Article 25: Set a Small Goal First

Set a small goal first.

So far, in Chapter 4 we have introduced four types of exercise: planned exercise, accessory exercise, low-volume high-intensity exercise, and social exercise.

These methods are all good, but when it comes to actually putting them into action, they often encounter the same enemy: procrastination.

In life, we often mistake procrastination for laziness. I suspect that when you can't stick to exercising, someone might also call you lazy, and that comment might even come from yourself. From a psychological perspective, I strongly disagree with using "lazy" to describe a person. First, because I don't believe laziness can fully explain why someone doesn't exercise or develop healthy lifestyle habits; second, the word "lazy" easily evokes feelings of guilt and shame, resulting in even less motivation to change, and so we truly remain lazy forever.

In life, we often find that when people use the word "lazy" to describe someone, it often carries a sweeping generalization. For example, if we say Zhang San is lazy, we're essentially negating him entirely, as if everything he does is lazy and unwilling to work hard. But reality is often not like that. Take exercise, for instance: you might not want to exercise, you might be lazy about physical training, but you're not lazy about work, you're not lazy about your friends, and you're not lazy about your hobbies. Furthermore, I believe most people have a motivation to exercise; otherwise, why would they be reading this book? If they were truly lazy, why would they want to try to lose weight? The problem we face here isn't so-called laziness, but rather habitual procrastination. Please note that procrastination and laziness are two completely different concepts.

So why do we procrastinate? In daily life, we often explain it by saying that someone procrastinates because they have low expectations of themselves, lack ambition, and are careless about their tasks. But true procrastinators are often not like that. They procrastinate because they have too high expectations of themselves and worry about not meeting those expectations. They don't want to procrastinate; rather, anxiety and guilt force them to.

In clinical psychology, severe procrastination is very common. Guess what kind of person is most prone to procrastination? The answer might surprise you: procrastination most often occurs in perfectionists. They strive for perfection, whether it's eating or exercising, they set perfect plans and goals for themselves. Unfortunately, life is often not perfect. When reality doesn't match their ideals, they feel particularly guilty, anxious, and self-blaming, so they choose to procrastinate. They think: rather than getting an imperfect result, I'd rather not start. That way, even if the result is bad, I know it's not a problem with my ability, but because I didn't take action.

For example, you might not have been exercising much lately, and today you set a goal for yourself to run 5 kilometers. The problem is, is it too fast for someone who has never exercised to suddenly jump to running 5 kilometers? Is this goal too high? The same applies to diet. You might have been eating a lot of junk food due to work stress for the past month, and then suddenly decide to give up all snacks and not eat after noon. Isn't this change too fast? Are your standards for yourself unrealistic? Therefore, to reduce procrastination, the first step is to recognize that we might be setting our expectations too high. Overly perfect standards can directly lead us to completely avoid following through.

Are you a perfectionist in life? On your weight loss journey, do you often strive for perfection? Perhaps you want to achieve the perfect diet, the perfect exercise, the perfect weight, and the perfect figure. When you set high standards for yourself but can't meet them, do you feel particularly discouraged and frustrated? If your answer is yes, try the 3-minute rule to help you challenge your procrastination.

The 3-minute rule is actually very simple. Just tell yourself: "What I need to do now is exercise for 3 minutes, just 3 minutes, not a second more." After you finish the 3 minutes, you can set yourself another 3-minute goal and exercise for another 3 minutes, and so on, gradually increasing the time. Generally speaking, once you actually complete the 3 minutes of exercise, you'll find that exercising isn't as difficult as you thought, and you're more likely to continue exercising. The secret is here: our initial goal might be an hour, which is too high a standard and makes us too anxious. But once we tell ourselves we'll just exercise for 3 minutes, the goal becomes much easier to achieve, we're less anxious, and the desire to procrastinate is much smaller.

Of course, it would be even better if you ultimately achieved your ideal goal, but don't be discouraged if you only completed part of it. Even 5 or 10 minutes of exercise is a significant improvement compared to not exercising at all. Doing something is always better than doing nothing; at least you're making progress, right? You can treat it as an experiment: if you don't want to continue after 3 minutes, that's perfectly fine; don't put any pressure on yourself. If you feel good after 3 minutes, then you can certainly continue. This 3-minute rule can be applied not only to exercise but also to other forms of procrastination.

Let's do a short exercise. If I asked you to stop what you're doing right now and immediately do 120 sit-ups in one go, how anxious would you be? What do you think your chances of completing it are? You can write down your answers first. Now, let me ask you to imagine again: if I asked you to do 15 sit-ups now, just 15, then rest for a while, then do 14, then 13, and so on, until finally doing only 1 sit-up. Are you still as anxious as before? Do you think you can complete it? Actually, in both scenarios, the amount of exercise is the same, but breaking down a large goal into smaller steps gives us more confidence to start taking action.

Homework

1. First, review your exercise record and conduct a self-examination: Do we often procrastinate when it comes to exercise? In what situations are we more likely to procrastinate?

2. In the coming week, make full use of the 3-minute rule to challenge your laziness. Allow yourself to lower your standards and just start taking action; this will bring us closer to success.