FITNESS MOTIVATION
Why You Need To Work WITH Your Ego To Get Back In Shape
Yes, your Monkey Mind keeps sabotaging your efforts — but it’s not the Bad Guy here…
Everyone online makes it look so damn easy — “just eat like this, work out like this and ta-dah… In great shape in weeks”.
And yet for most of us it doesn’t run that smoothly in reality.
We seem to take a One Step Forward: One Step Back approach that leaves us in exactly the same condition, despite feeling like we’ve been trying pretty hard at all this fitness and health stuff.
The lack of consistency is what kills our progress. Something always seems to come up that makes it feel logical at the time to not do the right thing.
This was my experience when attempting to shed my ‘DadBod’ post-40, and it probably mirrors your own experiences with any health, fitness, or well-being goals you’ve set for yourself, right?
Turns out we need to tame our ‘Monkey Minds’ to get anywhere, but as you’ll see, the conventional approaches for doing that didn’t work for me. But Seinfeld helped…
Monkey Mind 101
The ‘Monkey Mind’ is the part of your brain linked to your ego, the incessant chatter of your inner monologue.
Buddhists use this term to describe what makes us feel unsettled, restless, and confused. It’s a loud voice, demanding attention and constantly questioning if you’re on the right path.
Similarly, in Steve Peters’ book “The Chimp Paradox,” he uses the ‘Chimp’ to describe the Limbic brain, the emotional part that can act impulsively, often overruling the rational part of the brain.
So when it comes to eating more healthily, sticking to a diet, keeping on turning up at the gym or whatever, it’s our pesky Monkey Minds that convince us it’s
too difficult
too boring
that you’re using the wrong approach
or that it’s simply not worth the effort.
And we listen, because that Monkey is loud and persuasive... but it means we get nowhere fast.
Here are a couple of examples to illustrate my point, let me know in the Comments if these sound familiar:
Sensible Long-Term Thinker You says:
“I should work out. Training three times a week will make me fitter and stronger”.
Monkey Mind says:
“Meh, I’m not feeling it today. I’ll have a lousy workout if I’m not in the mood.”
Sensible Long-Term-Thinker You says:
“I should cook a healthy dinner to lose weight”
Monkey Mind says:
“I deserve takeout after a tough week. Healthy eating can start next week.”
Sensible Long-Term-Thinker You says:
“I should go to bed at 10:30 pm since I need to get up at 6:30 am”
Monkey Mind says:
“But wait, we LOVE this show and the next episode starts in 10, 9, 8…”
You get the idea, right? We all have these little arguments daily, and the Monkey often wins, resulting in a lack of progress.
Taming The Monkey… And What Didn’t Work For Me
Many articles suggest ways to “tame the Monkey Mind,” such as:
- Breathing exercises
- Affirmations
- Regular meditation
- Journaling
These methods work for some people but never did for me.
What finally worked was learning to collaborate with my Monkey Mind’s ego, aligning both parts of my brain — the rational Human (Long Term Thinker Me) and the emotional Monkey — so they wanted the same thing.
You see intuitively, we understand that making progress in learning new skills or improving fitness, strength, or health requires showing up daily and moving forward incrementally.
Like compounding interest, gains occur over time through patience and consistent investment of time and effort.
So far so sensible. But your Monkey Mind HATES this concept of slow, incremental progress, and relentlessly whispers in your ear:
“There must be a shortcut.”
“Find a hack. This is taking too long and might not even be working.”
“I read about someone who made progress three times faster with one weird trick that doctors don’t want you to know. He’s selling his secrets in an ebook for only $97.”
When Long Term You and your Monkey Mind want different things, the Monkey wins almost every time.
Like I said, I needed to find a way for Long Term Me and my Monkey Mind to want the same things, so I could consistently do all the sensible things for my health and fitness I knew I needed to (but that my pesky Monkey would keep convincing me to blow off).
Enter Jerry Seinfeld’s approach to consistently writing jokes every day for decades — the “Don’t Break the Chain” method.
What Does “Don’t Break the Chain” Mean?
Jerry Seinfeld famously wrote jokes every day, regardless of how he felt.
Aspiring comic Brad Isaac once asked him how he managed it:
“He said that for each day he completed his writing task, he would mark a big red X over that day. ‘After a few days, you’ll have a chain. Just keep at it, and the chain will grow longer every day. You’ll like seeing that chain, especially after a few weeks. Your only job next is not to break the chain.’”
In my experience, once you achieve a streak of five days of maintaining a chosen healthy habit (e.g., exercising, eating healthily, getting enough sleep, meditating, taking supplements), you won’t want to break that chain.
It looks great on a physical calendar (or the free iOSapp I now use), and as the number of consecutive days increases, you’ll be even less inclined to break that streak.
Here’s a glimpse of my habit-tracking last year (when I started trying to eat enough protein daily):
How ‘Don’t Break The Chain’ Satisfies Your Monkey Mind
The rational part of your brain might think:
“Logically, it’s just a calendar. Nothing bad will happen if I miss a day. It won’t work…”
And logically, that’s true. But your Monkey Mind doesn’t operate on logic, does it?
- What drove you to be competitive in sports or academia when you were younger? Monkey Mind. Ego.
- What made you stay up late playing a video game or finishing an important assignment? Monkey Mind. Ego.
- What compels you to share your accomplishments on social media? Monkey Mind. Ego.
- And… what will motivate you not to break the chain? What will make you feel proud of your streak? What will push you to keep updating everyone about your progress?
Monkey Mind. Ego.
You might not like some of the things your Monkey Mind urges you to do, but when it comes to maintaining the chain, you can use its very nature to your advantage.
Your ego will drive you to keep taking those small steps toward getting in shape.
Set Logical Goals, Track in an Ego-Driven Way, Reap the Benefits
If you’ve struggled with consistency in your efforts to get in shape, it’s time to collaborate with the part of your brain that usually sabotages your progress.
By establishing a streak of a few consecutive days of sticking to your new habit, your Monkey Mind will take over, compelling you to continue to avoid breaking the chain.
Tell other people what you’re doing. Compete with others in the same boat — appeal to your ego, instead of constantly trying to be sensible and mature!
Because this method worked for Seinfeld in writing jokes, it worked for me in losing my ‘DadBod,’ and it will work for you to finally build the habits you need to THRIVE in your 40s, 50s and beyond.
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