The 1 reason why you’re struggling with your 2024 goals

read on: themovementmemo.com

read time: 6 minutes 

Welcome to The Movement Memo, a bi-weekly newsletter where I share actionable tips to help you live your best day ever, every day.

Today's Programming 

• Movement: Core Conditioning 

• Quote: Walker on the necessity of sleep 

• Lesson: Prioritizing your sleep is the fastest way to build a new habit

• Optimization: Timeline’s Mitopure a clinically studied cellular health supplement

Today's Movement 

Compete 2 rounds for time:

• 50 GHD sit-ups

• 40 dumbbell snatch (50/35 lbs)

• 30 toes-to-bar

• 20 burpee pull-ups

• 10 dips

Today's Quote

Today marks 80 days from the start of 2024.

The “New Year, New You” mantras have ended. 

Work and life have gotten busy again. 

And you’re probably struggling to stick with the changes you wanted to make this year. 

The question I want to ask all of you is how much have you been sleeping?

Today's Lesson Learned

The real challenge for Type A, high-achievers is not doing more. It’s being disciplined enough to do fewer things today so that we can do more things tomorrow. It’s blocking our schedule and prioritizing our most precious resource: sleep.

I’ve found that most years, I start to fall off with the new habits I am working to build around this time. And recently, I’ve recognized correlations as to how much I am sleeping.

Anders Ericsson conducted a study that was made famous by Malcolm Gladwell’s “10,000-hour rule”, where he analyzed the top violinists in the world. The research found 2 key factors that determined which violinists went on to become elite and which ones got stuck at average:

1. The best violinists in the world spend more time practicing. 

2. The best violinists in the world sleep on average 8.6 hours per day.

Sleep directly impacts our ability to create, perform, and think critically.

I’ve noticed sleep significantly impacts my ability to consistently perform the actions required to build new habits.

Personal growth unfolds as a series of chapters. The beginning and end of these chapters are bookmarked by massive learning, excitement, moments of realization, and change. But this growth is never linear. 

• Some days are better.
• Some days are worse. 

By protecting the amount you sleep each night, you can influence the likelihood of being able to stick with new habits. (I aim for a minimum of 8 hours). 

Recognizing the pivotal role sleep plays is only half the battle; the real challenge lies in listening to your inner voice and staying disciplined to sleep 8 hours each night.

The Science Behind New Habits

 People used to say that it takes 21 days to develop a new habit. In reality, the development of a new habit takes, on average, 66 days, according to a study published in the European Journal of Social Psychology by Phillippa Lally. 

But that is the average. The revolutionary takeaway from this research was that the amount of time it takes to develop a new habit is dependent upon the complexity of the action you are attempting to engrain. 

Some habits are easier to implement, like “drinking a glass of Core first thing in the morning.” Others can be harder such as “going to the gym every day before work.” 

The more difficult the skill, the more time and effort it will take to create a new habit. 

Whenever I go to implement a new action into my daily schedule, I ask myself these questions:

• On a scale of 1-10, how hard is this skill?
• What existing habit can I pair this action with?
• What frictions will prevent me from accomplishing this task?
• How can I limit them?
• What is the goal/motivation behind making this change? 

The goal behind creating any new habit is to make an action that requires conscious thought automatic. 

Understanding the complexity of the skill is critical for achievement. 

Recognize That Building Habits Takes Time

Building any new habit is not a binary decision; you don’t wake up one day and decide today I am going to race at Kona. Growth is a messy, dynamic process that takes time. It’s critical to recognize that different phases are essential to being able to create sustainable habits. One mistake I have often made is ignoring the signals that my body needs more sleep.

I begin to feel lethargic, and it takes more effort to perform the action. All of a sudden, I am having an internal dialogue with myself, trying to talk myself out of it and coming up 1,000 excuses. Eventually, I fall off for a day, and I begin to beat myself up for not staying true to my goals.

I think I’m not mentally strong enough to build the new habit.

In reality, I am just tired (which is the natural by-product of learning any new skill). 

So, if you’ve fallen off from the changes you’ve wanted to make in 2024:

1. Recognize that you have made progress in the past 80 days.
2. Get in bed earlier tonight, and give yourself a minimum of 8 hours of sleep. 
3. Recommit to the changes you want to create in your life.

I promise you will wake up tomorrow feeling rested. Building new habits is hard and change is scary. Every decision we make (or don’t make) has opportunity costs, that either take us closer or further from our goals. 

For me, sleep is the element I can control that tips the scales in my favor for creating behavioral change

Today's Optimization

As we age our cells age, but I believe we get to choose what 40-year-old, 50-year-old, and 60-year-old we want to be. I envision mountain biking into my 60's and surfing in my 70's. But here’s a fact, after 30, muscle mass decreases by approximately 3–8% per decade. I’m pretty fascinated with cellular health at the moment and recently I learned the primary cause for this decline is based on mitochondrial function, the “powerhouse” of our cells.

I started researching ways to limit this decline and have come to believe mitochondria are the bedrock of good health. Healthy cells rely on healthy mitochondria. Their optimal function leads to incredible health benefits and is particularly essential to heart, kidney, eye, brain, skin, and muscle function. As we age, mitochondrial function declines. Our mitochondria are constantly renewed to produce energy and fulfill the vast energy demands of muscle, skin, and other tissues, but as we get older, mitochondrial renewal declines and dysfunctional mitochondria accumulate in the cells, resulting in significant issues.

I recently started taking Timeline’s Mitopure (a clinically studied/proven supplement), which unlocks the power of Urolithin A, a molecule that stimulates this crucial recycling and cleansing process in our mitochondria - ultimately protecting cells from age-associated decline. Today Timeline is offering Movement Memo subscribers an exclusive deal: 10% off your first order using code “Hinman” at checkout.

Know friends, training partners, or co-workers who would take value from weekly tips on a healthier lifestyle, enhanced accountability, and improved routines? Thanks for sharing!

WAS THIS FORWARDED TO YOU? Sign up here!

QUESTIONS OR THOUGHTS? Reply to this email!

Publisher: Eric Hinman

Editor-in-chief: Bobby Ryan