Are you an overthinker? A thinker?
I’ll bet you are at least one of those.
And if you are human, you’ve probably fallen into one of these cognitive traps at least once in your workout life.
We all do!
Unfortunately, if you continue acting in the zone of these traps, you’ll get all crotchety and displeased with what you are doing for a workout, the results for your body-mind, and might just be acting out of what seems best for you rather than what is best for you.
Read on to discover these surreptitious tendencies of the subconscious and how to take your power back when it comes to reaching your ultimate fitness. I’ve put little check boxes next to them so you can check off which types of thoughts have been gripping the steering wheel of your training life.
Hot-Cold Empathy Gap = the tendency to underestimate the influence of visceral drives on one’s attitudes, preferences, and behaviors.
❏ “I don’t feel like working out.”
❏ “I feel like a coward if I don’t go to CrossFit.”
❏ “I feel nauseous just thinking about trying to run a mile.”
2. Projection Bias = The tendency to overestimate how much our future selves share one’s current preferences, thoughts and values, thus leading to sub-optimal choices.
❏ “I am too chubby to ever do burpees.”
❏ “I will never look or feel fluid while doing back squats.”
❏ “I am too much of a tech-freak to ever just sit and meditate.”
3. Courtesy Bias = the tendency to give an opinion that is more socially correct than one’s true opinion, so as to avoid offending anyone.
❏ “I know I am healing my low back, but the coach said GHD sit-ups are good for me so I’ll do them.”
❏ “I am in my third trimester and need to do feet-supported pull-ups, but I’ve seen women do kipping pull-ups when they are about to pop–so, so can I.”
❏ “The rest of the group is doing pushups during all of their Vinyasas, and I know today is my ‘upper body rest day’ but I have to keep up.”
4. Availability Cascade = a self-reinforcing process in which a collective belief gains more and more plausibility through its increasing repetition in public discourse (or “repeat something long enough and it will become true”).
❏ “Low carb diets are the only way (and the superior way) to become lean and fit.”
❏ “Lifting weights makes women bulky.”
❏ “No pain, no gain.”
5. Information Bias = The tendency to seek information even when it cannot affect action.
This one is often seen as constant scrolling on IG, Pinterest, Tik-Tok for “the best (fill in the blank) workout, diet plan, meditation”; finding more and/or new information might make you feel like you’ve found the “golden ticket” training plan; but the truth is, there is no one-size-fits all or cookie-cutter wellness plan that suprasses the rest.
❏ “I have a core training plan but I am looking up articles for “best core exercises” on womenshealth.com.”
❏ “Five days into a diet–deciding ‘This plan isn’t right for me because I’m not losing the weight as fast as I’d like to, I’m switching diets.’”
❏ “I strength train 5 days a week because most research says that is the magic number, but I get better results when I stick to 3.”
Now that you are aware of what’s controlling your thinking, what do you do?
Honestly, busting through them was probably the wrong phrasing…it’s more like back away from them.
To cultivate your ultimate fitness, you’ll need to draw back from them and double down on the fundamental principles that actually work for you when it comes to your fitness. This includes your aesthetic, physiological, psychological, emotional, and overall lifestyle goals.
What actually works comes back to the KISS principle: Keep It Simple, Silly.
This means (bias by bias):
Rather than letting how you feel in any given moment dictate what you will do, see the bigger picture and make a decision on what will benefit your future self.
Rather than treating yourself like a stagnant, unchanging robotic or stone-like being, remember that you are a fucking dynamic, evolving, ever-changing being who gets to choose my own attitudes, opinions, and approach moment to moment.
Rather than abandoning what you know about yourself and your own intuitive direction, listen and heed your knowledge. (I know, I know…this one is tricky, especially if fitness is not your area of expertise and you’ve hired an expert to guide you; but it is primo that you speak up and act up if you feel something is not the right fit for you!).
Rather than collapse into what the media portrays as true, experiment for yourself and use your own results as evidence for your methods!
Rather than be on a constant search for a better, faster, cheaper plan, stop adding in noise that is just distracting from you doing the work.
Once you’ve drawn back from the biases and evened yourself out, just stick to these real results principles:
Be Consistent: Consistency. Stay the course of the plan that you’ve chosen as long as it is indeed working for you. There is an element of “proving yourself” here, but it is only to yourself.
Keep It Simple: Simplicity. Slash the Information Bias that is always luring you into a more complicated, always-changing plan, telling you that “yours is not good enough.” Do the bundle of exercises that work for you and your intended results. You’ll experience this in the “Foods That Make You Thrive” exercise I take all of my clients through to simplify their food lives!
Keep It Practical: Practicality. Not in the ordinary sense of the word. The literal sense. Can you practice again and again and again? Do you have the equipment, space, and knowledge to do so? Don’t make it harder on yourself than it needs to be.
Progress It. It goes back to the story of Milo of Croton, a Greek athlete who–as a young boy, carried a newborn calf on his shoulders every day for four years. Obviously, the calf got heavier as it grew, and at four years it reached its peak weight. Naturally, Milo became stronger and he built muscle by lifting a heavier object week by week, month by month.
Make It Attuned To You. Sometimes fitness is about doing the things you don’t want to do; but if it doesn’t even light you up a lumen, why do it? You will fall off the consistency, simplicity, practicality, and progression train and lose all your results.
If you can get your cognitive biases out of your body, and bring your body up to meet a new mind (a.k.a. follow the real results principles, you will be on the path of ultimate fitness, sister.
In Simplicity,
Coach Abby