DON'T BREAK THE CHAIN
What We Can Learn from Seinfeld
You’ve probably heard of Jerry Seinfeld.
The most successful comedian of all time, he’s done stand up, had his own sitcom, and more recently done a great Netflix show called comedians in cars getting coffee.
That last one is definitely worth checking out if you’re stuck for something to watch
If you haven’t at least heard his name, or have a vague idea of who he is, then you must have been living under a rock for the last 20-30 years
All of his success didn’t just happen overnight, it’s a combination of consistent hard work, and a relentless dedication to his craft.
But before we talk anymore about Seinfeld and his tactics for success, we’re going to talk about training, and more specifically new year’s resolutions comparing a comedy writers resolution to a hopeful training resolution.
The trainers resolution is: This year, I want to lose weight.
The writers resolution is: This year, I want to write more
Both are great goals, there’s no doubt about it, if they get stuck to for the whole year, you’re guaranteed to see results.
But just like the trainer hitting a plateau in the gym, the writer will lose steam on the once super exciting story idea.
They’ll take a day off.
Then 2 days off
2 days turns into a week
Eventually finding that the gym membership, or the exciting screenplay idea hasn’t been touched in over a month.
Now let’s say that you do exercise in some form (or write) Monday to Friday, and take the weekend off for whatever reason (rest days are important to be fair)
That’s still a lot of training (or writing)
But think of it this way, by the end of the year, those 2 days of doing nothing, over the course of the year adds up to roughly 10 weeks, or about 2 and half months worth of days where you didn’t do anything.
This is where Seinfelds productivity method of ‘Don’t Break the Chain’ comes into play.
Years ago when a software developer named Brad Issac was doing an open mic stand up gig, Seinfeld was in the crowd.
He asked Seinfeld what the secret to creating great jokes was, and this is when he received the best advice from the already super famous comedian.
Seinfield explained his method to keep him motivated (and dedicated) to his goal of writing more fresh material:
Every January, he’d hang up a large ‘year at a glance’ calendar on his wall, for every day that he wrote new material, he got the pleasure of drawing a big red X over that day.
Drawing the X’s became fun and rewarding to him, so he kept doing it.
Which eventually became of giant chain of red Xs.
The idea was to never break the chain.
This approach can help to program your mind to exercise daily, it also motivates you to continue that lovely chain of red Xs.
If you don’t exercise one day, you don’t get to draw the X.
It doesn’t particularly matter what type of training you do, whether you go and shift some big weights in the gym, or spend 5 minutes doing some body weight exercises at home.
So long as you’re routinely and actively pushing yourself into doing something that you said you wanted to do.
Firstly, this will mean making exercise or training a major part of your life.
In order to do this, you have to make training a habit.
Now there are countless excuses, most of them completely acceptable which can hold us back from training.
More often that not, its the never-ending to-do list of life admin that take priority over the results we want to see.
With the Don’t Break the Chain method, training & exercising becomes a daily task to cross off that To do list.
This is a constant reminder that, if we want to succeed in our chosen goal, we must acknowledge the work that needs to be put in, and respect the process.
Just think of how much progress you could make just by exercising routinely for 5 minutes every single day.
This will also help to make exercise a major part of your life, a habit that we just do every day in order to get to be able to draw a big X over that day!
Another way of looking at it could be the first day at your new job.
This can be super stressful.
You’ll feel like you don’t know where to park your car, when to show up, how to answer the phone, who deals with certain things, and what you’re even supposed to be doing there!
Fast forward a few months, you’ve gotten into a routine.
It’s not intimidating any more, it’s just simply what you do.
The same idea applies to training.
It’s no wonder we tell ourselves that we’ve lost motivation, especially after not exercising for a whole month (or more).
Think of those big Xs on an entire calendar year as the fire to stoke your commitment to the task.
It’s up to you when you get started (though the new year being as good a reason as any) you can start now, today in fact, all you need is a calendar and a pen (you can choose the colour) and the commitment to exercise for at least 5 minutes per day
Are you willing to find out what results you can get by taking action on a method that’s been proven to work by the world’s most successful comedian?
If you need some help getting starting, or advice on what you should be doing, then let us know in the comments, or send me an email on Martin@LiverpoolStrengthco.co.uk
