Decompression First: Why Scheduling Space Before Your Workouts Changes Everything

Based on Rooted in Presence Podcast: Episode 137

Something kept coming up across my client sessions this week.

A composite thread; different women (and men), different circumstances, different conversations, but the same underlying pattern running through all of them.

They were trying to figure out their routines.

How to pace things.

How to make the changes they want to make actually stick.

Going around in circles a little.

And eventually, the question that kept arising:

Do you give as much thought to your downtime as much as you do your workout time?

The answer, again and again, was no.

Enormous energy going into scheduling the doing. Almost none going into scheduling the recovering.

And these folks are not alone in that. Not even close.

Spilling The Tea

I want to share something that happened to me recently, because I think it captures this perfectly.

I’d made myself a beautiful pot of herbal tea.

One of those glass teapots where you can see everything inside... it looked lovely, the colour of it, the way the herbs were moving in the water.

And I was so enthralled watching what I was pouring that I completely stopped paying attention to the cup.

But then... my fixation broken my the sound of trickling water...

Yes... I poured tea all over the floor.

Not because I missed the cup. Because the cup had become full and I didn’t notice.

And just to make absolutely sure I’d learned the lesson; I did exactly the same thing on my second cup. 🤦‍♀️

There I was, mopping tea off the floor for the second time, thinking: I really should have been watching the cup, not the teapot.

The teapot had plenty to give. The problem was there was no capacity to receive it.

Sound familiar?

You Can’t Pour Into a Full Cup

This is what I see most often with the folks I work with.

They arrive motivated, committed, genuinely ready to make changes.

And the first impulse is to plan.

When do the workouts go in?

What does the nutrition look like?

How does the week get structured?

That impulse isn’t wrong. When you’re establishing new habits, structure helps.

Boundaries need to be drawn. New patterns need somewhere to land.

But here’s what gets missed.

The plate is already full.

Work, family, responsibilities, the relentless accumulation of things that need doing.

When you try to add new habits onto a plate that’s already overloaded, they don’t stick.

Not because you’re not committed enough.

Because there’s genuinely no room.

You can’t pour into a full cup... it sounds obvious doesn't it?

And yet so many of us keep trying to pour, watching the teapot and wondering why everything keeps spilling.

Space Before Scheduling

So what if the first thing we scheduled wasn’t the workout?

What if it was the decompression? The space?

The walk with no destination.

The fifteen minutes of quiet before the next thing.

The evening that isn’t earmarked for productivity.

The breath between one task and the next (maybe even just focus on the task you're already doing).

Decompression isn’t laziness.

It’s the thing that makes everything else possible.

It’s where your nervous system comes down from the state of high alert it’s been in all day.

Where the mental chatter quietens enough to hear what you actually need.

When you create that space first; before adding anything new, new habits have somewhere to land.

They don’t feel like one more thing on an impossible list. They feel like a natural part of a life that has some breathing in it.

Stop, Continue, Start... In That Order

One of the tools I use with new clients is the stop, start, continue exercise.

You might recognise it from the corporate and coaching world and I find it particularly useful before we schedule anything new.

Perhaps those of you who are managers, team leaders and coaches have used this yourselves?

If not, don't worry, I'm going to cover it here.

Here’s how it works... and the order matters:

Stop first.

What’s on your plate that’s draining you?

What are you doing out of habit or obligation rather than genuine need or value?

This is where the space comes from, the putting down of things that are taking up room without giving back.

This is emptying the cup enough to receive something new.

Continue second.

What’s already working?

What are you doing that genuinely supports you and deserves to be protected?

Ground yourself in what’s already good before you add anything new.

Start last.

Now, with what you’ve cleared and what you’ve protected, what’s the one thing that wants to come in?

This is where the new habit lives.

And notice it’s last, not first.

You can’t know what to start until you’ve looked honestly at what to stop.

And yes I know.... stop, continue, start doesn't have the same ring to it, I wonder what order you use it in within your practice? Feel free to let me know.

The Other Side Of The Coin

I want to name something important here, because I think honesty matters.

Everything I’ve said about space and decompression is true.

And there is another version of this that I also see... the person who has become very skilled at scheduling the rest and self-care, but where the practical steps that actually move things forward keep getting postponed.

The person whose diary is full of gentle things but where the consistent showing up keeps getting deferred.

I say this with complete compassion, because I understand exactly how it happens.

But sustainable change needs both.

The space and the structure.

The softness and the showing up.

This is what I mean by firm compassion.

I will hold the space for everything you’re navigating.

And at the right moment, with the right care, I will also ask: is it time to take a step?

Because staying in the decompression phase indefinitely isn’t rest.

There is a point where it becomes avoidance.

And you deserve more than that.

Self Mastery: The Real Investment

What I’m really talking about underneath all of this is self mastery.

Not in a rigid, optimise-everything sense.

But in the simplest sense; knowing yourself, understanding your rhythms, being able to read your own signals and respond to them wisely.

That kind of self mastery means you don’t need a programme telling you what to do every day.

You develop the internal compass that helps you know when to push and when to rest, when to add and when to clear.

The people I work with don’t just achieve the thing they came for.

They build the internal resources to keep going long after our work together ends.

They become self-sufficient.

They trust themselves.

That, in my opinion, is the strongest investment.

A Practical Invitation

Before you schedule one more thing this week... one more workout, one more commitment, one more habit;

pause and ask yourself:

What do I need to stop?

Even something small. Something taking up space without giving back. Empty the cup a little first.

What do I want to continue?

What’s already working that deserves protecting?

And then

What do I want to start?

Now that there’s a little room. What’s the one small thing that wants to come in?

Stop. Continue. Start. Space before scheduling. Decompression first.

And then, go gently with the doing.

Listen to Episode 137 of Rooted in Presence wherever you get your podcasts. And if you’d like support finding your own balance of space and structure, come and find me at Still Space Hull online or in person.