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Slow and Steady...
My brother in law, Wayne, is a busy newspaperman living in Alabama on a diet consisting of a little too much barbeque, casserole, and other southern delicacies. Having lived in the South myself, I know how irresistible, and decadent, southern comfort food can be. Wayne also has a weakness for excellent wine and is the doting father of a three year old and a newborn. The result of all of these blessings is a happy man with a large belly.
Underneath his 50 extra pounds, there's a solid athlete dying to come out. Despite several remarkable attempts to overcome his circumstances and revolutionize his lifestyle, Wayne has been frustrated in his efforts to sustain change. Case in point--while we spent the week together with our respective wives' family in a cabin in Arkansas, Wayne would charge out the door for a run, coming back two hours later sweaty and grinning. The next day, he wasn't even sore. I've seen him do this before, most notably on previous Christmases in anticipation of the New Year and its opportunity--and pressure--to start anew. But despite, or maybe because of, Wayne's uncanny physical and mental ability to go from zero to sixty instantly, his efforts at change have tended to be short lived. He's supercharged and impatient. Not an unusual combination among achievers, but one that has a double edge.
We discussed Wayne's frustration and his desire to finally get, and stay, in shape. "Man, I tell you, Will, it is tough," Wayne confessed. "Every night, because of our visibility in the community, we get offers of free dinners, and it's all so good. We're so busy with the paper and the kids, that it's tough to resist these offers and equally tough to keep to a fitness plan." So he tries, all at once, to overcome his circumstances, but after a short while of two-hour runs or suddenly ascetic dieting, he's back to more familiar ways. Wayne's difficulty sustaining change is not due to weakness of discipline or lack of desire; he's just employing an approach that, given his circumstances, is not effective. Brain science has uncovered some of why our best efforts at personal transformation fail. Sudden changes of habit trigger a fight or flight response in us that is tough to conquer. So when Wayne, with great resolve, changes his physical behavior or his diet, his brain says, "whoa, fella, not so fast. I'm comfortable where I am and all this change is scaring me." The result is anxiety, which can manifest as fatigue, avoidance, and failure.
So Wayne and I are working together to construct a fitness plan that employs the Kaizen Approach (see previous blog entry) to change. The Kaizen Approach--a Japanese adaptation of W. Edwards Deming's Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) method--approaches large changes a little at a time, employing constant micro-efforts. Kaizen has been traditionally applied to corporations seeking to improve efficiency, but has recently been applied with great success to human behavior. Constant micro steps toward change tricks the amygdala into thinking that the change you're after is no big deal, so the fight or flight anxiety response is circumvented. The result is a much easier and more sustainable path to change.
Wayne will be writing a column on his Kaizen-style progress in his newspaper, which I'll link to in this blog. So we'll get to see how well the Kaizen Approach works!
Here are a few of the building blocks we're starting with for his tortoise-styled quest for fitness:
• I had Wayne pick an ambitious, but achievable goal...a goal that makes him a little nervous to keep him inspired and motivated!
o SELECTED GOAL: Run his first marathon in April
• I had Wayne break his goal into three possible outcomes: Bronze, Silver and Gold, so that there is flexibility, not rigidity, in his ambition.
o Bronze: goal that, with solid work, is well within Wayne's reach (banning sickness or injury).
BRONZE GOAL: finish
o Silver: a solid stretch goal--something can achieve if his training is solid and his race day performance is strong.
SILVER GOAL: undetermined
o Gold: a goal that would involve his best training, the achievement of all of his training benchmarks, and his best race day performance, plus a little luck
GOLD GOAL: undetermined
• We will break Wayne's work down into daily micro-tasks...change will happen a little bit every day. My job at first will be to hold Wayne back!
• We will introduce areas of change one at a time. For now, Wayne gets to eat and drink as he normally does. We're focused right now only on introducing regular, moderate exercise. Diet can wait until exercise has become a comfortable fact of life. Too many changes at once will freak out the amygdala!
The Kaizen Approach to change has been shown to work in lots of personal areas--exercise, addictions, diet, etc.--that people often find hard to change despite (or because of) an intense desire to do so. I'll upload the articles on Wayne's progress as they are published so that you can see Kaizen in action!
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Comments (3)
Michael Behmer:Woo Hoo! I love this stuff.
Beth Laughlin:I agree that slow and steady is a good way to approach goals each year. Kaizen!
david herz:Change is tough and sometimes not changing can be more painful but a pain that we are familiar with and maybe ven a bit addicted too. That's why it can be wonderful to work with a therapist as one takes on a big change so that you can deal with the fears in a way that will help you move through to new wonderful terriory.
Always beena challenge for me. One of my teachers explained change in relation to nme as this: "You seem to driving with one foot all the way down on the accelerator and the other one slamming on the brake."
That's one way to exhaust myself!
Peace out!
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