1.Back from COVID in Girona

Rodeman, today I want to talk about why new year resolutions don't work. Let's cue that intro! The big question is this. How do we use cycling as a tool to improve our health, our happiness and our long changes? That is the question on this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Anthony Welch and welcome to the Rodeman Podcast. Rodman, welcome back to another Rodman Cycling Podcast. It has been a minute. There's a story behind it. There's a story behind it. So I hadn't intended to take a little bit of a break over the Christmas period, but I went to Gerona for a bit of a training block, wrecking some routes for our upcoming training camps that we have in the new year just before Christmas and I managed to catch myself COVID. And yeah, just the timing of it was miserable because I caught COVID on the day. So I'd gone through and I'd recquied all the routes and I'd done, met everyone I knew to meet and done all my work and my trip was concluding. But I've been feeling off for a couple of days. like I went out on and I had a few beers on the Sunday night and then on the Monday it was a recovery day and then on the Monday I was feeling a little bit groggy but I just put it down to maybe I had a couple of beers and I don't drink very often and then on the Tuesday I rode four hours and I'd won threshold climbing that's just about 20 minutes and I felt a little bit off and I was like oh something doesn't feel good but I still poured it down to maybe a couple of beers. I had a couple of nights before. But honestly, that was a stretch because I didn't have that many beers. So the next day, I rode six hours with a buddy who rides for Evo Pro Cycling, Khan McDonoughy. And I was feeling real ropy towards the end of it. I was like, oh, maybe I haven't done a lot of six-hour rides lately, but that could be what it is. And then the day after that, I rode four hours, got out with a guy who's been on the podcast before Jack ultra cyclists and a buddy of mine, Zippy lives over in Gerona and I felt real, real rough towards the last hour of it. And it wasn't a hard ride. It was a pretty easy flat ride. Something's not right here. I'm getting sick or you know, they call it Gerona Oitas where you ride in too long in Gerona. You just get too excited by the weather, you get too excited by the terrain and you put yourself into a body bag. So I thought maybe have a good case of Geron that Oita's coming on here. But I woke up the next day and that noise, I had sweats, fevers and I woke up the next day with shocking aches and pains and I thought I still didn't think of it. I still thought I'm just after catching a bug here. So I went, I was like, you know what, it's all the work that I came to do is complete and let's get, let's go home. So I hadn't booked a flight. So I went to book the flight, got my PCR test to get ready for the flight and it came back positive. So it was, I'm going to do actually a full podcast on a, on treatment protocols or went through because you know, anyone listens to the podcast knows I'm an unapologetic nerd. So I spent, I had spent some time pre this research in treatment protocols and then I spent a solid two weeks when I was in solitary confinement reading through medical journals on treatment protocols and return to sport protocols. And I know so many people have COVID at the moment. So I want to do a full podcast and go through all those. But today, actually what I want to talk about is, so why I gave that story is a bit of context as to why I haven't been podcasting for the last three weeks because it's the longest break I've ever had since I started the podcast.

2.Why New Year Resolutions Fail

So it was just a combination of being away, wrecking that and a planned 10 days off the podcast, followed by COVID, followed by Christmas and the New Year, but we're back and have some crazy big ideas for the podcast heading into the new year. So, really excited to bring those to you, but don't overwhelm, get to only episode one back for mine, it's good to be back. Right today, I want to talk about new year resolutions and how they're just a waste of time. Obviously, I'm bringing you this podcast, I'm recording it right now, January 2nd, 2022. It's the first time I've said that. I die already every morning and I'm still right in 21 at the end. It's gonna take me a while to slap myself out of that. But getting things this year isn't like material things. They aren't going to make you happy. The secrets are happiness and I've talked at Lent on previous episodes about this. It's progress. Progress makes us happy. Progress stepping up from where we are now. Be that financially, be that spiritually, physically, mentally, on any level, stepping up, making progress, makes us feel happy, makes us feel fulfilled. And the way some of us, or as a society at least, we're trained to view making progress, we see the calendar and it is an arbitrary line in the sand, but if you can make that arbitrary line in the sand walk for you, as many of us do when we take up new year resolutions, and this is something that should be celebrated. You hear people call it a new year resolution or a waste of time. not. I realise you can make changes at any point in the year but New Year's is a nice, you know, it's like getting to the end of a chapter in a book. There's a bit of closure there and then we move on to the next one. But New Year resolutions I find are just so fundamentally flawed because they lack any power, they lack any emotion or they lack really any chance of succeeding and I think 95% of people have broke their New Year resolution within two weeks of of setting that new year resolution. So that's 14 days, so that's 12 days from now. Most people will have broken. And the reason most people break it is, it's just such a wish washy. Oh, I wanna lose a bit of weight. Like how compelling of a vision is that like zero, like that's not gonna get me out of bed in the morning. I wanna lose a bit of weight. I wanna get a bit faster on the bike. So today I wanna talk to you about four steps to create this compelling vision. Because that's step one, the vision has to be compelling. It has to be like a gift, something that you want to wake up early to chase, first thing in the morning, something you can't go to sleep at night because you're thinking about, that it's all consuming, like paint that picture of what that vision is and ride it down. That vision could be, you know, fast forward into June and I'm climbing it hill effortlessly. My jersey's down, I have a lean physique, I can hear my heart rate, my power is at numbers that I've never seen before. I'm dropping my friends over the top of up the wares. That's a vision. That's something to work towards. Not get faster on the bike. And you make this vision big, bold, bright, colorful, with as many emotions and feelings and context as you can. And ride it down. Because something amazing happens when we have this tactile pen to paper. So step one, we create that vision. So that's what we're chasing. Step two, that vision needs to be backed by reasons. Why am I doing this? Because when the going gets tough, these reasons are essential. It's January. If you're listening to this podcast in Orlando, England, the weather gets pretty rough. Plus, you're also going to have work coming back on. You're going to have family responsibilities come back on. And if that's the vision we're chasing to be climbing up the west with the jersey down and the summer dropping our friend, and the last, what is it?

3.Four Steps: Vision to Rituals

The last horteen cave that atop the tour. If that's the vision we're chasing, why are we chasing that? Maybe at the moment we're carrying a bit of extra weight and we know the links between carrying extra weight and cardiac problems. We've a young family and we don't want to have those cardiac problems later in life. That we want to be a role model for our children, that we want to be a role model for siblings and friends to inspire them to be a catalyst for change in their lives. Whatever the reasons, You need to write these reasons down because those reasons will pull you through some fucking dark dark days. I promise you Number three it we need to write it down and it needs to be reviewed You know I mentioned in step one writing it down, but reviewing it is step three. So every single morning just five minutes You're opening your diary. I like to jot some taut each morning. Anyway, like what am I doing for today? How did the yesterday go? What can I do better? It kind of just helps me, you know conceptualize things when I can get it down on paper But as part of that, I'll open up my little vision page in my diary and I'll review my vision. My vision for the year, let me go through and just read it out and go, am I on course for this? Every single day, you need to review it. Not set one of these, you know, I'm going to lose 10 pounds and then completely forget about it until we break that resolution that we're not going to eat chocolate 14 days from now. You know, that's always doomed to fail. And then step four in this is rituals because rituals are daily habits. That's what they're the small, micro little actions that take us towards this big success or failure moment because success and failure aren't joint events that just show up. They come from poor or good rituals. Failure to check the books ends up leading to financial ruin. Failure to make the right dietary choices ends up on weight gain. So our four steps are create a compelling vision. Make sure that vision is backed by reasons. Step three, write them down and feel it every day. And step four, build rituals for success. People are rewarded in public for what they practice in private. I love that saying, it's like Muhammad Ali had a version of it, like the fight was won long before I'm completely butchering this quote, but it's something about the fight is worn away from the bright lights, it's worn in the parks, it's worn in the gyms, before the sun even rises. Absolutely butcher, but it's a cool quote. You look it up. The idea is that it's these rituals and these small micro daily practices that actually lead to this big public event. So if you haven't taught about your new year resolution yet, I do urge you to have have a think about one now, cycling, you know, it's what connects us. It's why you tune into this podcast. It's what we all love. I love having a cycling goal because it's more than a cycling goal. When you have a cycling goal, it is a goal that just spreads, it's sprinkled, you know, joy into every other area of your life. And I'm moving well on the bike. When I have a cycling goal, I'm leaner. I'm happier, I'm more engaged from off the bike because, you know, we can't get away from the fact when you're cycling that you need to be outside, you need to be in the elements, the sun is hitting you, you're getting vitamin D, there's so much going on that's positive on the bike. So that's why I encourage all of my friends to set a cycling goal because it's just so transformative to every other part of your life. But when you set that goal, build that compelling vision. And obviously if you're looking for guidance on that, reach out, reach out to me, hit me on Instagram with a DM or head over to the roadman, cycling, web site, and hook up a consultation with one of our coaches and you know there's no obligation within you that just talk to the coach and see if it's a fit for you see if they can be you know the co-pilot on your journey moving towards your goal.

4.Patreon Push and Sign-off

Everyone you know I've got a bunch of DM saying why is our coaching so expensive our coaching starts at two euro a month sorry two euro for the 14-day challenge is our entry price coaching. Yeah you can go up and you can spend your nuts on it if you want to work you know personally what me hands on every day, but there's a range of coaching packages, almost for every available type of budget out there. Roman, I'm super stoked to be back to the podcast. I've spent a little bit of introspection time over the Christmas, seeing what's worth pursuing, what's obviously a lot of what I do in Roman. It's zero sum. It's, you know, if I put my time into something, I can't put my time into something else. The podcast takes a lot of time from research to recording the episodes to editing them and getting them out there. I spent a lot of time thinking, is this something that's worth doing? For every metric it wasn't overwhelming. Yes, this is something worth doing. You guys are tuning in. You guys are playing such an amazing part in taking these podcasts and sharing them. Take today's podcast and give it to somebody who's set a new year resolution and go, dude, you're doomed to fail. Follow these four steps. That's what helps the podcast grow and honestly when I get DMs off people or bumping to them out on a ride or get an email just talking about how transforming of X episode was, that's such a payback for me. Also the podcast needs to stand on its own two feet and I know initially when I started the podcast I had a big push on Patreon and we still have Patreons over there and honestly I can't thank them enough over on Patreon but I'm going to do a renewed focus on Patreon this year to get the podcast to that sustainable level and stand on its own two feet. So if you can spare five euro a month, the price of a beer once and once, we're going to kick the podcast to the next level in 2022. It's just patreon.com forward slash Anthony underscore Welsh to make your donation. Folks, it's been brilliant to be back. It really has. Thanks for tuning in. And you know what, I haven't said this in a while, but I'm going to chat See you again tomorrow. Thanks, Rob Man. Have a great 2022. Hey, Rob Man, it's Anthony again. Just before you head off real quick, I just want to mention the Roadman Blueprint. It's the ultimate coaching package. It's four months long. It's four months of one-on-one coaching sessions with your own professional roadman cycling coach. It's four months of strength and conditioning plans, so you never need to worry about, is this strength and conditioning plan aligned with my cycling goals? It's four months of nutrition plans to fuel all that. It's four months of boil hacks, which you know I love so much. And I'm getting to pick the brain of all these experts and it's four months of motivation to make sure you never miss a session. And every single session, you hit it with commitment and with purpose. The whole package, it's 997 euro. I have a limited number of places on the Roadman blueprint. If you're interested in getting started, pop me an email and add me in at roadmancycling.com. This is the ultimate coaching package for those looking to take their cycling and their performance to the next level.