Episode 149 | A Simple Shift When Life Gets Busy For ACL Rehab

What is up team? Today, we are talking mindset: A simple shift when life gets busy for ACL rehab. Mindset is something that drives a lot of what we do, especially our actions. I’ve talked about this before, especially with ACL rehab, it is such a mental battle. This is one, especially with the times coming up with holidays approaching, sprinting to the end of the year, feeling there’s not enough time in the day. I know a lot of us probably feel this. It’s this feeling of, I don’t have time. That’s what we’re feeling. Not to mention it’s cold outside and we know that that doesn’t help. It’s just an added barrier to wanting to go and do things. But especially with life being busy and feeling like I don’t have time is constantly sticking around. Well, what can we do about it? 

A lot of times what this can play into is our rehab taking a backseat when that time is limited. Now, if you find yourself spending an excessive amount of time on your rehab, then it’s time for a convo with your rehab provider or coach. To see if they can cut that down, maybe to something that we call minimum viable, where it’s just enough to keep the needle moving, especially with maybe a more chaotic season of life. Maybe you don’t have excessive things to do, or maybe you have optional pieces based on the time available in the day or week. But maybe you cut down the program to where it’s just the bare bones, the minimum viable needed in order to keep things progressing forward. But if it’s more about you and managing your time, then I hope this simple shift can be helpful for you in this particular season. And that is shifting from the mindset of, I don’t have time. That’s the thing that we always hear, right? I don’t have time to do this. I don’t have time for my rehab. I don’t have time to get to the gym. To shift to a question of how do I find the time for X? How do I find the time to get my rehab in? How do I find the time to get to the gym? How do I find the time to schedule my visits? How do I find the time to do blank, right? And so it’s a shift from a statement to something that is a question to solve a problem. 

When you say, I just don’t have time or I don’t have the time to do this, it’s just something that’s declarative, right? It’s just something that you just say, there’s no solution, orientation towards it. But shifting to a question of how to find the time for X or rehab will be very helpful because this allows you to get into a problem-solving mode. It allows you to look at your schedule and see where you can potentially find a window. Maybe it’s just 10 minutes to find where you can fit in some range of motion work between a call or maybe an early morning or at school. Maybe it’s 30 minutes to roll through your training for the day. Maybe it’s 5 minutes to do some seated knee extension isometrics to work on your quad. And I know that this seems almost so straightforward and simple, but oftentimes, this is the stuff that I need to hear because it makes so much sense.

I’m just not putting it into play or need someone to remind me of it and to shift my mindset on it. I’ve talked about this concept before, “Forward Thinking and Backward Planning” which I heard from Nick Bare. This is where you see what you have to do the next day or week and then reverse engineer and backward plan for it. This applies well with just human nature in general, being able to plan for something ahead. But being able to just see what is ahead and then being able to reverse engineer is what’s important to help, especially managing time and being able to find time and windows for our rehab and things we need to do.

And one of the things I always recommend is assigning it just like a block. Imagine it being like if you’re a student, then this is something where you have a window for homework or for a project that you need to do or a presentation. If this is for an adult who is having work and all the other things, schedule it like a meeting or an interview. This is super important, especially if it’s a priority. Block it in your day and time blocking is super crucial. That is how I live my life or I try to. And this is something where it helps to just have a block or a window of, all right, well, this is a non-negotiable for me. This is the best way to do that based on knowing what your day or week entails and being able to plan or backward plan for that.

What helps with a lot of this is shifting our mindset and asking, how do I find the time for X, insert my ACL rehab? And the goal here, especially if you’re struggling with this, is to start small. Don’t feel like you need to crush it with 5 days a week for 2 hours. Maybe it’s just 30 minutes, literally two to three days a week. And that can definitely move the needle more than you think. It doesn’t need to be this all-or-nothing type of approach, which is something that human psychology and nature tend to go in. I know that I can tend to have that type of tendency as well. 

A good example of this is if you eat a bad meal or something that’s super unhealthy, we say, screw it and we’re just going to eat terrible the rest of the week or the weekend. Instead, you could just be like, alright, well, that was just that moment or that particular window and then I’m just going to move on to eating a better meal after that, right? We don’t have to do this all-or-nothing type of approach. Minimum viable and small steps are what’s going to help to build that up. And most importantly, build that compounding interest of, all right, well, I’ve done this 30 minutes today. Well, maybe I’ll do this 30 minutes on Friday, and then maybe I’ll do this 30 minutes on Sunday. You don’t even have to do it every single day, but this is something that can help to start to shift things and find the time and that can help to move the needle versus maybe trying to do two hours here and then life gets busy and I don’t have two hours here. Well, that kicks it to the next week or something. Instead, start small, move it forward, and be consistent with it. 

The goal here is to manage our time. That could be as simple as asking this question: how do I find the time for blank versus saying I don’t have time? Mindset drives everything in this process. I know this isn’t necessarily ACL-specific here. But it can be because a lot of our athletes do get into these seasons where they might be busy, they have highly demanding jobs, they have kids, and they have a lot of things pulling them with school. These are things to consider in terms of certain seasons you’re in and managing your time. Especially, if we do want to get to this end goal, but we’re trying to figure out how we can fit it in. This comes back to mindset and it’s driving everything in this process from day one, and it’s going to help with starting to prioritize and with planning. And then doing the thing, just doing the thing after you have that plan in place and that plan isn’t going to be perfect. You’re going to have to adapt it. It’s just the way that this goes and the way life goes. But just know that if you are sticking to some of these principles and some of these behaviors, then it’s going to help to stack up wins and slowly move the needle in the direction that you want. This is something that I hope is very helpful for people right now in a busy season of life, as we get near the holidays, as we get to the end of the year.

This definitely includes myself for sure, as we have a lot on the radar with things coming up life-wise, personal, business, and all the things that we are constantly working on. This is medicine for myself as much as it is for you guys. 

I hope that this was helpful. If you are someone who is struggling with this or with anything regarding your ACL rehab, we’re here for you, please reach out to our team. You can send me an email at ravi@theaclathlete.com. You can hit us up at the website and the show notes. You can send us a message on Instagram, whatever’s going to be helpful for you to help support you, especially in this season, we got you. Until next time team, this is your host, Ravi Patel, signing off.