Man in the Arena with Craig Spear

The Power of Repetition

• Craig Spear

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I’ve been learning Spanish using Duolingo and one day something hit me. I realized that the only things between me not knowing how to speak Spanish and knowing how to speak Spanish are time and repetition.

With enough time and with enough reps I will speak Spanish.

I found this realization to be so incredibly motivating because I just have to show up, do the reps and I will achieve my goal.

That’s how simple this is.  Want to get stronger?  Give it time and do the reps.  Want to lose weight?  Give it time and do reps.

In today’s episode of Man in the Arena - I dive deeper into this realization and offer up:

  1. The psychology and neuroscience behind learning and repetition
  2. How to use repetition to build better habits
  3. The double-edged sword of repetition

Thanks for listening!

Did you find this episode helpful insightful or motivating? If so, let's connect! You can find me on....

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Speaker 1:

Repetition is the mother of learning, the father of action, which makes it the architect of accomplishment. Welcome to man in the Arena. This podcast is for men over 40 who want to master their health and weight loss goals once and for all, with innovative strategies, practical tools and insightful interviews. My goal is to help you overcome your limiting beliefs and achieve your optimal health. It's time to look good, feel good and do better. Hey guys, welcome back to man in the Arena. If this is your first time here, thank you so much for stopping by and checking us out.

Speaker 1:

Today, I'm going to talk about two really important factors for success. Whether you want to lose weight, you're building muscle or you're just trying to sleep better, you will not succeed unless you concentrate on two very important factors time and repetition. When you break down any goal or task, time and repetition are so important, especially if you want to improve and succeed. Right now, I'm learning Spanish using Duolingo, and something I realized early on in using the app is the only thing between me not knowing how to speak Spanish and eventually learning how to speak Spanish is time and repetition. I know that if I give myself enough runway and I know that if I show up daily and I do these reps of learning Spanish in the app. I have no doubt that one day I'm going to be able to speak Spanish fluently. I know I'm smart enough, I know I'm capable enough, and all it takes now is time and repetition. So my goal in this episode today is to help you gain more confidence and belief in yourself and your ability to accomplish your goals by highlighting the importance of time and repetition. And to do that, I'm going to talk about the psychology and the neuroscience behind learning around repetition a little bit, then I'm going to show you how you can use repetition to build better habits and then, lastly, I want to cover what's called the double-edged sword of repetition. So let's look at the psychology and the neuroscience a little bit behind learning and repetition. Now, quick disclaimer here by no means am I a neuroscientist. I know just enough to be dangerous. But what I'm about to share is a really simplified version of what we know, and I think it's worth discussing, because once we have a better understanding of the mechanisms at play, you will start to see the impact of where you're putting your attention and your focus.

Speaker 1:

In psychology, repetition is the fundamental of learning and memory. There's something called the spacing effect, and this demonstrates that information repeated over spaced intervals is more effectively remembered than the same information presented in a condensed time frame. So here's an example. Let's say you have a test coming up, but you didn't go to any of the classes and you didn't read any of the material along the way. So you crack open that textbook for the first time, you cram and you cram all night learning as much as you can before the test. Right Now you might do really well on that test because the information was stored in your short term memory, right? But the information that's stored in short term memory is not learned information, right? So the information that's stored in your short-term memory just goes into a part of your brain known as the hippocampus and unless you repeat further study sessions, that information is going to disappear. The repetition is what leads to the crystallization of information in our long-term memory or in our neocortex. So let's go back to the spacing effect for a minute. When there's intervals between repetitions and when you have enough repetitions over time, what's happening is our brain is encoding that information from the hippocampus into the long-term memory in our neocortex. This is one reason why adequate sleep is so important because we know that the brain does this encoding. It does this kind of cataloging during the REM stage of our sleep cycle.

Speaker 1:

So cramming and trying to learn quickly is actually the worst thing that you can do. If you really want to learn new information, you want to have lots of repetitions over a long period of time. That's how you can best integrate new information or skills or tasks. So here's what I want you to do practically If your goal is to lose weight whatever your goal is, just decide on what that is. Then I want you to identify what you need to learn. What's something really small or something really that you can identify and single out that you need to do each day in order to successfully complete that goal. So, when it comes to weight loss, maybe that's learning how to process emotions, maybe that's learning more about certain foods that make you feel satiated, like fat, fiber and protein Then what I want you to do is identify the reps that you will do each day to crystallize that information into your brain.

Speaker 1:

So here's a quick tip Make sure it's a task, that is a repetition, that's not too involved, that can be done repeatedly daily. At the same time, you want to practice deliberately and mindfully. So let's focus on quality over quantity. We're typically used to cramming, so that means doing a lot in a short amount of time, so what we have to do is flip this on its head and we have to look at doing smaller actions repeated over a longer period of time. So that's the last point. I want you to give yourself a longer time frame here. Maybe it's six weeks, maybe it's even longer, maybe it's 12 weeks, maybe it's the entire year, but stay committed to the task and then document your learnings along the way on either a journal or a notebook.

Speaker 1:

It's really important that you do this, but you also maintain a positive mindset and you want to embrace the mistakes. You want to look for learning opportunities. One of the things I often say to my clients is give yourself more runway. Right, we often want to see changes immediately, but if you approach it with the long gang in mind, you are going to be much more successful in the long run. Remember, it's about time and repetition, so you have to be able to give yourself more grace as you go through this process. So let's talk about repetition and building good habits and breaking bad habits. All right, this is really important, especially when it comes to a lot of the healthy behaviors that we're trying to increase in our life, or the bad health behaviors we're trying to eliminate.

Speaker 1:

So when we talk about building habits through repetition, there's a couple of things I want you to keep in mind. Right, when you repeat a behavior, your brain begins to form and strengthen what's called a neural pathway that makes this behavior automatic. This is often referred to as muscle memory when it comes to physical activities, but applies to all sorts of habits. So anytime you have a new thought, you do something new, you learn something new, we start to form a neural pathway. Okay, that's really important for habit formation. Then, with regular repetition, this helps to integrate a new habit into our daily routine. So the more consistently a behavior is repeated, especially when it's in the same context or at the same time of day, the more likely it is to become a habit. So consistency and routine matter. So we have a thought, we create these new neural pathways, we repeat them over and over again consistently, usually in the same context, in the same time of day.

Speaker 1:

And then the other thing that's really important is the role of cues and rewards. So there's what's called a habit loop and a habit is formed with the process of a trigger, the behavior and a reward. So all habits have these three components there's a trigger, there's a behavior and the reward. So usually what happens is there's a trigger that triggers that neural pathway, and then we perform a behavior. And then, as a result of performing that behavior it doesn't have to be a good one or a bad one, it's every behavior we get some kind of reward for that and that really reinforces the behavior to become a habit and happen over and over again. Okay, now, something that I want you to keep in mind that there's usually an initial resistance that you have to overcome when you're creating a new habit, and that's why we often let go of it, and then we don't have the repetition over time that we need to solidify that to become a habit. So we have to overcome that initial resistance. Okay, so repetition helps in this process and this makes the behavior more natural and let it requires less effort over time. So that's the value of really shrinking down the repetition to something that you can do every day. So that's looking at building habits through repetition.

Speaker 1:

Now let's talk about breaking habits through repetition. Right, the first thing is disrupting existing patterns. Now, breaking a habit often requires repeatedly challenging and disrupting the existence of that trigger, behavior and reward cycle. Okay, so this means often avoiding the triggers, changing routines or you can also alter the rewards associated with the habit. So we want to disrupt that entire habit loop altogether. So one of the things I do with my clients who really have bad habits and they want to eliminate them from showing up every day in their life is we have to really identify what are the triggers that lead to that behavior happening. Right, so, for example, a lot of guys will snack at night and I often have to show them and help them, see, become more aware of what are the triggers, what are the things that are triggering you to go and stand in front of the pantry and eat? Okay, so what's the stress? Is it turning on the TV? Is it putting your kids down to bed? There's usually something there that triggers the behavior from happening. So we got to be really aware of that.

Speaker 1:

The next thing when we talk about breaking habits through repetition is creating new, healthier habits. So one of the most effective way to break a bad habit is to replace it with a better one or a new, healthy habit. Okay. Now this involves using repetition to build a new habit that occupies the space of the old one. So if you have a habit of stacking at night, then what you want to do is create a new, healthier habit. And maybe this looks like journaling. Maybe you, instead of going into the kitchen and going into the pantry and eating, you put a notebook on your counter or on the kitchen table and you journal about you know living a healthy life, why that's important for you attaining your goals, whether it's weight loss or getting to bed on time. So that's replacing one older habit, bad habit, with a healthier habit.

Speaker 1:

Now, continuing to talk about breaking habits through repetition, let's talk about mindfulness and awareness. So something that's so important is to make that automatic behavior that habit. You want to bring more awareness to it, and repeatedly practicing mindfulness is helpful in breaking bad habits. Okay, so we want to obviously be aware of the triggers, we want to be aware of the responses and then again start to create better habits. And that's why I say creating a daily protocol when it comes to eating is so important, because that brings so much more mindfulness and awareness to any times when you might fog eat or you might over eat.

Speaker 1:

Lastly, let me talk about persistence and resilience. Breaking habits often requires persistence. It's common to revert to old habits, especially when you are under stress. It's important to remember that a habit is a repeated behavior that has become a neural pathway in the brain. Old habits actually never die because the pathways they're hardwired. They simply become triggered less often and we replace them with new habits that get triggered more often. But keep in mind there's always the potential for something to trigger them again. So you have to be really mindful. That's why people who have quit smoking for 20, 30 years will from time to time still get a craving to have a cigarette because something in their environment has triggered them to have a thought to trigger that neural pathway. So old habits never truly die. You have to keep that in mind as you're creating new ones through repetition. Right, okay, with that, let me talk about the double-edged sword of repetition.

Speaker 1:

Now there's a pattern I see that shows up quite a bit in my coaching and it looks like this Guys get to a low point, whether that's they've gotten to the highest weight they've ever been in their life, or maybe they start to have marital problems, maybe their job isn't going that well and it leads them to this feeling of despair or maybe even depression. So it's not a good feeling and usually that's the trigger, right, that's the trigger for them to do something about it. And so they start to make changes. They start to eat better, they work out, they connect with their spouse more often and, lo and behold, their commitment starts to pay off. They see really positive results. But I also see the opposite is true, where their commitment doesn't pay off and they don't see any results. In both of these scenarios I see that guys inevitably quit. The guys who see positive results quit because the despair dissipates, they no longer feel that negative, terrible feeling. The guys who don't see results get frustrated and they quit.

Speaker 1:

But the worst of all of this is that the pattern is repeating and it's this repetition of the despair, commitment quit that is reinforcing this pattern to continue. So it's this process of being repeated over and over again, and when we now know the importance of repetition, right from a negative standpoint, this is really powerful as well. This is what becomes the skill. So if you recognize this pattern or you relate to it what I'm talking about where you feel despair, you do something about it, you start to see results and then you start to fade back into your old habits, because that despair went away, and then you commit again. We want to break this pattern, we have to recognize it and we have to break through it. And the first thing is that you want to start to have awareness that this pattern exists. And then you want to start to create a new practice, a new way of doing reps, so you break through this pattern. So here's what you do you have to decide that you're not going to have to wait for despair to take action. You have to decide once and for all that I'm not doing it this way anymore, that once I commit, I'm going to see my actions through to completion. Okay, I want you to give yourself more runway to succeed here. I want you to stop using despair as a way to commit to change. Okay, I want you to make changes that reflect ultimately who you want to become, rather than trying to get away from who you used to be.

Speaker 1:

So just to reinforce this double-edged sword of repetition. Think of it in this way. There's a positive edge. This is the benefits of repetition. We see skill mastery right. Doesn't matter what the skill is, whether you're trying to learn a language, trying to learn an instrument, trying to lose weight, trying to get better sleep Repetition leads to skill mastery. On the positive side, these the habit formation which we talked about leads to better memory reinforcement and it leads to a greater sense of confidence. I've experienced that myself.

Speaker 1:

Right On the negative edge of the sword of repetition, right, we have the drawbacks, and so what you have to be careful of is overuse and burnout. So excessive repetition can lead to overuse, mental burnout, and so it's important to find a balance and avoid these negative outcomes. Also leads to stagnation and plateaus, it leads to complacency and boredom and then, of course, it really reinforces bad habits in a lot of ways. So what's key is that you learn to balance the sword. You got to wield this double-edged sword effectively, and it's crucial to balance repetition through variety, through rest and through continuous learning.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to say that again, it's important to sort of balance repetition through variety, through rest and continuous learning. So, just to summarize, guys, remember repetition and time, when used with intention, are powerful factors for your success, and I encourage you to identify where are you intentionally practicing and doing reps to get better every day. So I want you to show up, do the good reps and look for ways to continually improve over a longer time frame. That's all I have for you today. Thanks again for stopping by. I look forward to next week's episode and, until then, keep doing the work so you can look good, feel good and do better. Now is the time to take action and change your life. Head on over to thespearmethodcom and discover how I can help you get started on your path to better health and weight loss.