahead to find that.\u00a0 In five years (barring accident or debilitating illness) I’ll probably look back on what I’m doing now with a lot of pride in how far I’ve come.<\/p>\n
But right now, I’m looking at the next rep and the next five pounds, or the next 100 yards.\u00a0 It keeps things small an immediate.<\/p>\n
That means that adding a minute to a walk when you’ve gone from ten minutes to eleven minutes is really good<\/em>.\u00a0 If you consistently challenge yourself with little goals — just that next step, or that next small habit change, they add up.\u00a0 If you can walk a block before your calf cramps up, looking at my workouts might be discouraging.\u00a0 Thing is, that was<\/em> me, no kidding.\u00a0 And I got here by small, incremental goals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I exercise seven days a week and I go reasonably hard compared to what I used to do ten years ago (the occasional walk). Actually I exercise a lot compared to what I did five years ago, too.\u00a0 It didn’t automagically make me skinny, but by golly I am more fit! The thing is, that … <\/p>\n
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