First published 19 July 2021 on Your Best Year Starts Here with Nigel Risner.
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Nigel started this one so worried about getting the show's title right that he forgot which episode number it was. Which, as he said, is pretty much how most of us work. We fix on the bit we're unsure about and pile more pressure on.
He's been losing weight, and I could see it on the video, only a month on from the last time we spoke. The week before, he'd lost four ounces. About the weight of the pen he held up. He'd eaten out three times that week, Sunday night included, which is the night before his Monday weigh-in. So he stuck with the plan anyway, and by the time we recorded he was down another three and a half pounds. He'd also had a couple of squares of the chocolate sitting behind him, on purpose, to see if it set off cravings. He's not going to live the rest of his life without chocolate.
That's where the tyres come in. I've said this before. Loads of people get back to their car, find one flat tyre and get a knife out to slash the other three. Or they ring the salvage yard to come and take it away as a write-off. One takeaway or two bars of chocolate and the whole thing's out the window. You fix the tyre. Nigel does allow nine minutes of BMW first (bitch, moan and whine) because you're allowed to be gutted.
Then we got onto commitment. If it's a proper one, you've finished it before you start, and after that it's just counting down the days left. Nigel stopped me with a "time out, time out" on that, because it's a promise to yourself. Let yourself down and you stop trusting yourself. We also mention the book the two of us were planning, which he could already picture with two fat faces and two thin faces on the cover.
He finishes back on the car. Most flats start with a nail you ignore and keep driving on. Same with people who come to him three years into a problem, when the partners nearly hate each other. And I get people telling me they'll be ready to work on something in three or six months. If it can wait that long, it isn't a big enough priority yet.
The short version
- One flat tyre is one flat tyre. Fix it and carry on.
- A tiny result still counts. Nigel's four ounces kept him going into a three and a half pound week.
- Do the thing when you feel like it and when you don't.
- Decide the length of a commitment on day one, then just count down.
- If you've spotted a problem, start on it now. Waiting six months only makes it bigger.
When you feel like doing the thing that you've committed to, do it. When you don't feel like doing the thing you've committed to, do it.
Neil Martin
But if you have a bad day, it doesn't mean you've got a bad life.
Nigel Risner
