It’s an overused word, but I am passionate about the impact of exercise on physical AND mental well-being.

I became a runner in later life.  For a long time, I was reluctant to even use the word runner to describe myself (a bit rich for someone who makes a living from helping business owners to smash their limiting beliefs!)

It is often said that running finds you and this was the case for me. In 2006, I was a lone parent to three daughters, trying to make enough money through my small learning and development consultancy to put food on the table. This was in stark contrast to my early years in business which, given the household income at the time, was truly a “lifestyle” one. Perhaps rather ironically, while I wasn’t worried about money, work flooded in and I could pick and choose projects.

A change of circumstances and I HAD to make my business work…

Once money, or rather lack of, came strongly into focus for me, work began to dry up. I was transmitting an air of desperation, cutting my fees to secure work, and grabbing anything available.  The result – a frazzled, broke, joyless mum and business owner.

I discovered the power of exercise as a “reluctant” runner…

In 2006 I was challenged to enter the Women’s 10K by my youngest daughter’s nursery teacher and help her raise funds for The Beatson – our local cancer treatment facility.  Her mum had died earlier in the year and she wanted to do something to thank the centre.  As someone who was always last picked for games in PE and who struggled to run after three lively young children, this was a significant ask of me.  But who can refuse a request like that?

That day my life changed for the better.  As I started training for the 10k, I discovered something that drives the Club Synergy model today.  At the time, I didn’t know what was happening at a neurological level, I just knew that the headspace and me-time I was gaining while out running was having an amazing effect on me. Positively impacting focus, productivity, creativity and ultimately my personal and business fitness. This allowed me to ditch the guilt I had been carrying about taking time out for myself.  

Talking to people about the positive impact of running on my mind, body and business led to the creation of an activity-based charity in 2012…and a new husband!

Running changed my life and lives of thousands of others through the 5x50 Challenge…

The 5x50 Challenge was undertaken by thousands of people across the globe and raised £250,000 for various charities. Mark, now my husband, got a 4 for the price of 1 bundle and a shed! 

Over 20 years of supporting overwhelmed, over-committed business owners and professionals

For 7 years my learning and development business, a personal commitment to exercise and developing the charity existed side by side until in September 2019 we had to take the difficult and upsetting decision to bring the 5x50 Challenge to an end. That provided a great business learning experience you can ask me about later!

Perhaps unsurprisingly, while out for a run as we were winding down the Charity, my mind connected a few dots and the Club Synergy concept was born.

• I had been a frazzled business owner, largely unfrazzled by a commitment to exercise

• I have coached many frazzled business owners and professionals and shared insights about the power of exercise

• I love exercise and the outdoors

• I love connecting people

• I understand the positive impact of exercise on the brain, body and business

Why not combine all the above and offer networking and coaching on the move?

Finding the keystone habit

Habit experts like Charles Duhigg, James Clear and Mark Manson may call them different names but they agree on the importance of finding keystone or compound habits and making them stick.

What are keystone habits?

Not all habits are created equal, some will generate a much bigger return on the energy and discipline you invest than others. They hold other habits in place (like the keystone in an archway) and, as you might anticipate, can be the catalyst for habit collapse if removed.

Keystone habits can be different for everyone

Life would be wonderful if it was as simple as choosing from a list of established habits, but keystone habits can be as unique and unusual as you are.

My keystone habit is to exercise for at least 20 minutes as soon as my alarm goes off at 6.30am. It doesn’t matter whether I run, do a yoga practice or swing a kettlebell, it’s more about the sense of achievement, the reinforcement of myself as a “someone who has a healthy lifestyle” and having a “small win” early in the day. On the days I exercise early, my day just flows better, I choose better fuel for my body - a banana rather than a biscuit. I am more energised to “eat the frog” - that big task on on the to do list and my stress levels remain in check. This domino effect on other habits and reinforcement of the identity I want to have are two of the key elements defining a keystone habit - that first domino in the chain. The one worthy of investing effort and energy into knowing that the resulting ripple effect brings rewards way beyond that initial investment.

How to identify your keystone habits

To find your keystone habits:

• look for behaviours that have a ripple effect on other behaviours

• consider how you see yourself when you do a particular habit - does it reinforce or reduce your self image as “a runner” “ a healthy eater” “a productive person”

• think back to your perfect day and keep a note of what felt like a small win or keep a note of small wins over a week and then look for a pattern - what did you do consistently on those days

Habits can be positive or negative. Keystone habits can reinforce good habits or enable destructive bad habits. Use this matrix adapted from one created by Matt Lewin’s article on Medium.com to reflect on your habits. The presence of a “good” keystone habits will inhabit the right hand side of the matrix.

Keystone Habit Matrix

Those of “a certain age” will remember the 70’s Children’s Game - Buckaroo. It shared a stable (sorry!) with the likes of Mousetrap, Ker-Plunk, the incredibly well named, Frustration, and Operation. The games you took in to play on the last day of school.

Many Scottish households have had the last day of school this week, and with it perhaps a slight easing of pressure associated with the myriad roles being undertaken by many in Lock-down - worker, parent, teacher, entertainer to name but a few.

In a conversation this morning, the person I was chatting with referred to having had “a buckaroo kind of week”. This immediately took me back to childhood and a memory of the plastic mule quietly bearing more and more load until something as innocent and unassuming as a miniature water canteen, triggers an apparently disproportionate reaction. And in that instance, I got it!

There have been days and yes, sometimes weeks, during lock-down when on the surface it looks like I have “lost" the heid” , at the sight of a plate that has failed to make it into the sink. That plate is my plastic water canteen. It represents failing to recognise that I have become overloaded and need to take time to carefully and gently remove the guitar, spade, saddle and cowboy hat that represent the other tasks and roles that I have wordlessly accepted as mine and mine alone.

What I do to answer overwhelm…

1. Recognise that I am feeling overwhelmed, name it and then STOP

2. Get out for a walk or run as soon as possible

3. Capture the ideas that pop up during my walk/run in my Movement and Mind Journal

4. Use the endorphin buzz from my exercise to focus and write down all the tasks and to-dos that are in my mind, my calendar and notebook in one place. The act of gathering and writing it down in one place often turns the mountain (as seen in my mind) into a molehill

5. Decide whether I NEED to do it as opposed to WANT to for some weird reason like “the person won’t like me anymore if I don’t” !

6. Decide if I WANT to do it, even if I don’t NEED to because I will grow from it in some way or it’s just plain enjoyable

7. Identify if someone else can do it and ASK FOR HELP

8. Hold up each task left on my list against my purpose and decide on priority based on how it will impact - this reinforces WHY I’m doing something and helps me discard or de-prioritise things that don’t immediately serve my purpose.

Movement and Mind Journal