Life's short, don't be lazy
- Mar 30, 2024
- 4 min read
Updated: Apr 21, 2024
Alex remembers the moment he saw his dad cross the finish line of the London Marathon.
After being in a dark place mentally for a few years, his dad developed a love of running as a way to get out of that dark place and it meant that Alex got to see what exercise could do for someone’s mental health.
“Dad was over the moon to get a chance to run the London Marathon and it served as a huge ‘full circle’ moment. It was incredible to watch him prove that anything really is possible even when you start at your lowest”.
Alex Caird (@coachcairdy on Instagram), is the FA’s Outstanding Youth Leader 2023 winner and Barclays Football lead and he also understands the importance of sport and fitness for mental health.
Whilst most of us dream about being able to tick the big things off the bucket list like running a marathon or hiking Kilimanjaro, its easy for us to struggle with just getting started with the small stuff.
Alex has spent years reading and researching how to overcome his own issues with procrastination and has determined the best tips to increase his motivation, whether that’s for exercise, academic work or his job.
The first thing he recommends is starting small.
"Don’t look to block out a huge period of time as you'll just heap pressure on yourself to perform throughout."
For example if your goal is to finish a book you’ve been meaning to read, start by reading one page a day. Starting small means that you don’t have to set aside too much time out of your busy days and you will also naturally begin to do more.
"The smallest act ends up leading to another small act and at that point you're already starting to see the benefit."
When it comes to getting on with set tasks, I am the queen of procrastination. I could literally sit and watch paint dry if it meant not doing the things I needed to i.e. sorting out returns, working out or even just making a decent breakfast. Procrastination is the thief of time but putting in the work to fight it will pay off in the long run.
My main motivator is the thought of what exercising can do for my mental wellbeing and fitness goals. So, I force myself up and get on with it.
I’m also someone who could stay in bed for the entire weekend like an indoor house cat lounging around with nothing better to do. This can be detrimental to my mental health and leave me with the back pain of a 90-year-old pensioner, so I try to use that knowledge to force myself to get up and move around, ideally with a trip to the gym for a fitness class or a walk around the estate.
Missing one day of getting out of bed resets every bit of mental progress I've made and I lose all sense of motivation. So I stole one of Alex’s other favourite tips for staying motivated: having a streak counter.
Each morning after I completed my daily stretches, I would tick it off, this kept me motivated as I didn’t want to lose the streak, quite like how Duolingo keeps you attached (my streak on that app is 1166 days). I'll wake up to my alarm, throw on some sweats over my PJs (much better than trying to squeeze into gym gear at 7:30am) and then trek down to the living room.
Alex fell into football around age 7, surrounded by friends and as they grew up together as a team and set a standard for winning he stayed locked into the game. However, when college rolled around, winning wasn’t the motivator it used to be.
As a kid I played netball, at age 10 my motivation, similar to Alex’s was playing in competitions and winning. When more older girls joined, the opportunities fell and I couldn’t be bothered to put up with the bad weather anymore, what with netball being an outdoor winter sport.
Access to sport for girls isn’t the same as it is for boys, once you start ageing out of mixed gender teams, the opportunities, access and funding begins to dry up. Football being the perfect example of this.
The lack of TV coverage for netball games meant I didn’t have any role models to be inspired by. If I had, maybe I wouldn't have given up on the sport.
At the start of his coaching journey, Alex would default to the role models he looked up to in his youth – who were men. The success of England’s Lionesses in the Women’s Euros and the World Cup has also given him the chance to promote female role models at every opportunity, giving the girls women they can look up to.
Sport is changing, the accessibility, inclusiveness and visibility is improving everyday and the benefits from a healthy lifestyle can truly be life changing. I still struggle daily with finding the motivation but every day it gets a little bit easier.
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