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Jono Gallagher's avatar

One of my goals is to workout 4 days a week. In fact it’s been a goal for over a year but I’ve never achieved more than ~3.25 days a week. I have a calendar in my home gym and after each workout I circle the date so I can visually see and track my previous workouts. The problem is the calendar never leaves my gym so I only see it when I’m already planning to workout. After reading this I realized I should put it on my fridge. So that’s where it is! If this doesn’t work I’m stapling it to my face!

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Mark Palmer's avatar

Ha! Yes, that's better! Also, can you make it more fun? My breakthrough for riding my bike was finding a few podcasts I couldn't wait to listen to. That made me look forward to riding; sometimes, I even allow myself to take an easy day, but still get on the bike to listen. Often, even if I'm coasting at first, listening, I start to get into it. Sometimes those end up being the hardest days. Thanks for the comment Jono!

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Jono Gallagher's avatar

Great idea. I had already been thinking about how I might incorporate music into my workouts. It’s a bit of a challenge because I workout while watching on-demand Zoom recordings hosted by a trainer at my gym. So I need to be able to hear the instructions but I think I can make this work. And like you, I suspect I’ll be able to exert more energy...and sweat!

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Michael Woudenberg's avatar

I liked this in concert with Martin Prior's idea of making them into a habit, not a goal.

https://neverstoplearning1.substack.com/p/setting-goals-is-pointless-you-need

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Mark Palmer's avatar

Love Martin's work. Thanks for sharing it!

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