Disruption

Oof! I didn't think I would get that sick, but dozens of tissue balls and more than one season of 'The Curse of Oak Island' later, and it was clear that the dog and I were in for a prolonged lie about. I'll spare all the details, but after a solid week - up to Season 11 in Oak Island time - I was finally ready to ponder returning to the gym. Given that I was still recovering and concerned about my lung capacity, I elected to use my reentry as an opportunity to play some beneficial tricks on myself. My approach makes a useful case study.

First, it's helpful to understand where I was before I got jumped by a virus. For cardio, I mostly used my elliptical at a steady state for thirty minutes at max resistance. Meanwhile, I was doing multiple-joint exercises at progressively heavier loads, focusing on the front squat. I currently have some inflexibility due to a frozen shoulder, so back squats are still uncomfortable. I also wanted to work on ankle flexibility by using a narrower stance with my toes pointed forward.

But I knew I was ready for a change. Each cardio day, I could feel myself tolerating my time on the elliptical while plotting long, weighted walks rather than the intervals I wanted to add but had yet to start. What I was enjoying about the walks, besides being outside, was the fact that they weren't structured. As much as I enjoy quantifying things, it's a habit that quickly traps me in a box. I start moralizing. 'If I don't do X number of minutes, at X speed and at X resistance,' I had a 'bad' day while hitting those parameters is clearly a 'good' day. Ugh, and I know better.

Kelly McGonigal explains it in 'The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It', when she states, "Anything you moralize becomes fair game for the effect of moral licensing. If you tell yourself that you're "good" when you exercise and "bad" when you don't, then you're more likely to skip the gym tomorrow if you work out today. Tell yourself you're "good" for working on an important project and "bad" for procrastinating, and you're more likely to slack off in the afternoon if you made progress in the morning. Simply put: Whenever we have conflicting desires, being good gives us permission to be a little bit bad." I'll be honest, I could feel myself making 'reward' bargains nutritionally, and I couldn't understand where the urge was coming from. I started hating my workouts and I was ready to give myself literal brownies - not just the points! - as a reward for my tolerance.

Ultimately, sliding into the 'shoulds' creates problems for me elsewhere, and even though I knew it, I was reluctant to give up what felt like progress - little gold stars because I had a 'good' day. My restlessness about my workout was making me think of creative ways to be 'bad' and yet I had a hard time resetting my default. Each day, the part of my brain that passed judgment - I call it my jerkabellum - continued its case of the 'meanies' by whispering nasty little comments in my head while I longed for long walks with no suffocating yardstick.

McGonigal explains further stating, "When you define a willpower challenge as something you should do to be a better person, you will automatically start to come up with arguments for why you shouldn't have to do it. It's just human nature—we resist rules imposed by others for our own good. If you try to impose those rules on yourself, from a moralizing, self-improvement point of view, you're going to hear very quickly from the part of you that doesn't want to be controlled. And so when you tell yourself that exercising, saving money, or giving up smoking is the right thing to do—not something that will help you meet your goals—you're less likely to do it consistently."

Being sick, though, was the reset I needed because I could try something different - like those intervals I was pondering - without any expectations, partly because those days lounging about had disrupted my rhythm. There were no 'X's to hit, and I could listen to my body without judgment because anything other than lounging about googling Nova Scotia in the 1700s to formulate Oak Island theories was a win. I started at a lower resistance and naturally settled into a faster pace while listening to my rusty body creak into action. Oh, and I added the intervals while completing more than expected, given my lung capacity concerns. I also returned to the gym and started working on my back squat; I was just happy to be under the bar.

Things were feeling fun again and not just tolerable. I was delighted that the disruption lowered my expectations and allowed me to escape the 'shoulds' that had me ensnared. I had a break from the Jerkabellum and the ensuing 'meanies', which freed my mind to pursue Oak Island conspiracy theories and practice the armchair archaeology degree I first earned during the 21 seasons of pandemic 'Time Team' episodes.

McGonigal Ph.D., Kelly. The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It (pp. 84-85). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

McGonigal Ph.D., Kelly. The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It (p. 87). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.