Step 4: Momentum – Use Momentum (Debt Snowball – Dave Ramsey)

I love listening to Dave Ramsey on the radio.  Common sense talk about debt.  I’m especially passionate about this subject.

As a people, we have become a want-it-now, pay-for-it-later society.

It shows up in buying stuff we don’t need, buying cars we can’t afford (but lenders will loan us money for), overspending on housing (because we can get a loan for it), getting student loan debt to pay for college (not realizing that many people don’t even graduate from college – but still keep the debt, or that the jobs that that degree will qualify us for are either non-existent or the return on that investment really isn’t there).

So we spend and we spend and we spend.

And then find ourselves in a hole we can’t seem to get out of.

So lets say you now are $50,000 in debt and want to get out.  How are you going to do it?

Classic advice says start on the debt with the highest interest rate and pay that  off first.  Now that makes financial sense (you’re saving money faster by paying off the high interest loan first) but it ignores the psychological element.  If it takes you a year to pay down that loan, you may not make it to the year mark before you get frustrated and stop.

That is where Dave Ramsey’s “Debt Snowball” comes in.  You start with the debt with the smallest balance and pay that off first.  That may only take a couple months to do.  Then you move onto the next biggest and so on.  What it does is give you some early successes in order to keep you motivated.  Dave does the same thing with saving your first $1,000 then a three to six month emergency fund then saving in your 401-k.  Moving through his “baby steps” get you to your goal before you know it…and with much less pain along the way.

Or you could do it by taking money out of your paycheck pretax with automatic withdrawals to your 401-k.  By doing it automatically you hardly miss it after a couple months.  Your spending adjusts to the new level and you find your 401-k growing without even thinking about it.

How could you apply this to weight loss?

You’d bring lunch from home once the first week, twice the 2nd, and so on.

Or walk three days this week then four the next week then jog one of those days the following week and so on until you’re jogging 3-4 days a week.

Or drop one junk food item each week.

Or maybe you want to combine a couple areas – you eliminate meals out and that pay that money into your vacation fund – a win-win.

You get the gist of it.  Momentum built quickly and quietly often turns into long-term habits and you actually enjoy and get excited about.

Now lets look at how focus plays a part…➔

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Step 5: Focus – Use Short High-Intensity Sessions to Maximize Your Limited Time and Motivation

You’re busy.

Your day is scheduled to the hilt.  You don’t have time for 6 hour golf rounds, 5 hour bike rides, or even one hour runs or gym sessions.  You need to get in, get it done, and get out in order to get the rest of the stuff done you need to do in a day.

So how do you accomplish that and still achieve worthy goals?

The key is short, high-intensity sessions.  Complete focus for shorter periods of time.

In sports training it often shows as “intervals”.  It can be doing a medium-length running session and breaking it up with short sprints.  Or it can be tackling a project or key task by shutting off the cell phone, shutting down the email on your computer, closing the office door, and getting to work for the next hour or two with no interruptions.

Complete focused efforts will do more to drive your results than poking at it over a week.  Every time you’re interrupted you have to re-acclimate back to where you were.  Get back in the mindset you were in, and restart.  And that often turns into having that project never getting done or taking five times as long to complete.

When writing, I write UNTIL I am done.  I’ve found if I stop and try to come back to it, the flow is lost and I have to start all over or change subject.  But when I keep writing until I finish the blog post or article I’m working on, I can power through it and get it finished.  And it often takes less time than I expect.

And if I’m trying to build momentum in an area, keeping that focus will do more than anything else to get me there.

And if you’re working on building muscle and losing weight, short, powerful sessions can do more to get you there fast than endless LSD (long,slow, distance) runs and cross training sessions.  And you’re not spending all day in the gym to get there.

Recognize that unless you’re a professional in that one area, you are unlikely to be able to train or work like one.  You have to get more from your available time.  And these focused sessions will get you there.

And more from the world of sports training…➔

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Step 6: Work-Recover – Use Periodization (Tackle Goals Like Olympic Athletes)

Back when I was racing bicycles I learned about how top athletes use “periodization” to peak for certain events.  It was why Jack Nicholas and Tiger Woods and Phil Michelson would play certain events before the “Majors” in the Summer.  It was why Lance Armtrong would do certain races in advance of “his race”, the Tour de France.  It is why MMA fighters do certain workout routines leading up to a major fight.  And it is how top runners use early races to set up their fitness for the Olympics.

So what is periodization?

It is taking your major goal and working backwards and creating mini-goals along the way to build toward your major goal.

The thinking is you would burn out due to overtraining if you were to push hard for six to nine months straight.  But by pushing hard for 6-8 weeks then having a week of recovery and then going in the next phase of training, you’re building your strength and endurance up gradually and allowing the recovery periods to stabilize those gains and set you up to build from there.

You can use the same thing with your goals.  Don’t set up a goal that is out at the end of the year with no intermediate progress points along the way.  Or you’ll find you’ll give up because there is no positive reinforcement for the work you’re putting in along the way.  No way to gauge your progress.

But when you build in steps of concentrated effort with a break at the end of each cycle, you notice your progress and you stay refreshed to tackle the next step in your journey.

And that leads us to the final and highest leverage step…➔

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