What inspires you?

TLDR; What leaders share on linkedin/social media can have ripple effect on others. This is my personal story.

In 2019, during our summer break in Phuket, it was obvious to me (and to others) i was completely out of shape. And i was hoping to do something about it post summer.

But fitness plans are made and broken, every so often. Life comes in the way sooner or later.

Two things transformed my mind and that is why i am writing this down.

Harsh Mariwala, Chairman of Marico posted a picture of him walking in the Dubai Airport with the caption - missed my workout, so walking for an hour in the airport.

I was stunned. He didn't get life get in the way!

Clearly he is much more busy than me.

Next, Vas Narasimhan wrote on Linkedin about how he manages his energy as opposed to time.

And top of the list was fitness and nutrition. He specifically pointed out that he uses a virtual coach for his exercise routine first thing in the morning. And he has a structured diet which is fails to stick to every so often, but tries to stick to it.

If the CEO of Novartis can squeeze this in his life, how is it possible that life gets in our way.

So i started reading more. Finding out the best way to keep my resolution.

Went through many books and articles online. The one book that i instantly connected and made my framework is Atomic Habits by James Clear.

That was it.

At the core of what i was searching was a simple approach to building good habits. He in simple words, outlines four laws.

The Four Laws of Behavior Change are a simple set of rules we can use to build better habits. They are (1) make it obvious, (2) make it attractive, (3) make it easy, and (4) make it satisfying.

The light bulb went on!

So i started with building a habit of one hour routine first thing in the morning. Adopted many ideas in the book of how to make it easy, obvious and attractive. Including avoiding Gyms (more on that in the next post). But built a consistent home based workout routine first thing in the morning.

Next, taking a cue from Vas Narasimhan's post, started looking at virtual coaches. After some false starts, and filtering out the noise on online coaching, came across squats/fittr, which is the most authentic and trustworthy source of information i found. Also very scientific and no false claims.

So decided to enroll under a coach via fittr.

That was the magic. Building the consistent mental routine (via atomic habits) and getting an accountability partner via fittr was magic.

The amazing thing was to get your mind to change its thinking, the body followed.

100 days later and 10kgs lighter, am glad that i chanced upon the posts by Harsh-Bhai and Vas Narasimhan.

All it takes sometimes is inspiration. And you never know when and where it will hit you.

I am posting this because i know someone reading this somewhere might get inspired to seek their own transformation.

Wish you all a great new year!