I’ve committed to 50 pushups a day and an hour of aerobic exercise five days a week. Now, I’m building my influence strategy by combining influences from each of the six sources of influence we describe in Influencer. In this post I’ll focus on Source 2, Personal Ability. You can review Source 2 strategies in our book—chapter 5, pages 111 through 136.

Personal Ability includes my knowledge, skills, strength, and experience—the personal attributes I will need in order to overcome the toughest challenges contained in my vital behaviors: pushups and aerobic exercise. In this post I’ll focus on what I’ve done to educate myself and how I’m trying to improve my will power.

Educating Myself. There’s a lot of advice out there. How do you find the good stuff? In part, it’s educating your bullshit detector, but I think the greatest part is finding advice that’s appropriate to you and that draws out your interest.

• Detecting bad advice. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Fitness requires time and effort pretty much every day. Any advice promising a pill or piece of equipment that will substitute for time and effort is pulling your leg—and that doesn’t count as exercise.
• Finding appropriate advice. Judge your fitness level, and begin there. Don’t try too much. For example, don’t follow any of the advice at crossfit.com, unless you already find Ironman Triathlons too easy. I ran my first, and only, marathon three years ago, and used the book, The Non-Runner’s Marathon Trainer.  It’s written by a team of researchers at the University of Northern Iowa and was pitched at my exact fitness level. I like that it’s research based, that it includes mental as well as physical preparation, and that it’s been reviewed positively by 155 Amazon readers. Most importantly, it worked for me three years ago, so I’m using it again now.
• Following your interests. The more you explore, the more you’re likely to find an exercise that keeps your interest. Pushups are pushups, right? No, there’s actually quite a variety. I try to mix it up a bit. Of course, with aerobic exercise the variety is enormous. I like off-beat muscle-powered sports like kayaking, trail running, and unicycling. Sometimes a class can kick start a passion that makes the exercise fun. My wife, Kathy, has signed up for a weekend, women’s-only mountain biking class. I hope it’ll lead to many rides together this summer. I’m always trying to master a new unicycle skill.
  

Improving Willpower. Some people believe that willpower is a limited resource—that if you tighten your belt in one area, you’ll let it out in others. I think it’s more accurate to think of willpower as a skill—if you can master self control in one area, you’ll strengthen your willpower everywhere.

What can I do to improve the willpower skills I need in order to stick to my exercise regimen? Here are a few tips.

• Set short-term as well as long-term goals. Try to have a goal for every day. Short-term goals work because they direct my immediate actions and give me quick feedback.
• Set behavioral as well as result goals. Goals for specific actions are most effective, because I have control over them.
• Track and review my progress. I keep a journal that shows my activities. Every week or month I will take some time to evaluate my progress. Am I sticking to my vital behaviors and are they leading to the results I care about? I find that consistent exercise begins to pay off in about six weeks’ time, so that will be an important milestone for me.
  

These are the personal ability strategies I’m putting in place. By themselves they won’t be enough to keep me on track, but, as one facet of my complete six source influence strategy, they’ll do their part to make my success inevitable.