How to Change Your Entire Life by Changing 5% of Your Day

Jeremy Grater (00:00.066)
How long has it been since you took care of yourself? Whether that means going to the gym, eating the way you want to, hanging out with people that you care about, how long has it been since you took care of you? Weeks? Months? Ever? Definitely a couple of months in my case, as we are gonna talk about in this show. There's ups and there's downs. It's the direction you wanna point yourself into determines where the next step is though. So today we're gonna talk about how changing just 5% of your day

can dramatically change your entire life. But first, this is the Fitmas, where together, we learn to develop habits that help us live beyond our mental health struggles to create happier, healthier lives. He's Zach. He lives in the future with his anxiety. He's Jeremy, and he lives in the past with his depression. And we get together once a week in the present to share the obstacles we face and how we overcome them. Well, Zach, lately, things have not been the normal for you. They've not been routine. You've been...

Struggling a bit, but trying to turn things around How are things going? shitty really shitty still Still yeah back in November. You know what was me? I went to Disney right which you know interrupts your routine, and then I had to you know go to Ireland for work and then While I was there. I didn't sleep well, and then I came home, and I got sick and Then I got like it was it was a really long

sickness like right up into the holidays. I was sick through the holidays and I was like almost better. And then I got like this wicked nasty sinus infection that came back. All the while, since November, I haven't been able to really go to the gym. I haven't been able to work out. I haven't been moving my body. And then I got into the routine of not moving my body. And then when I was healthy enough to move my body, then I was just straight up lazy about it, right? Because the momentum builds on itself.

in whatever direction you're pointing it. And even so two weeks ago, I had a really bad sinus infection to the point where I was like, oh, I think my eye is like swollen from this too. And then all of a sudden, the sinus infection went away and my eye continued to get more and more swollen. It was a stye in my eye that was like just painful. So I can't wear my contacts and I'm wearing my glasses. And my eye was like half closed all last week. It's like just better now.

Jeremy Grater (02:26.922)
So anyway, I haven't been working out. I haven't been doing all the things that I normally do to take care of myself because I just haven't been feeling good. On top of it, yesterday was probably the first day where I was like, I'm starting to feel good. I'm starting to feel better. I went to the gym like four or five times, or three or four times this week. And that was enough. I was starting to feel sore and stuff like that. And last night I went and saw Matt Reif and had a couple of drinks before the show and had a couple of drinks after the show.

and like I don't deal well with hangovers anymore. So like two or three drinks and I'm like, I'm not feeling well today. So I didn't go to the gym today. So I'm just, you know, I'm still struggling to come back. This is hard. You're more mess than fit these days. This is not like you. This is not a Zach I've seen in a very long time. No, no, absolutely not. But it won't last for much longer. Like I said, I did get to the gym more this week.

than I have in all the previous weeks since November. And I feel good. Like the prior weeks, like I was going into the gym and whatever cardio I was doing was just killing me. Absolutely killing me. Like I couldn't breathe, my lungs were hurting. I was walking out of the gym with like that burning sensation in your lungs where you're just like, oh, that's gonna leave a mark. But I didn't get that this week. So it's good. And the sty is almost gone and I put my contacts back in next week, I hope.

So I think what I'm hearing in this is something that we pretty much hang our hat on here is the idea of, of like you're talking about that snowball effect, whether you're sitting on the couch, it perpetuates more sitting on the couch. Or if you're going to the gym, it perpetuates more going to the gym. I heard in all of that belly aching and whining and crying, I'm starting to feel better along with I'm starting to do things. Exactly.

That is so, that's so key. And I heard somebody talking about this the other day and I've always been looking for like the way to quantify because we always talk about small steps leads to big changes, like these sort of big kind of vague things, but what does that mean? Somebody put it into numbers, which I think you'll appreciate. And maybe you guys have heard this before, maybe I'm the noob here, but I'd never heard this before. They were talking about the fact that there's 168 hours in your week and no, we all don't have the same 24 hours in a day, that's bullshit. I don't.

Jeremy Grater (04:45.822)
I don't subscribe to that. But I do think that we all have an hour every day. Whether it's one complete hour, or 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there, I think we all have that hour. I know that I spend too much of it doom scrolling. I spend too much of it doing things that are not productive. I spend a lot of it telling myself, I'll do tomorrow the thing I should be doing today. But if you can find one hour in every day to do anything for yourself,

that compounds and it adds up to 5%. If you can change 5% of your schedule, you can change your entire life. It's just so powerful when you think of it that way. And again, like I've been going to the gym religiously now for, I don't know, three or four months and just doing that. And that's only, you know, I do that three hours a week. I go three times, sometimes four, depending on the schedule, add in some other stuff here and there, but that one hour a day.

snowballs and builds into what else can I do? What book can I read? How can I do this better? What other changes can I make? Where can I fit in some meditation? Where can I fit in some community and like hang out with people and have that social interaction? None of that would be something that I would be pursuing if we were talking about this four months ago before I got off my ass and did one thing different with one hour of my day a few days a week. And I think it's so funny that you got off your ass just at the point where I was

getting onto my ass. I had to bring balance to the force, Luke. That was the problem here, is I had to switch it. I could feel it coming. It's like somebody's gotta lead the train on this one for a while, and I'm getting tired. So get to the gym. We'll flip it back, we'll flip it back. I went three times this week alone, and I'm sore. But here's the big thing that I've noticed was by not moving my body, not only was it

you know, like the mental change, right? I was sadder, I was more depressed, I had a lot more negative feelings, and they ran rampant, they ran super easily. But like weird things, like I was starting to get stiff, and like just bending over at the time my shoe was like a challenge, which, I mean, you know, I'm pretty flexible, like I can just do that with no problem. Again, while I am upset that I like let myself go that far, and I'm really trying to be compassionate with myself.

Jeremy Grater (07:08.85)
I needed it, I was sick, it was the holidays. It's like, you know, I can't get up and go work out. I needed the sleep, clearly I needed the sleep. Like, you know, the four or five hours I normally get was not enough. And I'm trying to be compassionate with myself, but I'm also trying to like remember this and drill it into my brain because it's been a long time since I've actually felt this way, where the depression, the sadness is there, the anxiety is going rampant, the...

You know body aches are there like all those things where I'm like, oh, I feel I really do feel 44 years old I'm really trying to remember that for the future for the you know, the one moment. I'm like, yeah, I don't want to go to the gym today But remember the pain Remember that by doing this little bit of discipline this little bit of pain. That's only one hour of my day I can do this and it's gonna come back

all of those other demons. I think this kind of relates to what you're talking about. I just had an experience yesterday, my wife's been out of town for a few days. So it's been, I've been in single dad mode, getting the kids to all the things and the school and simultaneously being on meetings and stuff. Yesterday, I got to a point where I was like, I'm out of time, I don't have time to go to the gym. Like I need to go, like I need my hour. And I was like, no, I'm gonna get it in, I'm just gonna do it faster. Like all those breaks that I take between sets, throw them out the window, I'm gonna make this happen.

drive over to the gym and realize I don't have the key to get into the gym. Drive back. So now I'm down to like 40 minutes to do my 60 minute workout. And it's like, this is, this is going to suck. But I also know how bad it sucks when I don't. I know that when I let myself off the hook, I'm going to let myself off the hook tomorrow. So I got through it and wanted to die because I literally squeezed it into like 40 minutes and 20 seconds or something. And like had to get in the car to go get the kids.

But I just, the whole time I was remembering, like I was already, I started the week one session behind. And so I had to make it up. I was like, if I miss this one, now I've got to go twice on the weekend. That's going to be hell. Cause like, you just start mapping out. If you don't hold yourself accountable and do the things you say you're going to do, you're going to pay for it later with your schedule or your health or your time or whatever. And so I just, I had to adjust. And it just, it's funny because normally I would say, be compassionate with yourself. You don't have time.

Jeremy Grater (09:22.654)
It's all you'll it'll be okay. You can do it tomorrow. There's that fine line between like letting yourself off the hook Yeah, and being too easy on yourself. And so yeah, that's a tricky one, right? Like I don't know what that line is. I don't I don't know where it is, but I know that Because I am doing the things I say I want to do and because I'm taking care of myself the way I want to I'm driven more to keep going rather than to lean on the it's okay. You don't have to

Yeah, there's that you're absolutely right though. And there's such a fine line between I don't want to do this and I actually need a break and I need rest. Yeah. Unfortunately, I've needed a lot of rest over the last three months. Yeah. But not anymore. Right. The excuse is gone. Now I just don't want to do it because I'm out of the mode. Right. So now I need to build it back. And I need to like whatever we whatever direction we're pushing ourselves into. It's just where we're going to go.

Right. And if I keep, like you said, if I keep pushing myself towards the couch, that's where I'm going to stay. I'm going to make that dent bigger and the end bigger and the couch would be more comfortable. Yeah. And oh, God, now I just want to go sit on the couch. I'm looking at the couch to my left going, that seems like a good idea right now. I think I want to go do that. It's been a long day. You know, I got a solid 15, 20 minutes to work in. I should go rest. We've talked about it 100 times, though, but like wherever you are. Even wherever I am.

During this whole thing every single day. I'm like you're okay. I'm okay Not where I want to be but I'm okay like having that self-compassion is super important because there's gonna be ups and downs the name of the show is the fit mess for a reason because sometimes we're fit and sometimes we're pretty messy and You just got to be able to roll with those punches and be able to Not continue down the road of sitting on the couch for the rest of your life. You got to come back from it

And what you said about just I'm okay right now. I've been leaning on that heavy these last few weeks. A couple months ago we interviewed a guy named Nick Hutchison with Book Thinkers and he was talking about reading more, reading more efficiently, getting the most out of personal development books. Something you guys said during that conversation, Zach, you and Nick, were talking about the books you reread. I rarely do this because I rarely get through a book as quickly as I'd like to anyways.

Jeremy Grater (11:43.414)
But the power of now showed up on my list the other day. So I opened it up and just reading through it again. And there's so much wisdom in that book. If you haven't read that book, go read, just stop listening to us, go read that book. It is so powerful and it just reminded me so much of paying attention to right now, which is so cliche and dumb. And I know we've all heard this, but like seriously, in almost any circumstance, no matter how bad it is, right now, you're okay.

It's usually the bills we have to pay and the schedule that's the thing I got to do next week or the customer I got to deal with tomorrow. Whatever, whatever that stuff is like right now. And even in those moments when you're dealing with those things, it's not even usually as bad as you're anticipating it to be. Yeah. So if you can just I just I just want to remind you how much power there is and just being present right now, bringing it back to the breath, paying attention to right now, because whatever happened yesterday and whatever's going to happen tomorrow.

is not real. Your memory of it is not real. However, it's going to play out in your head versus reality. Not the same. But right now is real. And it's all you have the power to really experience. Just come back to now, no matter how crappy things seem to be. I mean, I've been leaning on that since I read reread that book, just hustling through traffic. What's gonna if I'm late, it's gonna be a problem. If I don't pay this bill on time, that's gonna be a problem. If the money I'm expecting from that other person doesn't get here, that's gonna be a problem.

It always works out. It always, you always find a way. But it's just that worry, that anxiety, the game you play in your head, trying to convince yourself that you have any control over the past or the future is a fool's errand. Yeah, I mean, I'm still on that fool's errand because my brain still seems to think that I can control the future in some way, shape or form. Thus I worry a lot. Far too much. Wasted energy, it's wasted energy.

Well, we'd keep talking, but Zach needs to get to the gym. So we're going to wrap things up. Thank you so much for listening. If this conversation has been valuable for you in any way, if you think anybody else could benefit from hearing it, please do share this episode with them. You are the key to helping us accomplish our goal of helping as many people as possible to overcome the hurdles like the one Zach is facing right now. Thanks again for listening. We really appreciate you being there. We will talk to you again next week at thefitmass.com. See you, everyone.

Jeremy Grater (14:05.702)
We know this podcast is amazing and doesn't seem to like anything, but we need a legal disclaimer. Prior to implementing anything discussed in this podcast is your responsibility to conduct your own research and consult your physician. You should assume that Jeremy and Zach don't know what they're talking about, and they're not liable for any physical or emotional issues that occur directly or indirectly from listening to this podcast.