Chain Reaction of Inaction
Have you ever had one of those mornings? You know the type, where you wake up and you’re just not feeling it. You hit the snooze button and then everything is downhill from there and not in an easy I’m going to coast kind of way. Rather, in the I woke up late spilled coffee on my pants after rushing to get dressed got stuck in rush hour traffic and missed my morning meeting kind of way? One thing that so commonly gets overlooked when it comes to fitness is the importance of routine. Every action has a chain reaction, but inaction also has a chain reaction.
If you’ve ever heard about the importance of making your bed in the morning, then you understand the chain reaction that occurs based on how you start your day. The idea is simple. If you wake up and start your day by making your bed, then you’ve immediately accomplished something. In theory, this should lead to a chain reaction of small daily wins that not only improve your day, but eventually your life. It’s basic physics; an object in motion stays in motion. What about the chain reaction of not making your bed though?
The idea that a chain reaction can occur from nothing may seem a little unclear, so allow me to give you a few examples. One that comes up in conversation with clients all the time is around diet. When someone skips a meal or doesn’t eat enough protein, they make poor meal choices at their next meal or binge before bed. Another one that comes up regularly is morning meditation. Someone who meditates each morning to start their day and can attest to what happens when they skip their normal meditation. Often that individual has trouble getting into flow or managing stress. They’re less productive and their mood suffers. Being aware of the impact both your actions and inactions have on your day, week, and life is crucial to performing at a high level.
Establishing daily and weekly routines is a powerful way to enhance your productivity, relationships, health, and happiness. Having a framework for how you start and end your day and everything in between not only allows you to take more control, it also helps you manage the unforeseen things that pop up. Step one is simply to become aware of the chain of events from your current actions or inactions. You can start by keeping a daily journal of what you do and how you feel at the end of the day. Once you dissect your day and begin to recognize patterns of performance and mood, you’ll start to key in the things that have positive and negative impacts. As you journal and identify these things, start marking them as good or bad.
Example:
Healthy Breakfast - Good
Morning Workout Performance – Good
Lunch Choice - Bad
Afternoon Work Performance – Bad
Next, assess chronologically and find the first bad thing on your list. Ask, did this occur from action or inaction? If everything before it was good, then you know it was inaction. In our example, we know the breakfast was good and the workout performance was good, but lunch was bad. That means somewhere an inaction caused a poor lunch choice. Now ask why? We’ll say it was because we were overly hungry and had uncontrollable cravings. Now ask, how do we solve this? The inaction is we need a post workout snack, so we’re not overly hungry at lunch.
Example:
Healthy Breakfast - Good
Morning Workout Performance – Good
Morning Snack - Good
Lunch Choice - Good
Afternoon Work Performance – Good
Finding and fixing the one inaction has a positive chain reaction on our day. If we hadn’t gone in chronological order, we may have looked at the poor afternoon work performance and tried to fix the wrong problem or misidentified a good action as bad. For instance, you could have thought working out in the morning caused you to be too fatigued later in the day. Rationally, you would decide to move your workout to after work, so you’re not worn out at work. That wouldn’t have fixed the poor lunch choice or the poor work performance, and then you wouldn’t be able to get a good workout in. Eventually, you might conclude you need to stop working out altogether.
Reading this, the above sequence may seem farfetched, but I see this type of thought process occur daily. However, it’s rarely journaled and never assessed. Its just thought. So, start taking control of your day. Identify the chain reaction of both your actions and inactions. Change the inactions to actions and make the positive actions non-negotiables and remember, you don’t have to change everything all at once. Start journaling from the second you wake up. Once you identify a negative action or inaction stop, fix it, and start journaling again. This practice should lead you through a natural process of sustainable change.
