What If You Don't Do It?
Sprout Sweater Episode 21 : The Positive Power of Negative Thinking
Join Dave Algeo aboard "Sprout 1" and take another journey into your inner world where mind, meaning and metaphor collide.
In this episode, Dave explores the importance of considering the consequences of not taking action towards a goal or vision.
Dave Algeo is a writer, coach, trainer and speaker empowering others to live big, by identifying the small but significant things that can transform the life we are living. Join Dave on the good ship 'Sprout1' as we explore the inner galaxy of the human mind, and find the sprouts that make the biggest difference. These are the sprouts you are looking for.
Search for 'Sprout Sweater' in your favourite podcast feed. To find out more about the podcast, and episode show notes at Podcast — Stress(ed) Guru and more about his in person and online events at www.stressedguru.com. Drop Dave a line at dave@sproutsweater.com to ask questions, offer feedback or suggestions for future podcast content.
Episode 21 Show Notes
The following is a rough draft of the content (not a full transcript - more notes forming the basis of the podcast recording
What if you don’t do it, what would be the consequences?
Welcome aboard sprout one, I’m your host Dave Algeo, Chief sprout sweater. Settle in as we make our usual trip into our inner space. It may be a bumpier ride than usual as we explore the power of imagining the worst-case scenario in helping motivate us to undertake positive sprout sized action.
It’s episode 21 what if you don’t do it?
And as we lift off the pad and before you get into the episode don’t forget if you find the demands of life and the meaning of it all is leading you to sleepless nights, tossing and turning with deep and not so deep questions rattling around your head, then hop on over to the sproutsweater.com to gain access to my free Operation Snooze Sleep Improvement audio program. Start getting your head back and your shit together so that you can start getting life back on your terms, sproutsweater.com.
How many times have you started on a health campaign or a goal with that all or nothing mindset and only to find that you have ended up dropping the habit or the plan. You’ve ended up sliding back into the old ways and possibly reversed the gains that you may have made. How many times and over how many years have you done that? Looking back over those years how much time has actually passed?
Now, this is not to depress you. It is, however, to get you to recognise the fallacy that is all or nothing thinking because it’s pretty much nothing most of the time let’s be honest and time passes. Imagine if over the last few years instead of engaging in a series of all or nothing blitz as you started small and slow and added in one healthier sprout sized habitat at a time. Imagine how much progress may have been made by introducing one small change. There’s that cliché isn’t there about the best time to plant a tree is 10 years ago and the next best time is now, but the thing is when you plant that tree now you don’t see a lot of results, do you? You don’t see a lot happening for a long time. That’s the challenge isn’t I think with small sprout sized habits. We feel like we don’t see the results or intuitively think all or nothing will bring us the quicker results. But here’s the thing as those habits or small habits do start to set down roots, do start to grow then you do start to get some payback. I’ve noticed an example for me was, we live in a two-storey house, it’s got two flights of stairs. When we first moved in, I remember the first time walking up those two flights of stairs and being a little bit embarrassed that my legs were burning, and I was breathless. Over the years not just with the practice of going up and down those stairs but with introducing things like my couch to 5k building it up, doing some CrossFit and then my 60 burpees a day, I’ve noticed that, that no longer happens. But it isn’t striking. It isn’t particularly obvious. It happened in one moment when I got to the top of my stairs several months ago and realised do you know what I’ve bounced up those stairs. I bounced up them, didn’t I. That’s the difference because it’s in those moments of noticing, those small moments of noticing that you can see the payback. You’re getting the payback from that habit that you’ve started a short time ago. That’s why it can be easy to overlook or ignore but in those moments that’s where you can pick up your motivation. And that’s what motivates me and what motivated me to carry on doing them but what is the bigger picture. What is the bigger motivation to actually do these seemingly insignificant things consistently? Well, I mentioned before that my third child, second daughter Rosie was born when I was 45 years old. Boy did that knacker me out but that aside I also had a wake-up moment literally lying-in bed and for some reason, this thought popped into my head. I’m going to be 66 when Rosie turns 21 and I realised then that despite previous healthy states I had been in, consistently inconsistent I think is a phrase I’ve used in the previous podcast I was never somebody who was consistently a healthy person fitness-wise etc., but I had had periods where I had achieved some level of fitness. I realised though at that point, that 45-year-old I was heading in the wrong direction. A scary question popped up in my head would I make 66, who knew I guessed and if I did what state would I be in. This is where the question what if I don’t do it, what if I don’t do anything about this what’s the cost and I imagined it. Now if you can imagine in the middle of the night this is what we do isn’t it, you imagine the worse case but actually, there was something really valuable in the imagining of this. As an aside here’s something I don’t agree with. I don’t agree that is bad to think of a negative, it’s not. It’s actually really useful to do it as I’ll illustrate shortly but dwelling on the negative, being convinced that is inevitable or that is all there is is a problem and that’s what I have a problem with. So, I don’t have a problem with negative thinking per se it’s actually very useful.
Let’s consider what I was thinking when I was thinking about that question what if I don’t do anything about it; well imagine myself getting heavier, less fit, higher cholesterol, drinking more, feeling less and less energetic and loathing myself even more. Feeling down and self-conscious more than I already did and the biggy not having a great deal of confidence that I would make it to 66. Ok so perhaps a bit dramatic, maybe maybe not but was I prepared to take that chance. Nope, no way. That was the answer and that’s how I felt, I didn’t want to take that chance. I imagined what I wanted to be instead. I wanted to be able to do at 66, God willing I wanted to have a spring in my step, be fitter than I was at 66, fitter at 66 than I was at 45. Not a high bar I hear you say but you know I wanted to be proud of myself and looking like a proud dad, not an ageing grandad. I wanted to celebrate and dance and take part in it, in that celebration. I wanted to live it. So what did I do? Well, I took stock and although I hadn’t fully researched tiny habits it wasn’t something that was totally in my mind DNA as it is now. I kind of knew at a deeper level that the old all or nothing was not the way forward. It had failed me so many times before why would I think it could help now.
I’d heard of this thing called the couch to 5k thing and decided to give it a go and it did work. For those of you who are not so familiar with it the couch to 5k is a free program that’s offered by, I’m not sure whether it’s NHS or Health England or a number of different organisations working together, but the principle of it is its how you can get yourself off the couch and running 5k. From what I remember it’s an 8-week program and what it doesn’t do is get you out running 3 miles the first day. What it does do is get you out walking and running. Walking for a far bit running for a minute and then over the 8 weeks, it builds up the amount of running and reduces the amount of walking. That to me is a classic sprout sweater approach. It gives the person who is embarking on it something that they feel they can achieve but is yet still challenging enough to make them think ‘yeah this is worthwhile’. So, as I said it worked. It was a foundation and it started to look at other habits. What could I ditch or reduce that were things that were not so good for me and what could I introduce? I started to tackle them one by one and I still am. I guess I decided back them three things, core things that I was focused on - move more which is about getting flexible and fitter and more active; eat healthier things like reducing takeaways, reducing the amount of beer I drink and sleep better. Now those were my foundation stones and are and still are, to be honest. Did I fall into all or nothing? Yes, course I did. I embarked I remember not long after Rosie was born, I embarked on a CrossFit blitz, this was my first introduction to CrossFit. It looked great, it looked just up my street and it was great, so I went on a blitz. The all or nothing kicked in. A combination of Rosie being a young baby, lack of sleep and me being an idiot and overdoing it led to injury and burnout. So, I learned from it this time and I stepped back and realised ‘hang on a minute Dave there’s the old all or nothing’.
I guess the questions that I want you to reflect on as we start to think about this is
what is it, what is the area of your life that most preoccupies you, concerns you and what you feel like you’re doing little or nothing to improve? You may have tried all or nothing, but it is before you may have been so distracted with life and work that it has become what I call before you know it phenomenon. Before you know it three or four years have passed and suddenly you are half a stone heavier or a stone heavier, you are unable to walk the stairs without breathing heavily and that kind of thing. Before you know it time has passed and here you are. So what is that thing?
Then two asked yourself and spend some time thinking about what if I don’t do anything about this now. What are the consequences likely to be in a year to five years or longer? Consequences on your health, your relationships, your financial or your career or fulfilment aspects because it isn’t just about health. What would be the consequences and think about them, go there, go there and consider them?
Now three give yourself a further away deadline that perhaps you’ve done in the past because I know that when I’ve realised ‘you know what you’ve let it go again Dave’ I’ve given myself three weeks, six weeks something like that. Give yourself a longer deadline, longer than you’re inclined to give yourself. Give yourself a luxurious amount of time to improve things. Not so that you can sit on your backside until six weeks before the deadline but give yourself a luxurious amount of time. Say in five years’ time what you want to be doing and picture it, feel it, smell it, taste it, believe it which brings me to a key point which is to make it believable. There is no use creating a vision that you just don’t believe in. Make it believable something that you think ‘I can get there; I can do that’. In that time, I can do that, and this is what it smells, tastes, feels like.
Then your final task is to identify three small habits, three initial habits perhaps that one thing you can stop doing and two things that you will start doing. Identify them, what are they? How small can you make the changes and how can you embed them into your life? How can you then consistently do them before building upon them? By making them small you may make them feel insignificant but remember this is not where they will stay. Your planting seeds, you’re growing things and they take time. As the time progresses, you’ll add to them. You’ll improve and add on the habits and build on them and head in that bigger direction.
So as our craft the sprout 1 begins the landing process allowing you to return to your fellow humans, identify the consequences of not taking sprout sized action and decide today to sweat the sprouts that will move you away from that and towards your vision for the future.
I hope you’ve enjoyed your flight aboard sprout1. For show notes and information on how to get the podcast feed direct to your apple podcast, Spotify or other favourite podcast feed visit sproutsweater.com and touchdown!
Episode 22 Teaser:
In episode 22 Dave shares an 'all or nothing' cautionary tale, and encourages you to confront your unsettling feelings with sprout sized action