What’s the best exercise?
Answer: Whatever you enjoy.
Because that’s the only exercise you’ll actually do.
And for me that means it’s gotta be simple.
If I have to get a group of people together… drive somewhere… buy lots of equipment… forget it! I just won’t do it.
So when I was a teenager this meant lifting weights in the barn.
Then for a while I walked to the YMCA pool in Prague.
Then I switched to running – just walk out the front door and go!
Now I’ve discovered possibly the simplest, quickest exercise — jumping rope.
I’m done in a few minutes and if the ceiling is high enough I don’t even have to go outside.
My goal every time is to do three sets of 500.
And the rule is, if I mess up before I reach 500, I have to start over.
When I start, it’s easy. Not just physically, but also mentally. My mind is somewhere else and it comes automatically.
But then as I pass 400 and get closer and closer to my goal, I start to worry, “If I trip on the rope now… then I’ll have to start all over…”
And that makes me nervous.
So what do I do to fix this? I focus more. I focus on my feet, on my hands, on the rope…
And that’s when I screw it up.
Not all the time. But when it does happen, it happens at the end, when my head is too much in it.
Sound familiar?
Have you ever done this while speaking?
One day you can have a conversation and it flows, it’s automatic, and it’s easy.
But another day you start to think too much. “What’s the correct ending?” “Did I pronounce that correctly?” “Do they think I’m stupid?”
And that’s when you start to get nervous, to slow down, to make mistakes…
Interesting how that happens….
