What DIY and your health have in common

I find something I admire in most people. Often they have no idea what I admire about them. And probably take it for granted – as something they just do.

For example, there’s a guy who lives across the road from the gym. He’s always working on his house. Painting window frames. Neatening up the fence. Laying decking, or any other number of small jobs about his home.

Every Saturday morning he’s there. And while the individual jobs don’t always make a huge difference, over the last year his place has totally transformed. It made made me aware of a trap I often falling into.

the “I’ll do it when…” trap

Lyz and I are always talking about when we move to a bigger house… then we’ll keep it tidy. When we’ve got more time… then we’ll paint the spare room. When we have more money… then we’ll redo the kitchen.

I’d forgotten that things are never going to be perfect. And all the time I spend waiting for this imaginary time to come is time I could spend doing something towards my goals. I’d made the mistake of not focusing on what I could do, with what I had right now.

starting where you’re at

Maybe my un-named friend on the corner couldn’t get the garden fully landscaped like he wanted to. But he could put up a new fence. Maybe he didn’t have the time to paint the whole spare room. But he did have time to sand and paint the door.

On their own each change seemed small. But his consistency of action meant that overtime I’ve seen his home transform.

home improvements/health improvements – it’s all the same

Got me thinking this is a lot like improving our health and fitness (yea, I pretty much always relate observations back to health and fitness 🙂 ).

It’s the people that show up each and every week. Make a consistent effort with their workouts. Make small increases in the weights they lift – even if it’s by just 1kg.

While these people probably don’t see much change after each workout, by the end of the month they’ve made noticeable improvements in their health, body composition and performance.

small improvements, applied over time lead to big differences.

Over the last few weeks I’ve been putting my money where my mouth is and finally got to work improving what I have with what I’ve got (notice the minor paint job at gym?).

I’m sure if I had a conversation with my un-named friend on the corner he’d just shrug and say his home improvement programme is simple; Do what you can. Use what you’ve got. And start now.