Imagine your regular morning. You went to bed at okay time, woke up with decent mood, its time to make your morning coffee. And while it’s waiting for you, you’re heading to brush your teeth. You are brushing you teeth and thinking about the coffee… or about the commute to work… or about work… or about the joke that somebody told you yesterday and it was so funny, but you forgot it already…. Okay, stop right here. What do you feel?

Every time I test my clients this simple test, they don’t know what exactly I am asking. “Alex, what are you talking about? What am I supposed to feel? I’m just brushing my teeth!”

Let’s go to second part of the test. Let’s plan your training strategy for next month.

First, you have to figure out your goals. You have to define them why they are important to you, so every time life gets in the way, you will remind yourself and push it through.

Second, you have to figure out what kind of training regime suits your goal the best. Is it cardio? Or strength training? Or both? Or classes? Or yoga? Should you hire a personal trainer or just try to figure it out yourself? And, what’s most important, what if that regime that you picked DOESN’T WORK? Do you have a plan B?

Third, now you have to find out the time in your busy life to actually put this plan to work. Morning before work or evening right after work? Or, perhaps, few hours after work? How far the gym is? How you get there?    Remind yourself not to forget workout clothes… towel… water… shoes…put everything in the gym bag… not to forget the gym bag…

Okay. Stop right now. What do you feel at this point?

Exactly. At this point lots of people get it. It is very overwhelming. For beginners it is also very uncomfortable and outside of their comfort zone to go through all this thought process and preparation. And very often it becomes very frustrating. So frustrating that some of us hesitate to even start.

Now let’s compare these two mindsets that are different – tooth brushing in the morning and getting organized with a new lifestyle. Emotional state is totally different here. Why? The answer is THE HABIT. When you have a habit developed, you have no feelings or emotions about it. Its just there. Brushing you teeth? You usually don’t even remember if you did it or not, although you always do. You don’t get frustrated to start it, and you don’t feel relieved to finish it. Its just there. Strong habit doesn’t steal from your mental energy pool.

How is it possible to combine such a great lifestyle change as exercising with such a mellow mindset when you brush your teeth in the morning? Tomorrow comes part 2, where I will go through practical steps of it.