I’ve tried for over 30 years to build a workout routine into my schedule. Does that sound like an exaggeration? I can see why it might, but, sadly, it’s not. It’s quite literally taken me decades to build a consistent gym presence. It’s not from a lack of trying, though.
Over the past three decades, I’ve tried again and again to get consistent with a workout routine and schedule. I go strong at the beginning, stay strong for a month or two, and then it begins to wane. I can’t even guess how much money I’ve flushed down the toilet in unused gym membership dues over the years. I’ve just never been able to do it with any long-term consistency.
Something Different
At the beginning of 2023, I decided to try it again. This time, though, I decided to get some help. That help came from an unlikely source.
I’m a big YouTube fiend. I have two premium memberships that I maintain simply because I want to watch YouTube in different ways with different algorithmic results and with no ads. Most of the channels I watch receive sponsorship dollars from products that the YouTuber has tried and likes. This was how I became introduced to the workout app, CoPilot* (Thank you Craig Benzine aka Wheezy Waiter). Craig had used the CoPilot app to help himself get into shape. He’d featured it in several videos — just enough for it to sink into my thick skull.
I joined CoPilot in January of 2023. I met with my trainer (Rod) who is based out of Texas and we went over a few goals I’d set for myself. I also made sure to let him know how flaky I tend to get when working out, which he understood. I wouldn’t say I was starting this process committed…but I wanted to be.
I started out with two 20-minute workouts a week. I was so out of shape from years of sitting at my desk working that I was just a pasty, flabby white boy who got winded and had to hang on to everything for dear life. I felt like a baby (maybe a baby would have been stronger).
So Stupid
I hated every minute of the first few months. I was mad at myself, I was mad at Rod, I was mad at my deceased mother, and I was mad at the world. Yet, I stuck with it, telling myself this was not a choice. I kept moving forward — one annoying step at a time.
I’m now a year and a half into this journey. I just got my congrats for passing 130 workouts. I’m in the gym three days a week for an hour each time, and I can do things that I have not been able to do for years.
So, why this time? What made it work? I’ve asked myself that so many times — mulling it over and over in my mind. Honestly, I think it was the CoPilot app. There’s something about having my data tracked, my workout schedule prepared and waiting, and videos of the exercises I need to do that just coalesced into something that my neurodivergent brain could get around. Whatever it was, it just worked. I’m still a pasty, flabby white boy, but underneath that, there is now a serious layer of lean muscle. Muscles I’ve never had before, and I love it.
The Make It Your Own Fallacy
I’ve heard people say for years that you have to “find a way that it works for you” or stuff about “owning it” when it comes to habit forming. I never understood what any of that meant. The hard part about neurodivergence or spectrum-based thinking is that it really impacts how I learn new skills. I generally have to read and reread material a couple of times before it sinks in. I also rely a lot on examples based on watching others to help form new ways of doing things. That’s one of the primary ways I form most of my working mental models.
It’s hard for my mind to extrapolate action without seeing that action performed or demonstrated first.
To hear someone say, I have to make something my own is hard. There’s no context there for me when most of the stuff I do is taken from the examples of what others do. It’s hard for my mind to extrapolate action without seeing that action performed or demonstrated first. Let me be clear, it’s hard, but not impossible. I just do things better when I have a model (example) to work from. And that very reasoning is why I think it took so long to cement this habit.
Everything in the CoPilot app is model-based, right down to providing looping videos of each exercise so you know what the form should look like. It’s tech that empowers me, and I’m thankful for that.
Habits are Personal
You might be wondering how this has anything to do with being a creative professional. Well, the real gem that I’ve pulled from all of this is that habits (real habits) take time, sometimes decades to get it to take root.
Habit building is hard for everyone. Yet, giving up shouldn’t be an option. If we’re building a creative life and business, then giving up is like walking away from our dreams. Giving up is simply not acceptable. You may find you have to come at something 12 or 120 different ways, but if it’s important enough to you then it’s worth pursuing. Forming habits requires problem-solving, but perhaps it’s a problem in which design thinking can be applied. Regardless, there is a solution if you can just keep moving forward.
We’re all on a continuum. It doesn’t matter where you sit or where others sit on that same line. We solely responsible for our own forward momentum, so keep moving forward. Patience is a virtue that pays off in the long run.
*While I do talk about the benefits of using the CoPilot app in this post, I am not being sponsored by the app to write this post. My thoughts are my own.