Making a Pact with Myself
my tiny exercise experiment
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Inspired by my podcast interview with Anne-Laure Le Cunff, author of Tiny Experiments, I ran my own tiny experiment in April and May.
Using Le Cunff’s method of a pact, where one commits to doing an action for a set amount of time and reflects on the process as they go, I tried to do mat pilates three times a week for four weeks, using an app on my phone with pre-recorded exercises.
Why This Pact?
Exercise helps my mental health, but I haven’t been exercising as much as I’d like to this year due to an ongoing injury in my arm and wrist. Before I got injured, I had a great setup with multiple online yoga classes a week along with solo strength training, but it’s tricky to do either of those right now.
Since I can’t lift heavy things and I can’t put weight on my left arm, I decided to try out mat pilates because I have tried classes in the past and it seemed like a low-impact way to exercise.
A Quick Detour into Habit Formation
Le Cunff encourages us not to think of our experiments as tied to a particular outcome or developing an ongoing habit. Instead, she suggests we explore a practice, reflect on our experience throughout the experiment, and gather information to make a decision about whether we want to continue, pause, or adapt our practice moving forward.
While my pact was just for four weeks, I am curious about developing an ongoing strength training practice, so let’s do a quick review of habit formation.
We develop a habit when we experience a cue, which prompts us to perform a routine, and we somehow feel rewarded, which means we repeat the process over and over. I recently realized that I have a habit of reaching for my phone to scroll every time a commercial comes up on TV. That habit feels pretty unconscious at this point:
CUE: ugh, commercial time and I’ve seen this insurance ad about a hundred times
ROUTINE: what’s happening on Pinterest?
REWARD: ooh, that jumpsuit is cute, and look, my show is back on!
There are salient critiques out there of the suggestion that habit formation is easy or that everyone experiences it in the same way (one of my favorite podcasts, If Books Could Kill, did a critical review of the science behind the bestseller Atomic Habits). Habit formation how-to guides focus on optimization and big promises, which sounds lovely but is a challenge…unless your ideal habit is scrolling Pinterest during commercial breaks—that one was pretty easy to establish.
What I Did
I decided to record reflections before I started, during each week, and at the end of my experiment.
Before My Experiment Reflection
I chose to use the exercise app Obé because I liked that it offered a variety of classes and I found a free month trial coupon for the app online (always search for a coupon code before you check out!). I ultimately decided not to renew my Obé membership after my pact ended, but it worked for the purposes of this experiment.
When I started my experiment, I reflected on when I’ve had success with or struggled with doing a new routine. Here’s what I came up with:
I like to batch tasks into certain days (Monday is an admin day, Saturday is for laundry, etc.) instead of doing them every day
I’m more successful when I have external accountability, like a one-on-one exercise session or a regular co-working date with friends
Decision making can be hard when I’m tired or in pain
Habit stacking at night works really well for me because it eliminates decision making (I know I have to feed the dog, do the dishes, take the dog outside, give the cats treats, turn down the heat, check that the door is locked and oven burners are off, and then I can head up to bed)
With these things in mind, I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t doing my workouts when I was too tired or when I felt rushed, and I also knew planning to do them every day wouldn’t work for me.
During My Experiment Reflection
At first, I liked the option to schedule specific exercises into my Google calendar so I could just click the link and it would pull up the video. Scheduling them in felt great (look at all the fun exercises I’ll do this week!), but I found myself delaying some of the sessions when the alert came up in my calendar. This makes sense, though. Unless I’m accountable to another person to do something at a specific time, like a meeting or appointment or class, I don’t like to time block my schedule.
The “beginner” exercises were still quite hard and I couldn’t do what the instructors did with their bodies. All of the teachers were incredibly flexible, and I had to adjust a lot of the exercises on my own without prompts for modifications, which didn’t feel as effective. I was bummed that it was so hard, and I fell into comparing myself to my previous exercise practices from a decade ago. When I had a pain flare in my arm and wrist, I took time away from using the app. Seeing the reminders that I had scheduled workouts and needing to skip them because of my pain made me feel even more bummed out, so I stopped scheduling them in.
I liked the mood tracking part of the Obé app that prompted me to record how I felt before and after I exercised. After I had done a few workouts, it would tell me things like “the last time you said you felt X, doing meditation/pilates/etc, made you feel Y.” I was more likely to do a short pilates session if I did a 10-minute stretch first, and I liked that the mood tracker reminded me of that.
End of Experiment Reflection
Le Cunff encourages us to reflect at the end of our experiment to see if we want to keep doing our activity, change anything about our approach, or pause our experiment for the time being. I decided to hit PAUSE and cancel my subscription to Obé before the free trial even ended because it wasn’t working for me for multiple reasons in this season of my life.
I do need to keep up with some exercise, though, because it truly does help my mental health. So I’m going to explore more accessible virtual classes for beginners and/or check out one-on-one instruction. I don’t need to be an expert, and I’m fine with being wobbly and taking breaks during a workout, but I need to find a modification-friendly way to exercise.
Final Thoughts On My Pact
I’m glad I did this experiment because it reaffirmed some things for me: I don’t like time blocking things that I’m only accountable to myself to do, I need more individual guidance and accountability to begin an exercise practice, and it’s especially important to be kind to myself while I’m navigating my injury. I joked with Kris that my current theme song is “crying at the doctor’s office: the remix” and I’m feeling big time solidarity with all my readers who live with chronic health issues like pain/illness/fatigue/long covid! I know there are many of you ❤️.
Curiosities
Amelia Hruby, the host of the podcast Off the Grid and the editor for my podcast Honing In, is running a workshop on the 28th of May called How to Run Your Creative Business During a Recession. Maybe I’ll see you there!
Gabrielle Ione Hickman, a visual artist and scholar, is running her Applications for Artists Workshop Series: How to Apply to Artist Residencies and Fellowships in June.
I’m happy that Cody Cook-Parrott is sharing Personal Practice dance videos on their Instagram again.
I love what Camila Galaz is doing over at Structured Knowledge! She’s offering creative advising and developmental editing for cool projects.
Kris and I started watching the show “Paradise” on Hulu and I don’t want to give away any spoilers but I’m really into it! The storytelling structure and use of timelines is intriguing.
Take care and talk soon,
Dr. Kate
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