The 10 Minute Rule

I get that it’s difficult to fit in your training.

You work all day, you can finally switch off, pour yourself a glass of wine and relax.

But then you remember you haven’t fitted in your workout.

You promised yourself you would and now you just really want to sack it off.

I completely empathise. Been there, I get it.

I was on the training struggle bus too. You want to be consistent, you get excited about your goals but when it comes to the follow through you realise you’re tired and want to chill on the sofa. You’ve worked hard so you deserve a break!

I understand people need time out and I don’t want to take that away from them but I can’t let people break promises they’ve made to themselves about bettering their lives.

So how do we actually do it?

Firstly, accept motivation is just a fleeting nice feeling we only get once in a while so we can’t rely on it. We need to rely on habits. We need to build those habits in the first place.

Secondly, a couple of clients have told me the last few weeks that the 10 minute rule really helps them just get it done.

Or my other favourite: “just one set”.

It’s a little brain hack where you say to yourself: Ok I’m going to do my workout but just 10 minutes - if by that time I still realllyyyy don’t want to do it - I have full permission to stop.

The same goes for “just one set”. Tell yourself to do your warm up and just one set. If you still really don’t want to do it - cool! Something is better than nothing.

1 set > nothing

10 minutes > nothing

Half of the battle is getting started. Once we’re going it’s fine. We usually end up doing more but the idea is you alleviate all pressure from the workout being perfect.

We can have the perfect program with whistles and bells but if it’s not completed ever then it’s rendered useless.

Sometimes having a shorter workout planned can help take away some of the stress of dreading a long 1.5 hour workout.

Building habits isn’t about perfect workouts, it’s about getting a little done no matter what that looks like. Even if it’s a 10 minute walk around the block.