Jason Harrison

Lifelong fitness isn’t effort, it’s not willpower, and it’s definitely not innate ability. It’s the answer to the question: what do I value as demonstrated by how I spend my time?

Make a list of what you value and be completely honest with yourself. Include things like relationships, sex, family, professional status, and maybe something like volunteering. Make it your list. Rank the items on the list if you’d like.

Now, do an inventory of the most recent three days of your life and where you spent your time. Break it down hour-by-hour and put your activities into buckets (television, family, work, fitness, etc.)

Did your values list match where you spent the preponderance of your time?

If you ranked family first on your list, for example, how much time and energy are you spending on them versus fantasy football, television, or going to happy hours?

Now before we go any further, let’s establish one thing: you are not to judge yourself for what’s on your list or if there’s a disconnect between your values and where you’re spending your time. This is an information-gathering exercise, not an inquisition.

So, if, say, you’re way into video games I don’t want you to feel sheepish about that. I want that on your values list. I want you to be open with yourself about video games being something that you love to play. I want you to be purposeful about playing video games. (Seriously.)

But if there’s something on the list of things to which you devote an inordinate amount of time that you don’t actually value—watching television is on this list for a lot of people—then be aware of that and work to curtail the amount of time you spend on it, replacing it with the things you do value.

I’ve found that a lot of people who are sitting on the sidelines of fitness actually value many aspects of it. They want to feel better. They want to look better. They want to be sick less often. They want to be able to move without pain. They value fitness, but there’s a disconnect between the value they place on it and the lives that they’re living. This disconnect is a recipe for sadness, anxiety, and discontent.

The reason people remain discontented with their lives isn’t laziness. Often they’ve never stopped to think about where they’re spending their precious time. Seasoned and respected professionals, they’ve never done an analysis of their lives the way they might for a customer’s issue, a patient’s illness, or a boss’s request. And sometimes the most pernicious of all reasons is shame. They’re ashamed they’ve never spent time on fitness and now they’re fat/injured/weak/deconditioned/unattractive/insert your own negative self-talk here. Finally, many people don’t believe that they have the self-efficacy to achieve lifelong fitness, so why invest the time to try?

Discard what doesn’t align with your values.

For those folks who don’t value fitness and health, often the reason for the notable absence of things that a sustain quality of life is a lack of self-esteem. Yeah, yeah, I know. It sounds squishy and touchy feely. But stay with me for a second.

If self-efficacy is the belief that one can do something (I can learn how to squat and press a weight above my head), then self-esteem is the belief that one deserves to do something (like achieve a fit body). You already know what this negative self-talk sounds like. “I’m so fat and disgusting. I deserve this. I did this to myself.”

If you fall into the category of people who value fitness but aren’t currently making the time for it, I encourage you to inventory your values and your time without judgment. Eliminate the extraneous and emphasize that which will make you happier and healthier.

If you fall into the category of people who don’t value fitness, I hope you’ll ponder whether you’re lacking the requisite self-esteem to take care of the one body you’ll ever have. If you are, then there’s a strong chance that you won’t get to the gym without first working with a good psychologist, psychiatrist, or counselor to help you troubleshoot the way you think about yourself.

Tell me if this sounds familiar. You’re planning your day, or maybe your week. You’re trying to get fit, so you schedule in some gym time. You’ve been trying to eat healthier, so you know you need to leave some extra cooking time. Maybe you’re making it a point to drink water instead of soda and you have your water bottle ready before you go to bed so you can grab it on your way to work. Because you know all of these things have to fit in with the rest of your life, you’ve scheduled in meetings, work tasks, and even some down time with your significant other.

You do all of these things and you feel like you’re on the right path, but then your plan goes awry. You stay up a little late catching up on emails or watching Sportcenter, and your entire morning is thrown off when you sleep in an extra thirty minutes to try to catch up.

How could you do all of that planning and still get thrown off your game?

Here’s your answer: everything in fitness begins and ends with sleep, including your nutrition.

You can’t work as hard in the gym—or even make it to the gym—if you’re not sleeping seven to eight hours a night.

You can’t recover as well from a hard training session if you’re not sleeping seven to eight hours a night.

You won’t make sound nutritional choices if you’re not sleeping seven to eight hours per night. (Don’t believe me? Compare your willpower when you’re fully rested to your willpower when you’re sleepy or fading.)

If all of this is true (and even intuitive), why don’t we schedule sleep when we fill in our calendars? What we do instead is pack our schedules full and then hit the pillow whenever we get to it. But given the importance of sleep to everything we do, a wiser choice would be to begin our daily or weekly calendar with seven or eight hours of sleep assumed and then build the rest of the schedule around that time.

When I started doing this for myself, a surprising thing happened. I panicked because there didn’t seem to be as many hours in the day, but I found myself getting stronger, injured far less frequently, and far less prone to illness. I had fewer waking hours, but I was more productive in the hours I had left after building in a dignified night of sleep.

Americans especially seem to pride ourselves on how little we’re sleeping, but study after study shows that this is a terrible approach for both productivity and health. When you’re thinking through your schedule tomorrow and beyond, I encourage you to start with sleep and build from there. If you’re like most people, you’ll be better able to function at work, more likely to go to the gym and work hard, and more likely to make sound nutrition choices.

Of course, once you’ve made the choice to get more sleep you need to make sure you actually shut your eyes and drift off.

• Turn off electronics an hour before bed.
• Sleep in a cool, dark room.
• Think of three things from the previous day for which you are specifically thankful. Don’t just say, “family,” say, “I’m grateful for my sister’s great advice when I asked her about switching jobs.” This gratitude practice forces your brain to search for positivity, which can decrease anxiety and make falling asleep easier.