← Mayo Clinic On Human Optimization
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- [00:01]
A
If I had the willpower to wake up at five in the morning to go for my Boston Marathon training, even though my bed is warm and comfy, I don't have to look for motivation. I don't have to look for confidence. I have the systems in place to make sure that that action happens.
- [00:18]
B
This is Mayo Clinic on Human Optimization, a podcast where we break down the science of human potential to help you understand how purpose driven effort leads to high level performance and long term Wellbe. Hi, I'm Dr. Christopher Camp Director of high performance for the Minnesota Twins and a sports medicine surgeon with Mayo Clinic. You don't need me to tell you that working out is hard. That's like the whole point. But for many of us, the hardest part isn't physically lifting the weights or running the laps. It's getting to the gym in the first place. It's knowing that we can do hard things. It's staying motivated to keep working at it, even when day to day progress feels hard to measure. So how do we work on our mental fitness with the same dedication we bring to our physical fitness? This episode we're joined by Dr. Jonathan Jenkins, a clinical and sports psychologist at Massachusetts General Hospital. He's also the team clinical and performance psychologist for the New England Patriots and behavioral sports psychologist for the Boston Red Sox. He's the author of the book Mentality Wins the Athlete's Playbook for Thriving in Sport and life. The three big questions that we have for Dr. Jenkins are, number one, what is the mental game of fitness? And why is it just as important as physical training? In section number two, our big question is, why do so many people struggle with the psychological friction of staying physically fit? And number three, we'll get into some solutions when we ask him. How can we actively train our minds to overcome these blocks and elevate our physical fitness? Jj, welcome so much to the podcast and thank you for joining us today.
- [02:12]
A
Thanks for having me. Ready to rock.
- [02:13]
B
All right, let's do it. So in this first section, I always like to start out with some definitions so folks know exactly what we're talking about. As an expert in the field, how do you define mental fitness in the context of physical performance and overall health?
- [02:28]
A
Well, there's two kind of ways that I define it. One is mental fitness, which is similar to physical fitness. So what's your brain's firepower? How can we keep the brain healthy? Can we keep it agile? Can we do things and set up strategies so that we reduce careless errors? And so that we improve our memory, we improve Our coordination, so, so how the brain functions. The other way that I think about it is this idea of mental fitness. What are we doing to encourage physical fitness? How can we leverage our cognitive skills, our emotional wellness, to make us feel more comfortable being active and engaging in our environment?
- [03:03]
B
And do you feel like both of those things can be improved?
- [03:08]
A
Totally. I mean, Chris, if we think about our own lives, if we were going to take an audit over the course of the year, you could think of how many hours you spent in the gym, doing cardio, getting massages, rehab, prehab for your body. That would be some total number. For a lot of people, that could be hundreds of hours. And then if we were able to ask them, okay, how much time are you spending on your mental fitness? Going to therapy, visualizing mindfulness, spending time with friends, it be considerably lower. And so we have this imbalance of times that we're spending on these two very biologically important parts of our body. And what I would love to do, and it sounds like you're interested in doing as well, is how can we create more balance with the amount of time we're dedicating to our physical body and the amount of time that we're spending on our mind. And even though our physical body is what people often see as either being well or unwell, or experienced as being unwell or well, there's this whole part from the neck up that people are neglecting and it's causing people to get sick and not live lives to the fullest.
- [04:10]
B
And I think our ultimate goal is to not only develop both of those, but then understand the synergy. So how can our physical bodies improve sort of our mental approach, and how does our mental approach improve what we're able to do physically? So we've heard people talk about this mind body connection. Can you tell me what that is from a clinical psychology perspective?
- [04:31]
A
Sure. So the great example that I like to use is if we've ever played pickup basketball, when you were in your 20s or your 30s, you'd go to the gym and there would usually be this person in their 50s or 60s just killing people on the court. We usually call it old man strength. And this idea that that athlete is relying more on their mental skills, their neck up to get them to points or to make good shots or to play great defense because some of their physical skills have declined compared to a 20 year old, 18 year old, 17, somebody in more of that physical prime. And so when we're thinking about the mind body connection, it's how can you leverage and Keep this equilibrium between these both really strong, really powerful parts of yourself. And if there's a disconnect where you can't encourage the mind to do things by how you carry your body, or you can't encourage your body to do things by how you carry your mind, you're losing a lot of functionality in what you'll be able to accomplish and what you're able to perform.
- [05:33]
B
Great. And as we get into this, I think we'll see we're talking about a little bit more than just willpower or just motivation. But I think that our brain and our psychological state can actually impact our body's physiology. You know, our heart rate and fatigue and endurance and those sort of things. So can you tell me how the brain then affects your physiology?
- [05:56]
A
Sure. So if we take a step back, we know about some of the genetic indicators and some of the genes that can get turned on or turned off due to family history of trauma, depression or anxiety. And so if we take that and extrapolate it, and now we have an anxious brain or a depressed brain where the chemical interactions and the neurotransmitters are creating an environment within the brain where threat is being overly suggested to the person, where sadness is flooding their ability to make proper decisions. Now we're getting into a situation where that chemical and neurochemical environment is contributing to someone being able to not make decisions in the best interest of their wellness, even though they know, hey, I got to get exercise, I got to get movement, I got to do certain things with my nutrition. But the chemical structure and the chemical going ons of their brain is discouraging them from taking action on their health. And Chris, it's really interesting, I'd say a lot with the professional teams and for professional folks that I work with, collegiate athletes as well, the biggest change that I'm helping them implement is rest and recovery. So obviously there's a huge number of people who experience anxiety when they're playing sports or may even have some depressive symptoms related to an event that happened with sports injury, recovery, demotion, getting released, whatever it might be. But oftentimes people are okay with the activation to get up there to play the sports. But then when the sport is over and it's time for rest and recovery, they're still here, they're type 8 people, they're high achieving people. And to actually get them to, hey, let's calm the nervous system down, let's remove stressors, let's get our body to a baseline so it can actually recover and resolve itself from the challenges that you put it through that day, that is really, really challenging. And I think with hustle culture, with 24 hour news cycles, with 24 hour social media, you can look if you want to and feel like you're behind in whatever you're doing. When we were younger, we were thinking we just wanted to be the fastest kid in the neighborhood, maybe even the town. But now with 24 hour social media, a 10 year old in Kentucky can know what somebody, another 10 year old is doing in Seoul, Korea. They can know how fast every 10 year old in their sport is in the entire world. And although that data and information can be super helpful in a lot of ways, it can also create some neuroses that we have to deal with as clinicians, as parents, and as supporters of athletes.
- [08:31]
B
You do this work at a very high level, jj. You know, you're working with professional baseball players, NFL football players. Nobody is paying me to play sports right now, but I want to know, does this apply to me? So if is this something just for the elite athletes, are these benefits really applicable to everybody? No matter their athletic aptitude?
- [08:50]
A
It's applicable to everybody. I know it may be hard to believe that Chris and I are older and in our 40s, but even as people who went professional in something else, we have this obligation and this opportunity to really put quality back into our lives. So I'm 42, I'll disclose my age. Chris can decide what he would like to do. I realize now that I have this opportunity to put quality into the years that I have left. If I'm banking on quantity, I could be doing something that could be setting myself up for failure. Because I don't know how many days, years, months, decades I have left. But if I focus on the quality of these relationships, the quality of my moments, the quality of my interactions with friends and strangers, I can really set myself up to fully live my life. And when we think about exercise, exercise is an investment in the quality of life that you're going to have both in that moment and moving forward. But when we think about professional athletes, one of the biggest things that we do is focus on life outside of sport. So when you think about that, if life in sport is chaotic and life outside of sport is chaotic, then there's no refuge. So we want athletes to be athletes and, and athletes and a parent, athletes and an artist, athletes and a comedian athletes and a cook and somebody who is a foodie. So being able to cultivate interest outside of sports allows us to diversify our attention and our Expectations similar to stocks and investment. If I put all my money into one stock, that stock better hit because if we lose it, I'm going to be heartbroken. But if I diversify my stocks there or that investment into five or 10 or 15 stocks, if one goes up, great. I feel that advancement and I feel that benefit and that profit. But if one goes down, I still have four other or nine other to support it. And so the same really applies to these professional athletes and helping them find ways to juggle familial responsibilities, interests and hobbies that they had before they became a professional. And also just getting them acculturated in the communities that they live so they can feel comfortable being a citizen or a community member in Boston or New York City or San Diego. One of the biggest things that they struggle with is having to live their lives in public. And so I have the benefit of being a stranger to 99.9% of the people that live in the greater Boston area. But when you're 6 foot 7 and you play in the super bowl or you hit the game winning double in the World Series, you're not a stranger anymore. You're very, very public. And so some of those public moments that we wish were private get amplified and it can cause a tremendous amount of stress for people.
- [11:32]
B
That's very well said. And I'll JJ I'm also 42 and I know you and I have talked about this before. We're both a couple of washed up, you know, former college athletes that are now just trying to stay in the game. And this concept of quality is so appealing to me. You know, I'm, I'm not trying to set world records, I'm not trying to win trophies right now, but I'm trying to stay in the game and I want to live my life to its fullest now and, and long term. When we talk about this concept of mental fitness and our psychological approach to working out, how do you measure or assess somebody's baseline level of mental fitness when it, when it comes to their physical performance?
- [12:08]
A
First of all, you got to treat everybody as an n of 1, right? So if I'm trying to compare the mental fitness of somebody who is working two jobs and has fur babies at home and can't really dedicate a ton of time to exercise, versus Jayson Tatum, LeBron James, whose whole life is designed and oriented around maximizing their physical, mental and emotional health, that would be an unfair errand for that person. And so really diving into doing some motivational interviewing with them about, hey, what do you want to accomplish? What's your goal? What's your why? What are the barriers to accomplishing your goal and your why? And what are the influences that are contributing to getting stuck when you get started or not getting started at all? And so really taking almost like a qualitative approach to it. And then just my personality is, I want to celebrate every little milestone. You went to the gym. That's fantastic. You picked up weight. That's fantastic. And creating some energy and enthusiasm and some community around what they're doing so that they can then feel like it's not just them in the gym. They might be the ones lifting the weights or going for the run or doing the yoga or doing the rehab and the prehab, but there's whole communities of people who are not in there, not by them, that are completely excited and enthusiastic about the work they're putting in.
- [13:45]
B
All right, let's jump into our second section. What are some of the most common mental mistakes you see folks make in this area?
- [13:51]
A
Well, I think the biggest one is they assume they can't do it. There was a study on master's level runners, and these were runners who had ran the pen relays and some of the other major competitions for years. And what they found is that their priority really didn't change until they hit 70. So if you're thinking about a PR in the mile 5k 10k marathon, if you do the training, you can pretty much continue to have a good level of fitness or a fitness that you're accustomed to until you hit about 70 years old. But there's a lot of people out there that feel as though they're incapable of being able to either maintain their level of health or their level of activity and movement, or incapable of even starting. And so I think that barrier for entry and the amount of kinetic energy that people feel like it's going to take to actually get in the gym, to pick up the weights, to start walking, start doing yoga, really discourages a lot of people from being able to see and experience the benefits on the other side of that fear of getting started.
- [14:54]
B
And I think a lot of what you're talking about here is self efficacy, and it's your belief in your ability to do something or accomplish something. And I think that really is sort of foundational to all of this. But oftentimes we don't recognize that self efficacy because maybe our goal's too lofty or relying on the wrong mechanisms, the wrong motivations, which I know you'll help us sort through. One of the things I think we also struggle with sometimes are sort of core beliefs about our bodies and we sort of put these limits on ourselves. So what are some of the negative things that you see people tell themselves about themselves that actually affect how they perform in the gym?
- [15:33]
A
Well, one of the negative things we see is kind of gender based. With female athletes and women who participate in sports, particularly in the college level, there's this drive to be a really good athlete, but also stay within the, for lack of a better term, like the aesthetic guardrails that society puts on them. And so some athletes that I work with might struggle with, hey, I know I could start lifting more and I could get stronger, but I'm afraid that it's going to cause me to be too bulky. And so on the field it will be this benefit, but off the field, society is telling me that this could actually be to my detriment socially. And so how do I navigate those two poles for my experience in life and you know, as a collegiate athlete? And then we talk about aging. I was at a conference recently and a lot of the focus, rightly so, was on youth athletics. And one of the things that I thought about was like, okay, what about geriatric athletes? What about athletes in their 40s and 50s and 60s? So we get to celebrate youth and sports and see that connection between the two from watching these professional athletes. But then in our own lives as 42 year olds, we don't get to see role models out in public doing some of the things that we want to do and using their bodies in the way that we're trying to use our bodies too. So the role modeling that stops once you hit a certain age has been a challenge that I've experienced. And trying to seek out role models in their 40s who are juggling jobs and other parenting and other responsibilities while also maybe being elite athletes, but being even weekend warrior athletes. That's something that I've been looking for. And I know that's contributed to a lot of people having negative views about their bodies or negative views about what they're potentially able to accomplish.
- [17:25]
B
My hope is that some of the evidence that's coming out that's showing that we can remain active and athletic into our later years or for, for women that are worried about, you know, too much muscle, like showing the actual health benefits and value of being strong and having the muscle they need. I'm really hoping that some of that evidence will help us change the narrative in those directions. So I'd really encourage folks try to follow the evidence where you can. And we're learning so much more about this and figuring out what actually is healthy and how. Maybe that doesn't always align with historical esthetic norms or expectations, but I think that we can defy those and we have good reason and evidence as. As to why. Why is it that motivation seems to consistently fail us every time we try to establish a new physical fitness routine?
- [18:16]
A
I think one of the biggest lies that we've told people is that they need to have confidence and they need to be motivated. There have been a lot of times that I've done a lot of great things. And Chris, I'm sure you can relate to this too. Where I was shaking in my boots, I was so scared, I was so nervous, I was so uncomfortable. But when the lights came on or when the whistle blew, I was in that zone and I got it done. And so this idea that a lot of people had said, this is not my idea at all, but this idea that instead of confidence and motivation, we need to develop willpower in systems. If I had the willpower to wake up at five in the morning to go for my Boston Marathon training, even though my bed is warm and comfy, I don't have to look for motivation. I don't have to look for confidence. I have the systems in place to make sure that that action happens. And then I have the willpower to pull myself up from moments or days or workouts where I'm less motivated because there are going to be a lot of days where I'm just fired up to get to the gym or I'm fired up to go for my training run. I don't have to worry about confidence and motivation then. But willpower and systems and strategies help me for the days where instead of getting invested in a hundred percent of my workout, maybe I put a 60% workout or effort in there. And now I've wasted all this time and energy that I partitioned for my workout. Instead, if I had the willpower and the systems, I'm getting as close to that a hundred, as many times as possible, which is going to make it so that when the marathon Monday pops up or some other event, I'm at peak performance and I'm confident in my performance.
- [19:55]
B
Another struggle for us is that we live in a world of instant gratification. I want it all, and I want it right now. So how has that desire for instant gratification influenced our expectations around physical performance and physical fitness?
- [20:09]
A
Yeah, it's been tough because physical performance and physical fitness is something that is so well built by drops in a bucket. And so being able to have a person or a mindset that says, I'm invested in this process, I'm excited about my growth when they're in the gym, but then when they're out of the gym, they can get exposed to social media and see people who have an abundance of resources that they don't have. They may have abundance of chemical support that they don't have, flaunting their results that can make it really, really challenging. And if the general population had an understanding when we think of professional sports, just how much time these folks are spending on their physical body and. And how much support they get to be able to lift so much and run so often, they would understand that it would be impossible for a lot of us who are trying to do multiple things very well in our lives to be able to approach the level of physical fitness and goal setting that these professional athletes have. And so what I often say about myself and what I say to my clients is, you want to be the best version of you that you possibly can be given the circumstances in your life. When I was in my 20s, I just had to worry about myself. I could be selfish. I could go to the gym at any hour of the night. I could go for a run for two or three hours. Now my priorities are different. I'm partnered. We have a son. I have professional obligations. My parents are in their 80s, so I have to find ways to take care of all these really, really important things in my life while also investing in me as well. And now my investment in myself physically is less for sports or for vanity, and it's more like I want to stay on earth as long as possible. And I know that physical fitness is a part of increasing the opportunity or the chance that I can have some longevity.
- [22:10]
B
You mentioned goal setting in there and sort of a difference, you know, for what elite professional athletes are doing versus what regular folks are doing. I think one of the big areas where we make some mental mistakes is in our goal setting for physical fitness. So what are the most common mistakes you see people make when it comes to setting their physical fitness goals?
- [22:30]
A
I think the first one is one that I kind of just mentioned, but I won't name any names of places that do this, but training too much like a professional athlete, right? So there are certain gyms and certain places where you get rewarded for spending as much time in your max heart rate as possible. You get rewarded and celebrated socially or even on an actual scoreboard for almost throwing up or Throwing up. If I'm a 45 year old who's mainly spending his days, I'm 42 year old. I don't know why I said I was 45. If I'm 42 year old who's mainly spending his days doing therapy and chasing my son around, there's no reason for me to spend the majority of my exercises with my heart rate blasting into the 90th percentile or 90% of my max heart rate. There's no reason for it. At whatever age you are, you should be training in the way in which you are going to perform. So if I'm a boxer in my twenties and I'm doing three two minute rounds with one minute rest in between, I probably need to do a lot of high heart rate training because I'm training for that event. But if I'm a 50 year old, if I'm a 60 year old, why would I need to be maxing and stressing my heart out, even though it's positive stress, even if it's enjoyable stress? But why would I need to be putting that much stress on my body if that's not something that I'm doing regularly and need to train my body for when instead I need to train my body for at 40, 50 or 60, depending on what your goals are, could be I want to lower my heart rate. I want my heart rate to beat more efficiently. I need it to be efficient when I'm at a steady state, a low state. How is my heart rate performing when it's 75% of max or 60% of max on the same thing? When it comes to lifting, how much do I need to lift? Which parts of my skeletal system, skeletal muscular system need to be strong so I can go through my day so that when I sit for five hours I can actually stand up and my back doesn't hurt? What are the ways in which I need to be agile and fast so that I don't trip and fall, not so that I can go score a touchdown, because I'm not going to be scoring a touchdown at 42. So really being able to, instead of continuing to fantasize about yourself as a professional athlete, being able to say, okay, for me, how do I maximize my quality of life and be as fit as I possibly can be, and what are the challenges and the journeys that I want to go on and given those challenges, what tools do I need or how do I need to adapt my body so I can be healthier, more resilient doing those things?
- [25:07]
B
So you see, people make the mistake of thinking that they need to train like a professional or train at this level that's way too high for them. How about the flip side of that? Can you go to the opposite and actually set your goals too low for yourself? Have you seen that?
- [25:19]
A
I've seen that too. I think people have underestimated their capacity for change and how much they could put into their physical self. Right? So I'm one of these people that I've always said, I'm too busy for X, I'm too busy for why. And then when I did an honest accounting of how much time I'm spending doing certain things, I realized like, oh, I am wasting away about three or four hours a day doing things that don't serve my commitments or my goals. And so once I was able to chip away some of the wasted time doom scrolling or just doing things that were unnecessary, I really found this treasure trove of extra time that I could dedicate towards me, towards my future self, who five years from now, ten years from now, will really benefit from me. Instead of doom scrolling on the Internet, taking time to make good nutrition choices, taking time to go for a walk, taking time to go lift or get on the peloton. And so I've really seen it as an opportunity to invest. And a lot of folks may say like, I'll do that later when they have the time to do it now. And they haven't done the appropriate audit of their time to find where are those nuggets of time? I used to think every time that I lifted, I needed an hour to lift. And so if I only had 45 minutes, I wouldn't go lift. If I only had 30 minutes, I wouldn't go lift. Now my thought has changed where I can say, yeah, I wish I had an hour, but I can still get a really good lift in in 45 minutes. Because 45 minutes of lifting, guess what is better than zero minutes of lifting or 30 minutes of exercise when you wanted 45 is still better than zero. And so almost taking a take what you can get approach when you have a busy schedule instead of everything has to be perfect. I need my hour, I need the sun to be out, I need it to be over 65 degrees. Being able to say, this is the day that I was given, I'm going to try to make the most of it. And on this day I'm going to try to include some physical activity.
- [27:20]
B
So like so many things, you know, don't overdo it, don't underdo it, know how to dial it in do things that will challenge you appropriately, but not so much that you're risking burning out injury, you know, and having problems and overtraining. You know, it's interesting in life, I think so many of the things that we know are good for us are in reality kind of boring, right? Eat well, get enough sleep, move your body. We know the right answer, but we don't like this. As humans, I think we're all drawn to many like flashy, shiny new gimmicks and often bad advice we hear just because it's novel. So why is our brain wired this way to seek this novelty and trying to avoid boredom?
- [28:05]
A
I think part of it is due to some of the social media stuff we were talking about earlier. Social media is full of hacks. Here's a hack to lose weight, here's a hack to increase your bench press, here's a hack to do a marathon under four hours. And so because we're sold this idea that there are hacks and there are shortcuts, we expect things to go quicker than they actually would normally go. And when we engage in and get excited about something boring, the reality is boring is easier for us to be consistent with than something that's flashy, something that takes a lot of time and something that takes a lot of effort. And the brain and body need boring. They need something that's not going to kick the sympathetic nervous system into a frenzy and get you all excited and cause you to spend all this emotion and all this physical energy and need something that's consistent, that's reliable, that's reinforceable, that's doable, and that's easily put into your life's schedule. And so there was a study in, I think it was 1988 or 1998, called the mundaneity of Excellence, where they studied Wisconsin swimmers over the course of a decade. And they found that the best swimmers were the ones that were able to do the simplest things. And they would compound those things over time, practice them religiously, and they were able to do them extremely, extremely well compared to the other swimmers. And that allowed them to be these great Olympic or Olympic bound athletes. Whereas a lot of us think that great athletes do spectacular things or are the ones that hit game winning shots, but those game winning shots come from them being able to do really simple, really mundane, really boring things. Think about how many shots Jordan would have to hit so that Jordan knew that if there's five seconds left on this clock and I get to that spot, I know I can get that shot off. And people don't get excited about that practice, they get excited about the result. But if we're able to get more in that mastery mindset or in that process oriented mindset, then just the whole process of finding spots on the basketball court where you can get your shot up, or if you're a tennis player, finding where and what you need to do to be able to get an amazing serve. Those can be the things that we clue into and find novelty in versus finding novelty and switching and transitioning when we find resistance or challenge.
- [30:37]
B
I think you hit on one of the greatest ironies of being a human being in the modern times. Every one of us will admit that we are all overstimulated, stressed to the max, you know, running 1,000 miles an hour and things need to slow down. Yet we get frustrated when activities are boring. And boring is exactly what we need. And so I think if you could find an area of your life where you can do something that's boring, that's a huge win. Your nervous system needs it. You know, your ego needs it, your willpower needs it. Everything needs it. So don't see boring as a negative thing. And one of the easiest tricks that I've seen is just trying to make that switch from saying I have to go work out to I get to go work out. And just small things like that will completely change sort of how you approach it, and that can change how you feel about it. Then that'll change what you think about it and that'll change what you do. Let's talk a little bit more about some solutions. We'll jump into this third section and we'll talk about how we can actively train our minds to overcome some of these blocks to our physical fitness. So I love lists, as everybody knows. So I'm going to ask you for three different lists here. Okay? So the first one, we're going to talk about things to help us get started with physical fitness. The second things to help us keep going with our physical fitness. And the third is how we celebrate progress. So first, can you give us some tips of practical strategies to fix our mindsets to help us get started with physical fitness? So help me get up off the couch and get moving.
- [32:18]
A
First, you got to have a reason to do it, right? You can't have people telling you to do it. You can't read articles about how important it is to exercise. You got to find your why. And your why has to be indestructible to anybody else's opinion. If your why is, I want to become a wwe wrestler or I want to become the person who's able to do a kick flip or whatever. Like being able to feel so satisfied and so hungry from that goal and not necessarily worry about other people's opinion about what is driving your reason to execute on this task. That's number one. Number two, we need to get out of the mindset of creating outcome goals. I need to win this competition or I need to lose 30 pounds, or I need to be able to do X, Y and Z. Those outcomes are really based on a variety of variables that are within and not within your control. So instead, we really want to base that roadmap of our journey on process goals. So if I want to become the leading scorer in the NHL, one of my process goals would be how can I start shooting better at the shots that I don't do well? So maybe upper right is my cold spot on a shooting chart. So how do I get better at those upper right hand shots? How do I get better with my offhand? How do I play better defense to be able to give us better scoring opportunities? There are a variety of things that I can drill down into and get hyper focused on or excited about as opposed to the binary. I either was the scoring champ or I wasn't. That we won't even be able to determine until the end of the season to steal or to borrow something from James. Clear atomic habits make it easy, make it obvious, right? Your life's complicated enough. There's no reason to come up with this overly delicate or overly fragile, overly complicated way of getting the goal done. Really think about what have other people done when they've been put in my situation where they've had a similar goal of going from a couch to a 5K or being able to pick up a new sport, see what they did, see if it works for you. And if it does, great. You just saved yourself a ton of time. Now you're invested in the task versus researching or trying to invent strategies to be able to do what you want to do and then using language that identifies you with whatever you're about to take on. So being able to almost name it, to tame it, Dan Siegel type stuff where you're able to say when you encounter stress, it's not me who's the problem. This is an adult or a person experiencing a challenge or because they're trying to do something difficult. And when you separate and don't personalize yourself from the thing that's struggling or the thing that's bothering you, you're still able to Maintain your humanity and be able to see yourself as a human experiencing a human event versus a person who's consumed by this trait that you deem to be undesirable.
- [35:15]
B
That's a great list. How about now? If we use that and now we start going now. Now we're doing the workout. How do I stay motivated in it and how do I keep going? What are your tips for that?
- [35:28]
A
So one of my favorites is to think about an anchor cue or a mantra. So when I was playing lacrosse, I get super nervous on face offs because that's when you decide possession. And one of the things that I came up with help from a therapist, is this idea of flush it. So whenever there was a bad play, I'd flush it down the toilet, I wouldn't think about it and I transition onto the next move. That allowed me to get back into the play quicker, return to my objective and my commitment quicker. So think about it this way. If I didn't do that, it might take me four or five minutes to get my head back into a place that was productive. Well, if it takes me four or five minutes, now I'm missing four or five minutes of the game for me to enjoy. Four or five minutes of the game for me to be productive, four or five minutes for me to be able to make a great play and contribute to my team. So anchor phrases or anchor items can be super helpful. The next are the three Rs. So recognize, reset and respond. So recognizing that you're falling off on your goals, what is the symptom or the sign that that's happening? Reset. So bring yourself back to where you want to be. If the car goes off the road, bring it back onto the road and then respond, what's the low hanging fruit that you can then take on? That's going to start putting you back on the path and actively engaging with your goal and then being able to shift and maintain those process goals and progress goals in real time and being able to chart and celebrate them, that's going to be helpful. If you're training for the Boston Marathon and you're only excited when you get to that big long 20, 21 mile long run, we're not going to have motivation to do the other runs along the way to get us there. So celebrating it, gamifying it, bringing play and joy into it, those are things that can keep us entertained and motivated versus finding things that get us exhausted, stressed and demotivated.
- [37:23]
B
Celebrating the process is one of my mantras. That's one of my favorite things to talk about. And I think it applies to every aspect of life. And I think most people don't do it enough. So let's talk a little bit more about that. Can you give me some ideas of ways that people can appropriately celebrate their progress on a fitness journey? Because we know it's slow, these are not going to be instant results. How do you appropriately celebrate?
- [37:50]
A
So one of my favorite things, and I'm not sure if you've seen this Chris was Snoop Dogg or, excuse me, Snoop Doggy Dog when he got his walk fame star. And so he thanked everybody, Dr. Dre and everybody else. And then at the end of the talk, he went into this really cool talk where he said, and last and most importantly, I thank me. I thank me for staying up late at night. I thank me for writing those songs, I thank me for spending hours in the studio, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so I think there needs to be more Snoop Dogg and what people are doing and being able to thank themselves, give themselves credit, give themselves grace, recognize that, yeah, you, if you are working on running and you're doing a run walk, mix, and you are out there for 30 minutes, even though people are passing you and they're out there for two hours, celebrate those 30 minutes. Those 30 minutes are hard. Whatever you're doing is hard when it comes to trying to accomplish physical, mental, and emotional tasks. If you're not celebrating it, either in really serious ways or funny ways, like Snoop Dogg did, then you're not giving yourself the credit for following your why, staying on task and being able to do what you set out to do. And if we're just celebrating it on the day of the marathon or on the day of the game or on the day of the championship, we're missing real opportunities to connect with ourselves and have this beautiful relationship with ourselves. So being intentional in that celebration, setting up milestones so you have a little checkpoints to get to on your way towards being successful again, gamifying it can be really great. And also doing it in a community, there's the quote, if you want to go, go by yourself, you want to go further, go with other people. And I apologize if I'm butchering that quote, but that idea of community helps support us when we feel unsafe or we feel lacking in security in what we're doing. And so if I'm on the journey of trying to train for a marathon, trying to get in shape, trying to be a great dad, the more people who want to engage in that journey now, am I not only excited about my own progress, but I get to get invested in other people's progress too. And I not only get motivated by myself or share in the willpower or systems of my own devices, but now I get to hear and borrow and steal other systems and pieces of willpower from other people.
- [40:16]
B
That's wonderful. I'm going to add one if I can. And this one may sound obvious, but I think we sometimes make this mistake. Make sure that your celebration is not in contradiction with your physical fitness goal. I know oftentimes we say, hey, I did a mile on the treadmill today I'm going to have an extra donut. You know, I deserve that. So make sure that you're not offsetting your progress with your celebration. So find things that are aligned and consistent. So I've been taking notes, jj, as we've talked, and I've learned a lot from you. I'd like to recap those notes real quick as we wrap up here. So first, when we define mental fitness, you said there's really two components to it. So one is what is your brain's firepower? The second is what are we doing to encourage physical fitness? So there's really two components to that, both of which can be improved. And it's important to know that your mental state is not just about the willpower and pushing through and fighting hard, but your mental state actually impacts your physiologic state and can actually change the way you perform and improve the quality. So much of our focus needs to be on quality. We're not trying to go pro here. You know, we're not necessarily getting paid for our physical performance, most of us, and so it can be okay to be focused on the quality. We had a long list of common mistakes that we make and as I'm looking through this list, I've made all of these at some point. And some of the most common mistakes are assuming that we can't do it. Letting perceptions about our bodies impact us negatively. Having age limiting beliefs, not having the right role models or not being able to find role models. Comparing ourselves to others with different life situations. Not knowing our personal why not. Celebrating small milestones over training or under training. So having too high of expectations or too low expectations can be a huge mistake. So long list. I've done all of those and I'm sure most of our audience has as well. So a couple of tips on how to help you get started on your fitness journey. Number one, have a reason why you're doing it. Number two, avoid outcome based goals. Number three, make it very easy make it so easy that you can't fail. Number four, don't personalize your struggles. Don't say that you're the problem. And then tips on how to keep going once you get started. Number one, have an anchor cue or mantra or saying. Number two, recognize if you're falling off your goals. Number three, then reset. Number four, respond. And then number five, focus on the process and celebrate your progress. And when we talked about ways to celebrate progress, Number one, be more like Snoop Dogg. Thank yourself. Number two, focus on the effort or the part that you can control. Number three, set appropriate milestones. Number four, gamify the process to make it fun. Number five, do it with other people and get community. And then number six, we added make the celebration aligned with your goal, so make sure it doesn't offset the progress that you've made. All right, jj, now I'll let you wrap it up for us. What's the most important thing you want people to take away from our discussion today?
- [43:11]
A
Well, I guess two things again, find comfort in the boring. Boring. If something's boring, that means it's pretty comfortable for your nervous system. It's pretty comfortable for your life and your circumstances. So that's a good thing. And then I guess B would be get a little miserable. Get happily miserable. As Julian Edelman used to say, be in this place where you are trying and you're adding a little bit of tension to your life. You don't have to add a ton, maybe in the level of a professional athlete, but adding even just a little bit can provide so many numerous gains to your physical health, your emotional health, and your mental health. And you're going to see the gains immediately. Even though it may be challenging, you're really going to thank yourself for doing that.
- [43:54]
B
Wonderful. So I always like to end with a challenge or a call to action for folks. I mean, we got a lot of options here. We have a long list of mistakes. You can try to stop making a lot of things to help you get started, keep going or celebrate your progress. But I think the one I'm going to lean into is what we talked about with the boring nature of this sometimes. So I think we should almost intentionally try to find a way to make our physical fitness boring for us at times. And by boring, I mean just make it easy, make it consistent, systematize it so you don't have to think about it. So it doesn't. You don't need all that extra willpower to do it. So find a way to simplify, make it easy, and make it boring. That's your challenge. Get started on that. See how you can rework your physical fitness plan and do it. Jj, thank you so much for talking to us today and letting us learn from all your vast experience and wisdom.
- [44:38]
A
Thanks for having me. This is awesome. I think this might be the first time Snoop Dogg was referenced in a Mayo Clinic podcast.
- [44:44]
B
You'd be surprised. Maybe, maybe not. If you like this episode, please share it with a friend and leave us a review on your podcast app. It really helps others find the show. Got feedback, a question or a topic idea? Email us@OptimizeAYO.edu or leave us a voicemail at 507-538-6272. We might even feature your voice on the show. For more human optimization episodes and resources, check us out online at ce mayo.edu optimize. Remember, long term well being starts with the habits you build today. Live Intentionally perform exceptionally. I'm Dr. Christopher Camp. Thanks for listening.
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A
This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as medical or legal advice. Always consult with a qualified healthcare provider for any medical questions. The appearance of any guest does not
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B
imply an endorsement of them, their employer, or any entity they represent.
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A
The views and opinions are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Mayo Clinic.
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B
Reference to any product, service, or entity does not constitute an endorsement of or
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A
recommendation by Mayo Clinic.