Stop Negotiating

Take the Negotiation Away

I know. I sound like a broken record.

I’ve already written about what motivation actually is and why chasing it is the wrong game entirely. I’ve written about what a behavioral scientist helped me understand about why people know exactly what they need to do and still don’t do it. I’ve written about how I personally stay motivated, even on the days when most anything feels impossible.

And I know some of you come here specifically for the other stuff: The spine-safe movement. The evidence-based cues. The intelligent, medically-informed guidance that tells you exactly what to do and why — whether you practice with me on the mat or you take what you learn here somewhere else entirely. That content is here, and it isn’t going anywhere.

But I’d be doing you a disservice if I didn’t keep coming back to this. Because here’s what I’ve come to believe: it’s more than half the puzzle. Maybe significantly more.

My share of the puzzle

If you practice with me, I’ve taken something enormous off your plate. The question of “is this right for my body?” — answered. “Is this safe for my spine?” — answered. “Is this going to end in a flare-up?” — answered. Every movement is informed based on your clinical diagnosis. Every cue is there for a reason. The guesswork is gone. I have you.

So if we take that out of the equation , what is left?

You.

I wish I could take that part too. I genuinely do. But I can’t show up on your mat for you. I can’t make the decision for you the night before. I can’t remove the internal negotiation you have with yourself every morning about whether today is the day.

That part is yours. And it matters more than almost anything else.

Take the Negotiation Away

Now, what I cannot stop thinking about:

The best way to do the work we want to do is to have a practice. To show up and do the work regardless of how we’re feeling. Take the negotiation away. Lighten the cognitive load. Tomorrow, I will practice. Not because it’s going to be the best practice ever. But because I already made the decision. You make the decision, become who you are. And once it becomes who you are, you get to do the natural expression of that.

Take the negotiation away.

The negotiation is the daily internal debate about whether today is the right day. Whether your back feels good enough. Whether you have enough time. Whether you’re tired or stressed or too far behind on everything else. It sounds reasonable every single morning. It is costing you more than you realize.

Here’s the shift: make the decision once. In advance. Not “I’ll see how I feel” — that’s not a decision, that’s an open negotiation. A decision sounds like: “I practice. That’s what I do.”

When the decision is already made, the morning looks different. You don’t wake up and ask whether today is a practice day. You wake up and do what people who practice do. The question is off the table. The cognitive load disappears.

Become Who You Are

Become who you are. Now, I know this can sound a bit woo-woo, but hear me out:

Not the version of you that slept well and feels ready. The one who exists right now — stiff, tired, pressed for time, uncertain. That version gets to practice too. In fact, that version especially needs to.

Some days it’s ninety minutes. Some days it’s four minutes on your back with your knees bent. Both count. The practice doesn’t grade you on the quality of the session. It only asks whether you came.

And once it becomes who you are — not dramatically, not with a fanfare, but quietly, through one unremarkable showing-up after another — you stop needing to decide. You just go. Because that’s what you do.

The negotiation was the problem all along. Removing it is the practice.

P.S. Your back doesn’t need to feel perfect for movement to help it. The days it feels worst are often the days it needs movement most — not a push through pain, but a gentle, adapted showing up. Something is always better than nothing. You’ve already done the hard part by finding an approach that’s safe. Now just come.

P.P.S. My dad and my sister both run. And I mean this literally: they know, every single week, exactly which days they will go. Not approximately. Not tentatively. Exactly. They don’t decide the morning of. They don’t check in with how they’re feeling first. The decision was made somewhere back in time and it has never been reopened. On those days, they get up and go. No conversation. No negotiation. No choice. That’s not discipline. That’s identity. That’s what I’m talking about.