WARNING: I’ll be using the word “Opportunity” a lot because my Franklin thesaurus is broken.

I’ve been checking my gym app which tracks how often I’ve been to the gym in a month. It ranged from 9 sessions (I blame Santa Klaus and school holidays!) to 15 sessions. 9 opportunities to improve VS 15. Over the course of a year, you’ll be able to see and feel the difference between the two.

Every time you train is an opportunity to improve. 1 opportunity to improve is better than 0. 2 is better than 1 and so on. Of course we could reach a point of diminishing returns but within the constraints of a typical person’s life, we can pick a realistic maximum. You can’t always chase progression, but you’re giving yourself a chance for it to happen. For me, 3 opps (slang for opportunity I assume) a week is the sweet spot for recovery and enjoyment.

We naturally seem to gravitate towards short timelines when it comes to our bodies with people signing up to online programmes named:

• 8 Week – Get Shredded like a Cabbage
• 10 Weeks to Set Your Fat on Fire!
• 11 Week (nope, sorry, no improvement is possible with an odd number)
• 12 Week – Oh I’m Beginning to Hate my Life.
• 16 Week Rip You to Shreds – Seriously, I’m out?

She’s one day into the programme and missing Maltesers and Strictly

Things take time, lots of time, especially if you have developed many unhealthy habits. If we expand our timelines and think about it like “If I eat a croissant for breakfast every morning, that’s 365 croissants which is 17.5 blocks of Anchor butter”. Let’s say we reduced it down to 1 croissant a week, that would be 2.5 blocks of Anchor butter. How much of an impact do you think that would have over the course of a year? The other benefit is you’re really going to look forward to your weekly croissant!

If you apply this principle to other things you’d like to improve upon, how many other things could you achieve in a year? Opportunities for:

• Improving sleep quality
• Finishing a book
• Building a skill for a hobby
• Eating Croissants

Oh man, I’m off to Lidl bakery, brb.

Time Marches On
I would now like to give you a convoluted, very long analogy, but please stick with it, it’ll pay off in the end (if it doesn’t, please unsubscribe or call the local authority who handles such matters).

You’re told you have to walk an indefinite distance, barefoot and naked. It could be 10 miles or 657,000 miles, you’ll never find out. Along the way you meet a merchant who has 3 items for sale, of which you can pick only one: flip flops, walking boots or really cool gold fashion trainers. You make your choice and you keep walking in your new footwear until you encounter the next merchant who has 3 items for sale: 5 doughnuts, a chicken salad or a stick of celery. Along the way, you meet many more merchants, and make many more choices. The choices you make will have an effect on your walk. Alfonso, who chose to walk in flip flops and pick 5 doughnuts at every food merchant is probably not going to be enjoying his walk as the distance increases. Tatyana chose the walking boots and chicken salad and she’s loving her walk. But, at any point, they have the freedom to change their mind and make a different decision, for better or worse.

One of these merchants needs to buy pants from the underwear merchant

This is the abridged version, the original had chariots and a sky full of burning arrows.

In summary, time marches on regardless, and the choices we make along the way affect us positively or negatively. Remember, it’s never too late to make a better choice.

I hope you found that helpful, and if you think it’ll help somebody else, please share it with them.

PT Shaun