Every Tuesday and Thursday at 6 am, I peel myself out of bed, down a keto coffee, and jog down my hill to Equinox for the most intense spinning class I’ve ever experienced. Or more accurately, the most intense WORKOUT that’s concentrated into 45 minutes. My boy Danny is a hardcore 30-something, 5 ft 6 powerhouse who has taught this unique class for over 10 years and has completed over 50 Ironmans for which he minimally prepares for in his spare time. He’s quite a force to start my day with. On top of the blast of endorphins I get from his class, he fills our minute rests between sets with stories and motivational affirmations I call Dannyism’s. One from last week that I deemed worth sharing: Consistency is the Enemy.
Let’s look at what he means by that from a spinning perspective and then talk about how it applies to nearly everything. I always avoided spinning because the thought of sitting in one spot turning petals around at the same speed for 45 minutes sounds like the active version of watching grass grow. But what keeps me going back to this class is change. We go hard then stop. We stand up then sit down. We increase resistance then decrease resistance. Change is a constant in his class. Not only does it make time go by faster, I get much more out of the class. My net power far surpasses a steady state class. My mind is activated, ready and counting down for the next change. With each change, I forget how the previous state felt and I start anew. We all know that much of our performance is driven by mindset. The switch of activity tricks the mind into thinking it’s starting fresh, much more stimulating than “19 minutes down of this, 26 to go”.
Consistency yields complacency. It impedes growth. Too much consistency breeds ingrained thinking patterns and habits that allow for autopilot functioning. Autopilot functioning is easy and therefore boring, it causes a lack of stimulation that will reduce what I call your frequency. Frequency is the value you unleash into the world that can be transferred to others around you. Stimulation yields frequency if leveraged correctly. It comes from the new, the uncomfortable, the unfamiliar. Seek out change-->get more stimulation-->increase your frequency.
Start small, take a new route to work. Look at behaviors in your life that have been around for a while and aren’t adding value. Join a new meetup. Reach out to the budding acquaintance to hang instead of your usual crew. Call your clients instead of email. Try a new workout routine. Wake up an hour earlier. These switches might be uncomfortable at first, which brings me to one of my go-to quotes from James Hillman: “Anytime you’re gonna grow, you’re gonna lose something. You’re losing what you’re hanging onto to keep safe. You’re losing habits that you’re comfortable with, you’re losing familiarity.”