Complacency — Legally Fit

One of the themes I wrote about last week was trying to get better today – every day.  But let’s be real – that’s easier said than done.  In fact, it’s virtually impossible mostly because we’re human.  We fail, we have setbacks, and we just have some bad days.  But even when we are killing it, there’s another natural response that has real impact on our potential— complacency.

Complacency can make me think it’s “ok” to break my routine . . .

It’s difficult to not let complacency set in when things are going well both in fitness and in life.  Sometimes complacency has meant that I can “reward” myself with something that is outside of my fitness regimen – either eating something I wouldn’t normally allow myself to have or skipping a workout I might have otherwise felt the need to do.  As my routines have evolved, I do less and less of that for several reasons.  First, neither usually feels as good on my body as it once did.  I’ve become accustomed to eating a healthy diet, and anything I eat outside of the norm now usually affects me in a way that makes me realize it is not the “reward” I imagined it would be.  The “reward” is simply that my body now recognizes when I put bad things in it.  Likewise, skipping a workout almost never feels right.  My body craves the activity, and the only way to “reward” it is to give it what it needs – not to take that away.

Complacency can make me think it’s “not ok” to break my routine . . .

Other times, complacency means that I can just keep doing what I am doing.  No matter the setting, when we achieve success, it’s human nature to not want to rock the boat.  Take my workout routine.  Over the course of my fitness journey, it has evolved through numerous stages.  I reached milestones in the beginning just by consistently showing up and then showing up even more.  It was something to be proud of, and I was better than I had been before it.  Having a regular workout routine improved body and my health, and making it a foundation of my life was an accomplishment.  But once each routine became my new normal, I eventually realized there was more that I could do.  At first, this was not something that occurred to me.  After all, I was doing what I set out to do, so why change anything?  But then I would notice that the big gains I had been making were slowing down.  Accomplishments became smaller and less frequent.  I experience this over and over again with each new fitness project I take on.  It’s natural that the biggest improvements come in the beginning when there is so much room for it.  Even keeping to the same routine yields better results each day for some time because “practice makes perfect” – to some extent.  Practices makes me better, no doubt, but practice alone does not achieve perfection.

When the gains get smaller, repeating the same thing over and over again to get a different result becomes the definition of insanity.  Thoughts set in that I may have reached my maximum potential.  That I accomplished the limit of what I can do.  Those thoughts are the result of complacency.  It’s not that I can’t achieve more, I just can’t do it by being satisfied with my routine.

Recognizing complacency means I can address it in the right way . . .

This is not to say that I, or anyone else, must always reach for more.  Complacency can be satisfaction with things that are going well, but it could also be an acceptance of things even when they could be better.  I recognize that I’ve developed an incredible fitness lifestyle.  I often work out seven days a week, incorporating a wide variety of exercises.  Running, strength training, rock climbing, swimming, boxing, jumping rope, Peloton, rowing, and golf are all part of my regimen.  There are mental and physical benefits to having such diversity in my workouts, and this program has been great for me.  But keeping the pattern consistent for too long leads to each workout having less of an impact on my progress.  I see it in my WHOOP data where the same workout I did a month ago earned a significantly higher strain than it does today.  That means I’ve gotten better to the point where I exert much less energy for the same result, but it also means that I need to go harder today to get better tomorrow.