Hi everybody, I’m Dr. Cobb back with you.
I hope you’re having a fantastic week.
This week we’re going to continue on our new habit change processes by utilizing something I call the text message workout program.
Now a couple of blogs ago (see it here), I talked about using a physical reminder, a wearable reminder if you will, I’m snapping a rubber band on my wrist and if you watched that blog, you know I talked about the power of having something on you that reminders you to do the new habit or do the new behavior that you’re interested in.
For instance, today I’m wearing one and written on this little rubber band, it says, “Up every hour times five”. That’s a reminder to me, every time I look down at my hands on the keyboard that every hour of the day, I’m supposed to get up out of my chair and more around for five minutes, that’s an enormous blessing for me. It’s done so much for me already in terms of health, my fitness and just my overall energy levels. Simple, simple thing to remember and it doesn’t require motivation and that’s the whole point here.
Every time we’re trying to change a habit, most of us think, “I need more will power, I need more motivation”. Fact is, most of the time, you just need something to remind you of what you want to do and who you want to become on a regular basis because we get into our normal day, we go into our habituated routines and we don’t remember what we want to do until it’s late at night and we’re already tired.
Wearing a reminder, incredibly powerful. Today, we’re going to use that same concept and create another link. In the beginning of the year, I started working on something I call the text message exercise program. It’s incredibly simple. Every time a text message comes into my phone, I read it, I respond to it and then before I do anything else, I have to do three to five repetitions of something. Maybe that’s three to five push-ups or pull-ups or a mobility drill, just something that’s good for me.
Now I would tell you that just utilizing that one reminder, my activity levels and exercise levels have gone up tremendously in just the last few weeks. I’m finding this incredibly valuable and incredibly useful because just like you, I need reminders as well. What I’m going to ask you to do this week is to give this a shot. Try the text message exercise program. It may even make you look forward to your phone making that horrible sound.
I don’t like getting text messages personally but I’ve come to actually looking forward to getting them now because I’m using them to drive me or remind me to do something that’s good for me.
If you don’t get a lot of text messages, pick something else, the whole point is pick something that happens all day, every day and then link three to five movements to it. It could be every time there’s a commercial on TV, every time you check your email at work, whatever it is. Just find a regular event in your day and link a new behavior to it.
I’d love for you to try this for the next week and let me know how it goes. I think you’ll find it a very easy and also very exciting way to increase your activity levels, increase your fitness levels and actually begin to practice the idea of building systems into your lives to help you change your behavior versus always trying to dredge up more and more motivation through the day.
Have a fantastic week.
I’ll look forward to hearing about your results.
Thanks.
