Effective Reading

A lot of the material for this blog comes from books I’m reading or have read. I started reading my senior year of college. I never read much in college and I didn’t read at all in high school. I wasn’t interested in what other people were telling me to read. It wasn’t until I was a little older and all the strength coaches and fitness people I was following were constantly telling me to read more books if I wanted to be successful.

Here are some tips I have learned on how to be a more effective reader. I didn’t say read more. I think the ultra-competitive, I read 4 books a week people can shut up and concentrate on speed reading. I’m interested in learning when I read. 

When choosing a book, I have no rules. I’ll read anything that's recommended to me if it piques my interest. If it sounds interesting to me, I’ll give it a shot. The third way I find a book is if it applies to something else I’m currently learning. I may buy a book, but wait to read it until more curiosity strikes. 

I always have 3 or 4 books going at once. If one isn’t doing it for me, I can switch to another one. I’m also okay with skipping around. If I find a chapter isn’t doing it, or doesn’t currently apply, I’ll head to the next chapter. 

When I started writing this blog, I started taking more notes. I used to do some highlighting, but nothing consistently. Some people, like author Ryan Holiday, go deep with their note taking. For me, I mark passages, pages and quotes by folding the page or using a small post it note. When I read something blog worthy, or something that I’d like to share with the GAIN coaches, I’ll summarize it in my notebook.

I never feel bad about not finishing a book. This took a while to become okay with, but Nassim Nicholas Taleb summed it up nicely in Anti-Fragile, by saying as soon as you’re bored with a book to move on. He also mentioned that unread books are more impressive than read books because they are potential new knowledge. I really like that, and will continue to buy books faster than I read them because of it.

The final thing, I try to actively read. No, not squatting and reading. I mean I won’t have the TV on or answer text messages in-between pages. It’s easy to become distracted, so I really try to read for short, but intense periods of time. For me, that’s always been first thing in the morning. I drink coffee and read until my attention is waining or I need to get moving.

The biggest barrier to read more was breaking all the rules I thought there were. I didn’t think you could read more than one book at once. I didn’t think skipping around was allowed. I thought you failed if you didn’t read it to the end. Once I got those constraints out of my way, I was not only able to read more, but read more effectively.

What are you reading? Do you have any recommendations for me? Let me know in the comments!

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

Improved Performance, It's Not What You Think

The common goal that unites most people from Gain is living a higher quality of life. Our vernacular for this is performance. That can be confused with improved performance on the field for some sport. That’s not the case. For us, increased performance means a more capable, less fragile life.

The fragility of life was shown to me yesterday. At 5:45am, Hannah walked out the back door on to the deck. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her feet leave the ground as she flew down 7 steps and landed below. I rushed outside, almost slipped on the icy steps in my bare feet, and checked to see if she was okay.

Nothing was broken. She didn’t hit her head. I picked her up carefully and walked her inside. It could have been a lot worse. She could have hit her head, broken her arm or landed on her tailbone. Instead, we’re having a different conversation.

All day yesterday, I could stop thinking about it. What if she was 30 years older? What if she never lifted weights and only did cardio? What if she didn’t have any muscle mass to handle the fall? She would have been more fragile. She wouldn’t of popped up, took a 5 minute breather and hopped back in her car to get to the gym. Instead, she sporting a couple of gnarly bruises and is going to be extra careful on stairs early in the morning.

The capacity to deal with that fall is performance. There are things in life that we can’t train to be prepared for. Improving performance through strength and conditioning is your safety net against the unplanned. Fitness is freedom, be ready for anything.

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

Planks

Planks are a commonly misunderstood exercise. When doing an intro session, this, along with the push up, are movements that people think they have a grasp on. Probably because it’s written off as a beginner exercise or something you can do anywhere without equipment. To clarify, we’re talking about a high plank, hands on the ground not elbows. A push up then, is just a plank where you bend your elbows. 

The thing about beginner exercises is that once you get better at them, you can continuously make them more challenging by creating more tension, getting better alignment and making sure your breathing is under control. 

Start by aligning your wrists under your shoulders. Spread your fingers and dig them into the ground. Push the back of your palm into the ground. This should make you feel like your upper back is rounded, we’re lining up your shoulder blades. From here, we want you to try and push your heels away from your body, squeeze your glutes and brace like someone is going to punch your belly.

Create this awareness around your planks this week. Pay attention to other exercises that you day dream through. Is there a way to become more engaged? Can you create more stiffness or tension in your body? Are you breathing? How are you breathing? Where is your breathe going? Deep or shallow? These little details will take your training to the next level. Don’t write off a simple movement as too easy. There’s always a way to make it harder.

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

It Depends

While thinking about the last few months we’ve spend with Clayton, I was reflecting about what he got out of his experience here. He got hands on time training clients, learned effective program design, understands our training principles and got a crash course in real life through conversations with you all. I hope he learned how to help people. Which, they certainly don’t teach you in school.

Clayton is curious. Usually, within 3 minutes of me walking in the door, he eagerly approaches me and says, “I have a question for you.” The other day, when he asked me, I laughed and said you know what my answer is going to be. “It depends,” he replied.

I hope his biggest takeaway was that context is everything. A lot of stuff works in fitness. There are many different roads that take you to the same place. What works for someone, might not work for someone else.

Context helps us define who or why or how for something specific. For example, heavy deadlifts are different for everyone. Someone may need a 25 pound kettlebell and someone else might need a 405 pound barbell. Setting the context simplifies a sea of correct answers. Without it, nothing makes sense.

Today is Young Clayton’s last day at GAIN. Be sure to wish him luck on his future endeavors. 

Thanks for you time Clayton, you were a pleasure to have at the gym. 

Justin Miner 

@portsmouthcoach

Negative Feedback

Last week, I went to a dinner party. It was at a friend’s house we had all been to before. Our host wasn’t preparing our meal though. Another attendee, Chef Matt, would be testing out a dish for his restaurant, which opens up for the season in a few weeks.

Our instructions, before cooking started, was that we had to give honest feedback. He didn’t just want to know if it was good or not. He wanted to know what we thought. What we didn’t like. He wanted us to tell our initial impressions.

To facilitate the somewhat awkward conversation after dinner, we all went around and gave 3 pieces of feedback to the chef. It made me really consider the meal. What went through my brain as I took a bite of the slow cooked porchetta? What did I feel when I took a forkful of the collard greens dipped in the sweet potato puree? How did the pickled fennel mustard sauce go with everything on the plate?

It was hard to come up with my 3 things. I admired the chef’s curiosity as to how he could make it better. It surely wasn’t easy to listen to us talk about the dish. We threw a lot of compliments his way, for sure.  When you praised the dish though, you knew you weren’t really helping him improve.

To really get better at things, we need to be able to use feedback, honest information about how we could do something better, and develop a better relationship with it. If we all had the ability and courage to use it like Chef Matt, we could be using it to improve our performance.

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

Ten Thousand Hours

The first book I read, not assigned to me, was Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell. I read it, then listened to it on my long commute to my senior year classes. It had a big impact on me. Not only did it kick start me realizing I needed to read, but the focal point of the book, the Ten Thousand Hour Rule made sense to me. If I wanted to get good, at anything, I needed to put in the time.

Unfortunately, it isn’t that simple. It’s not just about showing up and putting in the hours, it’s about how you put in the hours. In Peak, Anders Ericsson, claims Gladwell simplified his research to appeal to our desire for cause-and-effect relationships. In the original research, Ericsson and colleagues gathered data of solitary hours played for upcoming violinists.

Not surprisingly, the best students accumulated the most practice. The better students, the second most. The good students, who were exceptional, but not world class, practiced less than the best and better students.

The point Ericsson makes though, is that is isn’t just about the hours. It’s about the type of practice. Specifically, what he calls deliberate practice. That is, practice that has immediate feedback, internal motivation, deep focus and has the practitioner slightly out of their comfort zone. He claims, not only did the best students accumulate the most hours, but they were the best at practicing as well.

There are no shortcuts. It takes time and focus to get better at anything. It’s not going to happen without serious effort. If this overwhelms you, it shouldn’t. It should empower you. You have the ability to get better, and there’s a blueprint of how to do it. You just need to be willing to put forth the effort.

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

Rest Days

I’ve been on a training hot streak. I was going hard every day for 3 weeks. During the third week, I felt awful. I wasn’t sleeping as much as the previous weeks. I was eating too much junk. I knew I needed to take a couple days off. I felt it. I also felt like I would lose everything if I stopped running. I didn’t want to break my streak.

Taking a day off, when you’re on a hot steak, can be really hard. It feels like you’ll let momentum slip through your hands and you’ll continue skipping days. The good news for us, we need to take rest days.

When we give our body the opportunity to rest, we actually make progress. Our muscles adapt to the stress we’ve been giving them and when we hit the gym again, they’re more prepared to handle the load.

While it can feel counterintuitive that skipping a day at the gym or running will ensure progress, it’s the truth. Without taking a day off, we risk over stressing our bodies. While pushing through when you’re feeling banged up may feel like the right choice to keep momentum going. More times than not shutting it down pays better.

Yesterday, I had a great run coming from taking 4 out of 5 days off. I hated it while it was happening. I was sure I was going to lose my momentum and desire to train. Getting back on the wagon yesterday was tough. As soon as I hit the woods, I couldn’t hold back my smile. Running was fun again. I needed those days off. Obviously.

Justin Miner 

@portsmouthcoach

Clem was happy for a few days off too.

The Push Up - A Beginner Exercise?

We so badly want to simply the push up as a beginner exercise. The truth is, it’s complicated. It’s hard to do and requires a base level of strength. Many people are able to skate through life thinking they are a push up master, only to realize their technique, is exactly why their shoulder hurts every time they do it.

It’s demoralizing when you think you can bust out 20 push ups and then learn you can’t even get 2 with the best, most transferable technique. It would benefit you though, to get over how many you can do In one shot and instead, learn how to do 2 or 3 really good ones at a time.

Getting good at really low rep sets is the road to becoming a push up master. If you can maintain good positions: butt squeezed, shoulder blades moving, elbows pointing back, no funny neck things. That’s good. The best way to practice that is small sets, 2-5 reps, for a bunch of sets, maybe 8-12.

Instead of trying for 3x10, the most classic rep scheme around, stop yourself when you get sloppy. Become aware of what else is happening to your body. In order to develop that awareness, you need to stop thinking it’s an easy exercise for beginners.

Give the push up the credit it deserves.

Justin MIner 

@portsmouthcoach

Mental Representations and Patience

The other day, I was in the grocery store grabbing a few items. The register froze. They slide me over to another register and that one froze too. Turns out the whole system froze and they needed to reset it. The apologetic cashier said it would be a few minutes. No problem, I said, I’m patient.

I do consider myself patient. To teach people how to move, you need to be. I think most of you would agree with this too. I haven’t always been. Now, I try my best to never get flustered. Slow driver, no problem. Food taking a while, no big deal.

Just yesterday, my friend brought up something I am totally impatient with. Anything to do with building. I have limited construction skills. I can use a skill saw, know what a Phillips head is and I can swing a hammer. My skills stop there. I have trouble envisioning how something will come out when building it. I have no mental representation of what a finished product should look like. 

A good mental representation is how you see something that other’s can’t. It’s how I can notice subtle nuances in your bench press technique or how a doctor can perform complicated surgery. It’s how my friend can plan to build something and have a very clear picture of what it’s going to look like in his head.

Yesterday, we built a counter. As he’s explaining it to me, I’m nodding. I understand that I need to cut 3 boards to 24 inches and 4 boards to 40 inches with a 45 degree angle. I don’t see how that translates to the finished product though.

The lack of my mental representation is where my impatience and frustration comes from. That’s true for all of us. When something is frustrating or we don’t quite understand it, it’s because we don’t have a clear mental representation as to what it is. This is why it’s a good idea to have a coach. We have the ability to set a mental representation (we call it a movement standard) and give you cues or drills to get there. Hopefully, after some practice, your mental representation of what a hinge is improves.

In Peak, Ericsson explains that the most skilled people have the best mental representations. A violinist can feel the song with their fingers and picture how to play it. In the documentary, Free Solo, Alex Honnold is so dialed he can recreate the different moves his hands will make all the way up the wall. I can imagine exactly what a 95 pound snatch feels like versus a 135 pound snatch.

Want to improve your mental representation? Get more reps in. Try to understand. For me, I hoping that getting more reps in building things will improve my patience. If I can work on that, I hope I will get less flustered when trying to build something. The more I practice and commit to understanding, my mental representation should improve.

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

The Box Squat

The best movement teaching tools around is the box squat. This exaggerated squat variation loads the hips, uses the posterior chain, limits knee flexion and requires a neutral spine. It’s the first thing we go over during an intro session, and something we revisit with veteran clients when they need a refresher on smooth squat mechanics.

Let’s break it down:

When you set up near the box, take a slightly wider than normal stance. From here, create tension by screwing feet and knees away from each other, engaging your glutes and squeezing your belly. From here, back and down. Start moving your butt towards the box, imagining trying to reach it to the far side. Allow your torso to dip forward, sternum facing the ground. Once you run out of room for reaching back, allow your knees to bend, working to maintain a vertical shin.

The forward lean and vertical shin are the most important parts of the box squat. The vertical shin, shows me if you can control tension in your knee and get the ranges of motion from your hips not your knees. If you’re someone who suffers from any sort of knee issue, this is great news for you. By not letting the knee translate forward, we’re essentially not allowing it to take any load. The forward torso lean is so you can learn what neutral spine position feels like. 

If I were to keep upright during the box squat, two things could happen. My knees drift forward, which, we’re trying to avoid. Or I would arch my lower back and get range of motion from spine movement instead of hip movement. 

There’s a lot of moving parts on this simple, beginner exercise. If you’re having trouble with your squat or feeling it somewhere you shouldn’t, give box squats a try to regroove your pattern with the exaggerated variation.

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

How Hard is it to Change?

We know it’s hard to make positive changes in our life. We’re all resistant to change for a host of reasons. I want to share a statistic I heard about how hard it is to change. How we struggle to change even when our life is on the line.

Let’s say you go to the doctor for a regular check up. They inform you that you have heart disease. You’re seriously at-risk from all the cigarettes you smoke, the few hours of sleep you get and your constant inactivity.

The doctor tells you that need to make some lifestyle changes or you’re going to die. Soon. You need to clean up your diet, stop smoking, move more frequently, hit the gym, find a community and drink some water. That’s an overwhelming list for anyone. It’s not ideal to make all those changes at once. Your life is on the line though. You have to make those changes or it’s game over.

1 in 7. 

That’s how many people are actually able to make these changes. I even found someone citing that it’s 1 in 9. People are unable to make these behavioral changes. Our lives have become secondary to our current comforts.

If it’s that hard to change when our life is on the line, how hard is it to change just because you want to stay ahead and never have that conversation with a doctor? This goes back to what we talked about yesterday: we need to constrain our system. Make it so there are less decisions to make so you can’t choose wrong. 

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

Constrain the System

Technology has made lots of things easy for us. Until recently, humans spent most of our time trying to eat and stay alive. Now, we have 15 choices of what to have for dinner, endless shows to choose from on Netflix and hits of dopamine every time we pick up our phone.

Our world is complex. There are too many options and chances for us to fall off the wagon. We need a way to simplify our decision making and rule out options that aren’t benefitting us. We need to constrain the system. Leave less options available, which in turn, will allow for easier, better decision making.

Here’s an example. I never have ice cream in the house. Ever. If I do, I eat it. All. I can occasionally have ice cream as a treat, and I do. But I’m never going to buy it at the grocery store on Sunday and save it for Friday night. I need rules in place to limit my reliance on willpower. The same goes for social media. I have the screen time app block all social media from 8pm-6am. It’s removes the option and the mental battle of pulling up Instagram while drinking coffee on the couch early in the morning. There’s just not an option because I’ve put constraints on usage.

Outride of our home, we can force rules to make us walk more. I always park far away. It forces me to get some more walking in, no matter what. It's not an option to park close to where I’m going. Constraint on the system. The same goes for taking the stairs. Just take them! Make it not an option. 

Constraining the system like this let’s us control our environment, instead of being subjected to it. These rules will develop habits to make living a healthier life easier and more accessible. We can’t rely on willpower to improve. It won’t work.

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

Days Off

Taking a day off, when you’re on a hot steak, can be really hard. It feels like you’ll let momentum slip through your hands and you’ll continue skipping days in the gym. The good news for you, you need to take rest days.

When we give our body the opportunity to rest, we actually make progress. Our muscles adapt to the stress we’ve been giving them and when we hit the gym again, they’re more prepared to handle the load.
While it can feel counterintuitive that skipping a day at the gym will ensure progress, it’s the truth. Without taking a day off, we risk over stressing our system. When we train, we create stress in our body. In turn, our body makes adjustments so it can better handle the stimulus next time.

Pushing through when you’re feeling banged up may feel like the right choice to keep momentum going. More times than not, shutting it down pays better. It should also be noted, this is an opportunity to call an audible.

That momentum can be key in keeping you going. That’s why, instead of skipping all together, doing something different, a shake up workout can be valuable. This would be a good opportunity to roll, stretch and open up a bit. It could be taking 15 minutes on the bike and getting sweaty, working on breathing. Or maybe it’s dragging the sled around to promote blood flow.

No matter what, recognize that your body will need some recovery time. Go, go, go will eventually run out. Are you able to notice that and recognize it in your body? Or are you ignoring its signals? 

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

Preparation

The other morning, I was dragging to get my run in. I had to go long. My legs were fatigued, calves were swollen and I was generally tired. I did my normal pre-run things. Bodyweight squats, deep lunge stretch, pace around the house looking out all the windows. Drink coffee. Drink more coffee. Chug a seltzer. Anything to delay getting in my car and driving the 2.1 miles to Stratham Hill Park.

There’s this awesome thing that happens when I go to tie my shoes. Clem realizes, before I even sit, but during my approach to sit, that it’s go time. She knows when I grab those certain shoes it’s time for a run. After I tie my shoes, I clip on her collar and leash, then I tie her adventure bandana around her neck. It’s just a regular bandana, but when we go long, I usually tie it on to her.

When people ask about it, I remark that it's so I can spot her while she’s dashing through the woods chasing squirrels and birds. I realized making my first climb up Stratham Hill, while my legs were screaming at me to quit, that the bandana isn’t for her. In fact, its for me. I put the bandana on her when I know its going to be a hard effort. It’s a way to prepare. It’s a variable I control.

I’ve talked before about having good processes. Good systems in place can help an athlete prepare for a game, a business run smoothly and get anyone mentally prepared for a challenge. Our processes can be boiled down to what we can control. While slogging up the hill, I realized I tie that bandana on her when I need a little boost. When I need to get my head on and prepare to be self-propelled for a couple hours.

Processes get us prepared. Without developing processes, we’re not optimizing our success. We should have pre-gym processes, or habits to get us in the door, but also to get us ready to train. You may already have these in place but haven’t realized their importance. Or like me, that you were doing them at all.

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

Bug Book

While listening to the Tim Ferriss Show Podcast, this week’s guest, Jim Collins had some fascinating insights. One of them, was a story of while he was in school at Stanford.

He needed to make some changes. He was trying to figure out what to do with his life once he graduated. One of his professors challenged Jim to study himself, like a bug. Since then, Jim has kept what he calls a bug book. He analyzes himself as if he were entomologist studying a new species of bug.

He writes down how he reacts to certain news. What he judges people on. How he feels after certain situations. The point is to try to remove yourself and objectively observe. Don’t judge your thoughts or actions, simply observe and record.

This sounds similar to what people report on when they’ve developed a meditation practice. It creates an awareness and ability to pattern recognize. Jim figured out a different way to get there. Instead of sitting down to mediate each day, he takes notes to create an awareness around how his brain works.

The take away for you (and me) is to develop an ability to observe our thoughts and actions. Can we start to recognize patterns in our decision making? Can we develop an awareness around how we limit ourselves or our potential?

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

Sore

When we workout, run or do anything physically exerting, we can get sore muscles. This soreness hits us a day or two after the effort and is called delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS). DOMS hits us, not right after the challenging effort or load but a day or two later once the body starts repairing the damaged tissues.

That’s right. When we train really hard, we actually damage our muscle tissue. We get stronger when our body repairs and adapts to the new stimulus. Humans are hard to break. Think of that - if you literally breakdown your muscle tissue, you will build strength. 

I want you to disassociate the feeling of soreness with an effective workout though. We’ve trained society to believe that the only effective workout is the one that leaves you sore 48 hours after completing the training. There’s nothing wrong with being sore (that is, unless you’re getting too sore, and doing too much). For long term training though, we don’t need to chase that feeling to justify an effective workout.

It would pay for you to understand that an effective workout may leave you feeling normal. And that soreness doesn’t correlate to good. Legendary strength coach, Mike Boyle, has been coaching athletes for 40 years. He has a go-to quote when an athlete thinks they need to get sore from a workout. He’ll tell them, instead of training today, let’s go outside and I’ll take swings with a baseball bat at your quads for 60-minutes. That’ll get you sore.

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

20 Mile March

This is a concept introduced by author Jim Collins in Great by Choice. The idea, is simple. You need to put the work in towards something, each and every day, year after year. Regardless of circumstances that are outside of your control. In the book, he’s referencing companies trying to grow and do impressive things. We can apply it to our daily lives.

Here’s the idea. You start in California, with the goal in mind to reach Maine. You’re going to march 20 miles each day. You start out in sunny San Diego and the weather is beautiful. On the first day, you could push on for 30 miles. Instead, you decide to call it at 20. The next day, same thing, smooth marching, nice weather, could push harder but stop at 20. This continues on for a bit.

You’ve reached the Rockies. There’s snow, brutal wind and it’s a big effort to push forward. You could opt for 10 miles, but you’re committed to 20 miles a day. You still get it, and you get though the mountains on to the plains. Now, you’re trained, you’ve got some miles under your belt and with the flat land you can push 40 or 50 miles a day. Instead, you stay consistent, you hit your 20.

If we take the same concept, but examine a person who started out with 43 miles on the first day. They managed to keep up the pace and get to the Colorado mountains quickly, but then slowed down and was demoralized with the winter weather. They put in some 10 miles days. Maybe a 15. Then decide to take a total rest day. Their initial ambition slowed them down when it really counted to get the miles in. They opted for a heroic effort, not a consistent one.

We need to keep chipping away at what we want to get better at. This concept mitigates the idea of motivation. It’s a story about consistency and moderation over intensity*. As we know, with big pursuits, motivation won’t take us there. We need discipline. 

It pays to only march 20 miles each day. Even when you could take on more. This is important. There will be days where you don’t feel like marching at all, but if you hit your baseline, you’ll move your needle forward. There will also be days where you’re feeling great, and want to put in a 45 mile march. Is that the best move to ensure progress? Or will it lead to burn out?

For you, maybe your 20 mile march is going the gym 3 times a week. Maybe it’s developing better habits around eating. Maybe it’s trying to move, in some capacity, each and every day. For me, right now, it’s this. It’s trying to write every day. Somedays, I could write more than one blog, somedays it’s a struggle, but I’m committed to chipping away 20 miles every day.

Justin MIner

@portsmouthcoach

*one of our Core Values at GAIN.

Feet

Our feet are pretty amazing. They’re often forgotten since we put shoes on them and we worry about how the shoes fit, feel, look, perform and miss the point of checking in to see how our feet are doing. Specifically, I want to create an awareness of what they’re doing while we’re training.

When you squat, do they turn out? When you deadlift do they collapse? Does your heel lift up when doing a reverse lunge? Taking it further, what about when you jump or land or cut? Do your feet stay stable and straight or turn out and collapse?

There’s a lot of little muscles down there that effect how stable we are and how we create tension to perform a movement. The more we see feet morning around, not only do we think you’re leaking power. But you’re also increasing risk of injury. A few days back we talked about stacking joints. Keeping your feet where we want them is a form of this. If my toes turn out when I squat, my knees are more likely to fall in towards each other. Losing that stacked position of knee over ankle.

Next time your training, standing at the sink doing dishes or walking, take a look (but don’t stare) at your feet and see how they’re doing. Are you controlling them or are they dictating you?

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

Identity Based Habits

We all know it’s hard to make serious change. Often times when we do, we revert back to our old ways. I’m interested in making these changes stick, and I hope you are too. I want to make a point that this isn’t just about working out. It can be about whatever you want to do. As we talked about yesterday, our brains have a great ability to learn and develop new skills. Your habits are a big part of being able to do that.

For example, while I’m writing about goals, the lens I’m looking through is not in fact working out more, even though that’s often my example. The big thing I’m working on now is becoming a better writer. The concept I want to share with you today helped me get out of my own way to work toward this. I hope this can help you on two levels, helping you stick with the healthy lifestyle you’re trying to develop but also give you insights to other parts of your life.

From Atomic Habits, here are the 3 layers of habit change:

• First Layer: changing outcomes - this level is about results. Most of the time we associate goals with this layer of habit change.

• Second Layer: changing process - this level is about process. What steps are you taking towards your goal by creating new habits and systems.

• Third Layer: changing your identity - this deep layer is concerned with changing your beliefs, your self-image, your mindset.

In Clear’s words, “Outcomes are what you get. Processes are about what you do. Identity is what you believe."

When we start changing habits, we focus on the outcome. The results that we want. I find most of the time people don’t even make process goals, which is creating how you’re going to get your outcome. If we miss the second layer, we will miss the third, which is changing our identity. Clear makes a case that we should work the other way. Shift our beliefs, then the process, then get the outcome.

We need to take our beliefs and mindset into consideration when trying to make an impactful change. Its powerful intrinsic motivation when we take pride in our identity, or identify as what we want to be. The example from the book is someone trying to quit cigarettes.

If the person trying to quit is offered a cigarette, and their response is, “no thanks, I’m not a smoker.” That is a more powerful, identity changing answer compared to, “no thanks, I’m trying to quit.” There’s some fear with identifying with something. Often times, people are afraid to commit to saying they’re a healthy eater. Shifting your perspective and identifying as someone who eats healthy can help you stay strong and make better choices.

For me, it was about changing my belief that I can write. I would want the results, people reading this blog and learning something from it. I had a process. I’ll blog on these days at these times and I’ll keep a list of ideas and so on. Nothing allowed me to stick with it. I’m bad at writing, I thought. I get writer’s block easily. I don’t have the time to write more. All of these beliefs were part of my identity. It wasn’t until I shifted my mindset to I’m someone who can write that I was able to be consistent. 

If you’re trying to eat better or workout more or play the guitar, if you can identify with that, you’re going to be more likely to stick with it. Results are cool, but we need to learn how to get there.

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach

The Knowledge

For a long time, people believed that our development stopped at a certain point. The assumption was that the brain’s wiring was fixed. For the most part, genetic influence determined what skills and knowledge we could acquire.

What flipped this idea around was a study on London Taxi Drivers. If you aren’t familiar, London streets are infamously twisty, windy, full of one ways and dead ends. In order to become a taxi driver, you’re put through rigorous training. You need to know where all landmarks and buildings are. They know the fastest way to get somewhere, taking into consideration road work, traffic and time of day. The first thing they need to memorize is 320 standard runs from the guide book when they enroll in the program. Most take it further than this, learning each and every one of the tens of thousands of streets criss-crossing and zig-zagging through London.

This impressive feat, people being more effective than GPS units, sparked interest from researchers. What they found is that the hippocampus, a part of the brain, was enlarged in the taxi drivers of London. What’s more is that the longer the driver was working, they larger the part of the hippocampus could grow.

The researchers even compared a group of prospective drivers. They took an MRI, measured part of the brain and retested the group 4 years later. The group that proceeded to become a licensed drivers - had a larger hippocampus. The group that quit or failed, had no significant changes in the size of the hippocampus.

We get that this happens with exercise. If I measured your muscle mass and then 4 years later, after rigorous training every day, we would all expect that your muscles would be larger. What’s fascinating though is we have the ability to do this with our brains!

Just like with exercise, we can expand our brains with training. We have the ability to adapt, learn and grow. Much more than we thought we possible. Since, until recently we thought our traits were fixed and genetically predetermined.

Plasticity, or your brain’s ability to adapt means you can get better at anything with the right kind of practice. This anti-determinism view is encouraging. We can all keep getting better and continue to improve.

If you’re interested in reading more, check out Peak by Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool.

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach