Sometimes, the most obvious choice isn't the solution you want

If you know anything about me, it's that I like to exercise. A lot. And yet, I recently cancelled my gym subscription and I've never felt happier and more free than I do now.

When we talk about exercise, there are roughly three camps among those who *do* exercise : the absolute gym rat, who is happiest hugging their nearest machine; the jogger, who abhors the idea of weight training; and the swears-by-bodyweight who tends to occasionally jog but tends to dislike the gym. None of these are "wrong" or "right"; all have their cons and pros, and the more you mix and match the better - it does the gym rat good to get out in the sun once in a while, it does the jogger good to lift some weights or do some bodyweight training (because the more we throw at our muscle, the better we can actually run - there are lots of training programmes aimed at runners and joggers out there that are essentially the same as a lot of bodyweight and even regular gym training programmes) and so forth. I'm a mix and match type of person, and in general, I tend to enjoy all types of exercise equally. And yet, here we are, with me having quit gym and feeling happier than ever.

How? Why? And how does this apply to business?

Let's start at the start.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that one can exercise with or without gym. If we are talking about exercise as a pastime that helps us stay healthy, that is - not so much so if we have specific goals. If you are a jogger who also wants to develop some solid muscle that looks good rather than merely solid muscle that serves a purpose (so eg you want a nice set of abs and well-developed upper body vs just really strong legs and stable core that helps you run better), then you need to add muscle work to your training plan; and it depends on your personal aesthetics and what your body can do - some people find it easier to develop muscle than others, much like some people find it easier to run well while others need more training - not only what results are realistic but also what tools you might need to achieve that. Much like you can run with any shoes, your running will be much better with good shoes. Bodyweight exercise doesn't require any tools but your own body, but for many people, bodyweight exercises are either too limited or require the amount of control over one's own body that few have at the start, causing them to give up after struggling for a while. Wherever you look, however, you will see training plans offered as "the" plan - a single solution that works for everyone, and if it does not, it must be your fault. In reality, there is no perfect plan - but the wealth of information available allows us to tailor our own, and there are thankfully so many pieces of equipment available at pretty decent prices that it is easier than ever to build your own gym at home, even if your space is very limited. In our household, while not the smallest household ever, cat toys and general furniture dominate the landscape, but exercise things are everywhere - little girly weights (for running, HIIT, Tae Bo and similar) sit on the bookshelf together with a collection of resistance bands; yoga mats are rolled up next to my desk. A collection of heavy weights and a barbell (my favourites and honestly my pride and joy) live in a corner, encased in full cat sand boxes so that no curious feline could, under any circumstances, bring them tumbling down on themselves or their friends (looking at you, Teeny and Coffee Toffee....looking at you!). With all this at home, you can imagine that exercise isn't difficult to achieve. I have gone through many podcasts and even conferences pumping iron, doing HIIT or yoga. I find that I concentrate better if I do so if I am tired, or if my brain is overactive; the one hilarious side-effect thus far has been getting so invested into what I was listening to that I forgot what else I was doing, and had to consciously stop myself and repeat the exercise on the other side for a ghastly amount of time to even out. But that is a small price for wellbeing, at least as far as I'm concerned. When gym opened shortly after the first wave of the pandemic, when we were tentatively allowed to go, I was ecstatic. So many more options for me to play with, and gym dates with my wifey! Because some caution still applied, you had to reserve your time via an app, and the gym would always be half empty. Absolute candyland. In theory.

That first year, we went a handful of times. It was difficult to find a good time when the gym was available and we both were; not to mention that the app really did not work that well. It kept crashing. It kept claiming everything was fine and then suddenly - your date and time disappeared. It could not be counted upon. This essentially precluded us from going most of the year, and it went well into the next year.

Now, the funny thing is that the lack of gym did little to disrupt my exercising. What with my many kinds of exercise and lots of tools I already own, I was still doing what I always do, I just didn't manage to include tools that the gym would offer me. It was harder for my wife, as we are completely mismatched on both exercise in general and in terms of motivation. I never have nor have ever had trouble with motivation; she is my complete opposite, which means that she exercises significantly less and therefore has less experience, less stamina and strength and less patience with it. Going to the gym as an active attempt to dedicate time and energy to wellbeing did help her, but it did not do much to help create a routine - the bad app had something to do with it for sure, but I find that for some, it is also almost impossible to build some routines. (This realisation really helps when dealing with teams and leaders entrenched in a single notion of work.) Even after the caution about the pandemic was relaxed fully, we were very poor on actually going to the gym vs having a subscription, and that became a source of stress for me - times are hard, especially for us who have our own little business, and having a subscription for something we don't use felt wasteful. But I also discovered something else when desperately trying to establish the routine of going and failing : I was failing because going to the gym would simply be too much for my already extant routine.

When I say I exercise a lot, I'm not joking. My average per day is three hours; an hour of HIIT, Tae Bo or martial arts inspired workout in the morning (or a mix of them), before work; then about an hour of toning (bands or weights) somewhere in the afternoon, usually whenever I catch a break, then yoga in the evenings to iron out any kinks the rest left me with. It can be less, depending on how much I have to do, but it can also be more - whenever the weather is at least somewhat ok for it, and I have to admit that in the winter, the wind can be too strong by the river, I will jog or run, or cycle for up to 20 km on top of all that every day. Weekends and holidays are adventure days, too - it's when we do our long cycling trips. All this, while taking into account the cats and their needs, our work and the fact that we both have chronic conditions that sometimes require completely stopping. Once you look at this routine, you can probably see what went wrong for me - going to the gym regularly would add yet another hour to an already pretty full schedule. Not only that - it would probably slowly begin to be too much, at least for me; with that in mind, we decided that cancelling our subscription was the best option.

With cancelling came an immense feeling of freedom. I no longer felt guilty for being wasteful with our money; I stopped worrying whether or not we were going, how long we should aim for. I was no longer standing in line in an overcrowded gym with rude people trying to push me out of their way, or trying to force me to finish sooner than I was ready (we're not talking forever, but for instance 4 sets of 20 reps) so that they could then hang around that machine talking to someone. All this stress was gone. And my exercise routine remained as good as ever.

Gym seemed like the right idea for someone like myself who enjoys exercise and who loves diversifying it. Equally, some solutions may seem right at your office. This may be a diversity step that sounds like a great idea but doesn't work; a supply chain step that ends up causing delays rather than minimising or preventing them; leadership choices that end up dividing the team rather than bringing it closer together as intended, and those are just a few examples. The reality is that we receive a lot of information all the time - we are taught from others' experiences, whether or not they apply to our situation, we are offered wisdom that is supposed to solve every problem we have, often as a cure-all without actually looking at whether we even have a problem. What is hard is to choose what we actually need, and to tailor what we get offered to our needs; the job of the people tasked with helping us is to be aware of this and to help us tailor their knowledge rather than hawk it as a whole. Applying this realisation is crucial for any successful coaching or consulting; and yet, I think we don't do it enough because it feels like the whole must surely be the right decision. When someone says "I quit the gym", the first thing we think of is that they "fell off the health wagon"; if someone expresses differences with an offered plan or knowledge, too few of us doing coaching and consulting actually know to listen, and when to insist because they are wrong and when to change our approach because we are wrong. Information is not the same as knowledge. Information is facts. Knowledge is how to tailor those to a specific case, to specific needs and at a specific time. The most obvious solution may work well for some - but sometimes, it won't work at all, and our knowledge must make sure that another solution is found.