“Don’t let your heart overload your back.”
We all wanna be the overnight hero. In fact, we are convinced that’s just how great feats are achieved. But, nothing could be further from the truth.
Usain Bolt didn’t hit the ground running the minute his umbilical cord was cut. And Michael Phelps certainly didn’t complain about not having a pool nearby, the day that he was born.
No. They all used what I like to refer to as the “Kaizen Fusion” approach.
Kaizen, as you may already know, is the slow and progressive approach to improving any area in our lives over time. But it doesn’t work on its own. For instance, a good exercise regiment by itself doesn’t lead to sculpting the body you desire. It’s a composition of several Kaizens working in harmony, that ignites the Fusion that leads to the result.
But you can successfully use the Kaizen Fusion approach to conquer just about any area of your life, using these 4 simple steps:
1. Find 10 SOLID reasons why your new goal is important to you
Reasons are the fuel that keeps us going, when we’re weary and start seeing singing squirrels in broad daylight.
2. Identify ALL of the elements that are required to make the wheels spin
If you’re looking to lose 8000lbs of weight, it basically comes down to eating “clean”, drinking more water, sleeping well and doing “some” exercise.
3. Come up with a Baby Step game plan to put these elements into motion
The baby step approach to losing weight will consist of a slow 10-minute walk around the block, drinking half a glass of water every hour and replacing one unhealthy food item (or a portion of it) with a healthy smoothie made with fresh fruits, veggies, greens, nuts,seeds and skim milk.
We’ll then continue these small daily actions for a period of 4 weeks, at which point they become “habits” that we cannot easily go back from.
4. Switch gears as you go
Starting with the 5th week, we would start intensifying our efforts in small increments, across the board.
So, our 10-minute walk now becomes 15 minutes. And in addition to the food item we substituted earlier with a healthier alternative, we would now substitute another. Lastly, our hourly half a glass of water ritual now goes up to a whole glass.
And in the weeks that follow, we would continue increasing the duration of the walk in 5-minute increments until we hit a total of 30 minutes. Following that, we would gradually start increasing the speed of that walk, until it’s turned into a solid power walk. And by around the 12th week, that power walk can be swapped with a more fun and intense workout program like P90X3.
The same would happen with our meals. We would continue swapping out parts of our existing meal plan with egg salads and smoothies made with fresh produces (fruits, veggies, leafy greens, nuts, seeds, eggs and skim milk).
The water intake at 1 glass an hour should suffice whatever level of fitness you hit (unless you’re training for a marathon, triathlon or a long walk on the Moon).
The Kaizen Fusion approach is far from an overnight fix. In fact, it can take you as long as 3-6 months to see considerable progress. But it works every single time and is reasonably effortless and painless compared to the alternative, which is to run like crazy for a mile every day (or similar) till your teeth start sounding like a shaky chandelier.
