Written by: Vincent J. DePasquale, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Hello BRAINZ readers, my name is Vincent DePasquale. I am delighted to contribute this first article as an Executive Contributor! I hope you will enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it.
It is now June, with just one month before the midway point of 2022. But, remember back in January when the new year began, and many of us had New Year’s resolutions? Well, how have they held up thus far? And are they even relevant at this point in the year? I believe they are just as, or even more, relevant now than at the beginning of the year. Now may also be the time to begin rethinking how such resolutions are made, intended and viewed.
As a professional fitness coach, every January the beginning of a new year is often met by the fitness industry with eager anticipation, as it is a time that the word “resolution” is heard seemingly ubiquitously.
Since many resolutions are fitness and health related, when I began my career I initially saw this as a good thing, as demand for coaches and trainers would surge to start the year. My thought process was to build upon the wave of this surge and use it as momentum to grow consistent business throughout the year. I believed that the “new year’s” clients could form a foundation upon which to build my business, not just for the immediate resolutions but for the long term. But after my second year in the industry, I no longer looked at January the same way, with the same eagerness, and began to see it more as a potential letdown.
And why was that? By this time of the year (in June), many resolutions have long been abandoned and forgotten, perhaps distant memories fallen by the wayside as fleeting fancies. Over the years I have grown to not only accept the word “resolution,” but also question it. I have worked with all kinds of clients throughout my career, and the vast majority of clients that have achieved the most sustained success, the most fitness gains, and with whom I have been fortunate enough to work with the longest, have not had New Year’s resolutions. I have noticed that the clients with whom I have worked that came to me with or because of New Year’s resolutions would no longer be consistent after about a month of training, and by February would stop training altogether. This really prompted me to think.
So I began to analyze my experience of the past 14 years. As I did my research, I discovered that mine was not unique, and the conclusion I determined was that this phenomenon is indeed more common than I realized, and that most fitness resolutions last between only five and six weeks. So for all of the best intentions, most people give up on their resolutions by early to mid-February, around the time of the Super Bowl or Valentine’s Day.
This prompted me to ask the question – why do New Year’s resolutions fail? Is it because they are too aggressive, too difficult, too passive, or too unreasonable? Is it due to a lack of willpower? Perhaps because of these or a combination of these and other factors?
I began by breaking down this question all the way to the core – no pun intended – starting with simply defining the word “resolution.” A resolution is a decision to do or not do something, be it positive, negative or indifferent; it is also defined as the action of solving a problem. Examples of resolutions as decisions are everyday things as simple as what to eat and drink, what to watch on television or the internet, whom to call, text or see, and where to go shopping or even to go at all. There are thousands of daily resolutions.
Examples of resolutions as the actions of solving problems are a bit more complex, and require many steps, a process, a lot of work and time and are not quick fixes. Examples of resolutions as solving problems can be varied and diverse – something like building or repairing structure, like a bridge or a highway; settling conflicts between people or countries; or in regard to fitness, losing weight (to name just a few).
Therefore, in defining the word literally, what became apparent to me as it pertains to fitness is that resolutions are usually either one of two things:
A behavior to be changed, for the better and toward an end ‒ i.e. a decision
An overall goal to achieve ‒ i.e. actions of solving a problem
What then became apparent as a result of defining the word literally was a lot of clarity.
I see these two kinds of resolutions as not only independent of each other, but also interdependent. After years of experience with resolutions, I now see the need to rethink the notion of New Year’s resolutions, and the general approach to them with regard to fitness. As well, I believe the same thought process can be applied to any kind of resolution.
A big part of what I do as a fitness coach is wear multiple hats – one as a coach and one as a trainer. As my career has progressed, coaching has become an increasingly important function of my job, to the point where I consider myself more of a coach than trainer, and have been told so by my clients. My role as a coach is to provide clarity, guidance, motivation and accountability for my clients to achieve continued progress toward their goals. I see my work together with them as partnerships.
So pertaining to the definition of resolution, my mission is to decipher precisely what my client is seeking to accomplish, and clarify whether it is a behavior or a goal. When a client comes to me with a goal, I will sit down with them to clearly identify it, and if needed fine tune it. The identification and confirmation of a goal – let’s use losing 30 pounds (approx. 14 kg) by Summer as an example – is the easier of the two kinds of resolutions, because it is absolutely clear. When I mentioned earlier that the most successful clients with whom I have worked did not have resolutions, this is specifically to what I was referring – these clients had specific goals. And as they were achieved, we kept setting new ones.
Herein is the point I alluded to regarding to how New Year’s was beginning to cause more apprehension than opportunity. Though I would sit down with clients and have us close in on their resolutions and clarify them to really be goals or habits, looking back I can see how the disconnect could occur where the client would not possibly be seeing the correlation between the two. The problems a lot of the time were that the resolutions were being seen as the end goal, and not the means toward the end – the steps toward achieving the goal. (I’ll use a common type of resolution I’ve heard time and again – “I’m going to start eating healthier.”) And not only that – these resolutions are (were) really habits, which of course is behavior repeated.
However, in essence, what I also discovered is that these resolutions are (were) really the stepping stones toward achieving the goals. Often times, the steps can be seen as mundane, boring, and perhaps even inconsequential. Many of the resolutions I encountered were really the habits that needed to be repeated to gain consistency toward reaching a goal. As my father would say, to become “expert” at something.
Think of something like this that is heard so frequently these days, how someone needs to have 10,000 hours of experience at something to be considered an expert. From this kind of experience comes consistency, and from that comes the overall success of perfecting a task. Once success is achieved at multiple tasks (or steps) in the chain of steps needed to accomplish the overall goal, that goal has a very high likelihood of being met, and hopefully more quickly. Hopefully what else is achieved is not only an overall goal, but better habits and a change of behavior for the better for the long term, to create a mindset to lean toward when a new goal arises. The behaviors needed to achieve the previous goal can be replicated to achieve future goals. My most successful clients have been able to connect this link, to “see the forest through the trees” so to speak, and have been motivated enough both inherently and through my coaching to be willing to put in the time and work to achieve their goals.
Using the example of the goal of losing 30 pounds (14 kgs), a resolution example of eating better/meal planning would seem to be an absolute no-brainer type of good habit (behavioral change) needed to facilitate the clear goal. Yet, eating better/meal planning isn’t so easy for everyone, and the type of behavior for a weight loss goal that, though obvious, clients often say is the hardest of the habits to maintain. Many times clients will say something like “well I ate better today – I had a salad for lunch.” Now that type of behavior is to be celebrated – if it was done properly. And done repeatedly it would become a healthy habit. With such an example, what I try to instill in my clients as a coach is to maintain that type of behavior and constantly reinforce its importance. The connection between the habit and the goal is critical to make, and the toughest to reinforce daily. Both weight loss and eating better are resolutions; the difference is that one is the overall goal and the other a necessary habit. The trick is to not let the habit lose its virtue or importance, and become mundane or a drudgery, like a chore, to be overlooked, taken for granted, to skip a day and be done better tomorrow, and become lazy about doing. The good habit of eating better is one of many others (e.g. consistent exercise, restful sleep) needed to facilitate the weight loss goal, and if one goes by the wayside, others are sure to follow. One can see the domino effect of letting a good habit falter and not keeping focus on the master goal.
Resolutions can also be thought of in terms of using a very common contemporary cliche. When referencing many things in life – life itself, sports championships, really any achievement – it is often said “life is a journey, not a destination.” In my industry, I commonly hear the term “fitness journey.” And that is absolutely true – fitness is a journey. Many things in life worth having are journeys and of course not automatic. And so it goes with goals – it is the journey towards achieving the goal where the growth occurs, and where the mindset that is needed must be forged. The mindset is the cornerstone. Resolutions are the necessary steps – the mundane everyday things that can be taken for granted that are not the ultimate goal – that must be completed regularly and perfected during that journey in order to have a chance toward achieving the master goal. The achievement of these steps are mini-goals in and of themselves, and should be celebrated – but hold on, these are not the same as the final victory! Each completed step leads closer to ultimate achievement of the goal.
I can also look at this in terms of food – a fun reference and one of my passions! (Not unusual for someone like myself being of Italian ancestry.) I’ll use the example of a quintessential classic Italian dish – lasagne. I have had the pleasure of eating a lot of lasagne in my life, especially in my early life. It is absolutely delicious when it is made correctly. I had taken this dish for granted as being simply a staple of Italian cuisine, and not hard to make – until I decided to learn how to make it myself from scratch. I can say from experience that it is actually very difficult to make, especially effectively and deliciously. It requires many ingredients – homemade sauce (an endeavor all by itself), fresh cheeses, pasta, meats, basil and other herbs, and many other ingredients. It requires a lot of attention, dedication, and in the case of everyone in my family who made it – love. Everyone who made it in my family – my grandmother, mother, aunts and uncle – all made it hundreds of times individually and no doubt thousands of times collectively. Each one made it their own way with their own recipes, and their own unique variations of ingredients. Each had its own unique taste and all of them were delicious. Lasagne is literally a dish of many layers, and each layer has its own purpose and taste.
Everyone in my family who made lasagne became expert at it and perfected their version of it because they put in the time to make it correctly. They learned from countless hours in their kitchens through trial and error. That meant taking all the painstaking steps – let’s rename these as “resolutions” as per the theme of the article – involved in the process of making lasagne the right way. They purchased the best ingredients, and many times made and grew many of the ingredients themselves, which made it even better. Making lasagne is a painstaking process, even an art, and there is no way to make it effectively by skipping steps. It meant more to them to make it the right way, and they were willing to do what that took.
My family made it by taking all the necessary steps – or shall I say layers, or better yet let’s say resolutions – and they stayed true to their process. (Think of another term in our vernacular that is used so much – “trust the process.” And that they did!) Cooking for family is difficult because it is the toughest crowd, the harshest critic and gives the toughest love. So I use this example in reference to the theme of the article –the goal in this case is a classic lasagne, which cannot be completed effectively without taking the correct steps in the process to make it (i.e. resolutions). And examples of the behaviors as resolutions (habits) are steps like making great sauce from scratch with great ingredients, buying and growing the best tomatoes, and perfecting the craft of making homemade lasagne noodles. These habits would make the overall goal (lasagne) the best it could be.
Admittedly, food can be a more subjective example of achieving success. So let me use one from the sports world, where success is much more easily quantifiable and identified. There are numbers and statistics, but the ultimate number, and the ultimate goal, is winning championships.
Not many coaches have been more successful in the history of sports than John Wooden, the legendary mens basketball coach at the University of California – Los Angeles (UCLA). During his 29-year career at UCLA, his teams won an incredible 10 NCAA Tournament Championships. (The next winningest program has 5 championships.)
So how did John Wooden achieve such success? He developed something called the Pyramid of Success, a framework of key behaviors that produce proven success. It has been adapted to be used by leaders in sports, business and all kinds of organizations around the world. Coach Wooden applied this to his teams at UCLA and achieved unparalleled success, the height of which was an 88-2 record between 1967 ‒ 1969 that included three NCAA National Championships. The biggest star of these teams was Lew Alcindor (who later changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the National Basketball Association legend and widely regarded as one of the best basketball players of all time), who was a three time NCAA First Team All-American, won three NCAA National College Player of the Year awards, three NCAA Tournament Final Four Most Outstanding Player awards, and three NCAA National Championships. He later went on to the NBA and won 6 championships playing for the Milwaukee Bucks and Los Angeles Lakers, was named NBA Most Valuable Player 6 times, was named to 19 NBA All-Star teams, was elected into both the National Basketball Hall of Fame and the College Basketball Hall of Fame, and finished his NBA career as the league’s leader in career points scored, a distinction he still holds today since retiring in 1989. This was a man who achieved great success at every level of his basketball career, and it began with high school.
Alcindor (Abdul-Jabbar) was the most highly sought-after college recruit in the United States out of high school from Power Memorial Academy in New York City, and was an overwhelmingly dominant player and achieved unparalleled success there. His Power Memorial teams won three straight NYC Catholic basketball titles from 1963 -1965, including a 71 game winning streak. So when he committed to UCLA, his and the school’s expectations were astronomical. He was joining a UCLA Bruins team that had won national championships in 1964 and 1965. But as a freshman at UCLA, Alcindor was forced to play on the school’s Freshman team for the 1965-‘66 season, as such a thing existed in college sports back then. (Freshman were not eligible to play on college Varsity teams, which consisted of sophomores, juniors and seniors. And Coach Wooden did not coach the Freshmen, so he and Alcindor had little to no contact his freshman year.)
When Alcindor finally was eligible to play on the Varsity team in his sophomore year for the 1966-67 season and play with Coach Wooden, Alcindor of course tried out for and made the Varsity team. He explains in his book “Coach Wooden and Me: Our 50 Year Friendship On and Off the Court” that during the first team meeting he ever had with Coach Wooden, he and the rest of the team were expecting to hear lofty words of wisdom from the “Wizard of Westwood,” as Coach Wooden became known. What he encountered that first day was quite different. What he encountered were words of wisdom, but hardly what he thought they would be.
What he heard and learned were the proper instructions on how to put on one’s socks and shoes. That’s right – the first team meeting was about how to properly wear socks and shoes.
To Coach Wooden, the most important equipment a player had was his shoes and socks, and to put them on properly was absolutely critical. That meant ensuring that socks were put on the feet so that there were no wrinkles around the pinky toes or heels. Wrinkles could cause blisters, and blisters on their own were a problem that could cause a player to miss time from the team; but blisters could also cause awkward compensatory movements that could possibly lead to injuries and again valuable time away from the team.
Putting on socks properly also led to tying shoes properly, which was not just from the top but starting with the shoes spread apart at first and then pulling the laces from each eyelet snugly, ending with the laces at the top eyelets and double-tying the knot. (There was no Velcro in the 1960’s on athletic shoes yet!) These details needed to be practiced in order to be mastered – to become expert at – so that the team had the best chance of achieving success. All of these details might have seemed mundane to the players, but to Coach Wooden this was absolutely essential. Properly putting on socks and tying shoes would ultimately limit injuries, and injuries meant taking time away from the team to heal them, and that meant weakening their bench and hurting the team’s chances of success.
And so Alcindor’s tenure on the varsity team began and meteoric success followed. UCLA not only won the NCAA Tournament and thus National Championships in each of Alcindor’s three years on the Varsity team, but UCLA then went on to win another 4 consecutive championships – a total of 7 consecutive championships, all with Coach Wooden at the helm.
All this success started with paying attention to the little mundane details that many take for granted. Things like putting on socks and shoes properly. These were literally the beginning steps of the journey towards UCLA’s success under Coach Wooden. One of the takeaways that most struck me from Abdul-Jabbar’s book is that Coach Wooden kept instilling these details into his players despite their initial championship in 1964. Coach Wooden never let up in his teaching, and only continued to reinforce it over the years. And this was despite the growing talent that UCLA kept amassing as a result of its recruitment over this remarkable run. In sports and life, winning and success often lead to more confidence and thus more success and winning. It can also lead to complacency, getting soft, losing focus, resting on one’s laurels, not staying hungry. But that never happened with Coach Wooden, nor Abdul-Jabbar, and their laser focus was one of the key attributes of his success. In addition to their collective and individual basketball achievements, Coach Wooden and Abdul-Jabbar forged a friendship that lasted for over 50 years.
In much the same way, these little steps like the ones preached by Coach Wooden can be seen as resolutions – mundane behaviors that on the surface on their own may seem inconsequential. Yet these steps are critical and need to be executed repetitively in order to be done successfully and mastered properly – to become expert at – as part of a process in a plan to achieve a goal. Success can be achieved, and most of the time is achieved, by first mastering the little things, the “resolutions” – type of things. If this kind of great success can be achieved in sports in part by paying attention to the details, the “little things,” that is a good enough example for me to follow and impart to my clients. Little things are big things, and imagine what paying attention to them can do as steps toward achieving long-term goals!
So perhaps it’s time to look at resolutions a little differently. Not “one and done” items on a checklist to do and achieve at the beginning of a new year, or just goals on their own to be accomplished and celebrated. But rather as key behaviors that need to be mastered as components of a master mindset and life plan in order to achieve a goal. And not just just to achieve one goal one single time. Resolutions can be viewed as key behavioral changes for the better, as part of an overall attitudinal and behavioral makeover, so that a broader behavioral mindset of overall life excellence emerges. I believe all success begins with the proper mindset, and having the mindset should be the backdrop – the ultimate resource, like a reservoir or well of water – from which to draw in order to achieve sustained success over a long period of time, and for any goal one wishes to achieve.
Since it is June, now is a perfect time to reassess those “New Years resolutions” that many of us made. As a coach, I routinely reassess clients to make changes to their programs as necessary. Similarly, in terms of those New Year’s resolutions, now is a perfect time to reassess them. Ask yourself the following kinds of questions with regards to them:
Are the resolutions really goals?
Or are the resolutions actually behaviors that need to be changed in order to form good overall habits?
Are those habits the goal?
Are the habits part of a process to achieve a greater overall goal?
Has any behavior modification been achieved?
Has any goal at all been achieved?
After answering these questions, perhaps it will be time to redouble the efforts to achieve the goals; after all, they were made with purpose and reason in the first place! So let’s rename these “Mid-Year’s” resolutions! If the goals have already been achieved – then congratulations and job well done! Time to formulate some new goals! Hopefully asking and reviewing these kinds of questions will not only lead to successfully reaching current and future goals, and overall behavior modification to achieve them, but better overall goal formulation in the future and the proper identification of the steps (resolutions!) needed to achieve them. This kind of mindset has enhanced my coaching ability and I believe is making me a better coach now, and I believe will enable me to serve my clients better as well for the long term. Such a mindset I believe would be useful not only for fitness goals at the beginning of a new year, but essentially all kinds of fitness goals, any life goals at any time of year, and at any stage of life.
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Vincent J. DePasquale, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Vincent J. DePasquale is the founder, owner and principal coach of Exerceo Fitness LLC, a premium personal fitness training business dedicated to training clients at their homes and live remotely. Celebrating its 10th year in business, Exerceo works with clients in-person in the New York City metropolitan area primarily in Westchester County, and live remotely from anywhere. At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Vincent made the strategic pivot into remote training, and it has become a vital part of his business and broadened his geographic reach. Health and safety are hallmarks of Exerceo, and Vincent continually maintains enhanced health standards. Exerceo’s mission is to take extraordinary care of clients by providing an evolutionary approach to training that recognizes the interrelationship of physical fitness and optimal overall health, emphasizing that clients are the CEO’s of their bodies and “Fitness Is Your Greatest Asset.”
Armed with 14 years of overall experience, Vincent specializes in empowering highly-motivated clients who prioritize their health but need the expertise of strategic program design, relating of accountability, and expert form guidance he provides them to train safely at all times. Vincent is nationally certified by the American Council on Exercise and has developed the essential specialty of working with clients with complex health conditions, including cancer, cardiovascular conditions, Multiple Sclerosis, orthopedic conditions, Parkinson’s disease, and many others. Vincent also specializes in working with couples and seniors, and is trained in pre and post-natal training and pre and post-physical therapy training. Exerceo combines coaching with training to mentor and empower clients to achieve their goals by helping strategically identify them first, and then developing customized and purposeful exercise regimens that evolve with their achievements, ultimately maximizing their time to exercise efficiently. Vincent’s unique philosophy incorporates a “train the brain” approach that treats the brain as a muscle that must be trained like any other muscle in the body, a groundbreaking approach in physical fitness.
