Have you ever caught yourself thinking, “I need it to work this time”?
Maybe you’re trying to start a workout routine again. Maybe you want to take better care of yourself and finally eat in a way that feels good. Maybe it’s something else entirely.
Whatever it is — if you’ve tried before and it didn’t go how you hoped, a quiet desperation can creep in.
“I’m so tired of trying and getting nowhere.” “Will this ever work for me?” “Maybe I’m just a lost cause.”
These thoughts are completely normal. But that doesn’t make them any less difficult to deal with. And experiences like these make you gun-shy to try again.
You start looking for the perfect plan — the one that can guarantee success no matter what. And any setback becomes just more proof that you can’t hack it.
So how do we break out of this “Doom Loop” and gear up for another attempt? And how do we make it go differently than last time?
The Comedy Set Principle
Here’s a useful way to think about it, drawn from How to Try Again by Steve Kamb:
Comics don’t tell a joke because it’s funny. They tell a joke until it’s funny.
A joke begins as an anecdote or an observation. It’s a “best guess” at something that might be funny. It’s a shout into the void, often accompanied by “Is this anything?” That first day telling a joke is usually painful. Nobody laughs, and the comedian awkwardly follows it up with “Okay, guess that’s not ready.”
The next time they tell that joke, they tell it slightly differently with a new punch line. Again, crickets. But the third time they tell it, they get one chuckle. That comedian now has their first win, and they can start to build on that joke. The next time they tell it, it gets a bit funnier, and they get a few more laughs.
And from there, one adjustment or tweak at a time, a comedy set gets built. That’s what makes stand-up so darn impressive. It’s a meticulously crafted performance made to look effortless.
These same lessons apply to any change we attempt — including improving our fitness.
The Experiment Mindset
If there’s one core idea worth downloading from 15 years of coaching experience, it’s this:
Treat each workout and each nutrition strategy as an experiment to see what works for you. Take your best guess and go for it, even if you don’t know for sure. A “failed” experiment isn’t a failure — it’s feedback you can use to try again, differently.
There is no one workout, no one nutrition strategy, no one routine that works all the time, for everyone, forever.
There are fundamentals you can rely on as a solid starting point — resources like the Beginner Bodyweight Workout and the 10 Nutrition Levels exist to give you a strong foundation and help you cut through the overblown hype rampant on the internet.
But that’s just the first step. From there, you learn to notice what does and doesn’t work, and adjust accordingly. Then repeat — indefinitely. Even after 25 years of training, adjustments are still a constant. That’s not a flaw in the plan — that’s the whole game.
How This Applies in Day-to-Day Life
Here are some real-world examples of the experiment mindset in action:
- Squats are bothering my knees — I’ll try substituting step-ups today.
- I’m tired of chicken. I’m going to experiment with some plant-based proteins this week.
- Life is really chaotic right now — I don’t think I’ll get to the gym reliably, so I’m going to pivot to a short bodyweight routine I’ll do before work to save time.
That mindset shift — from “perfect plan” to “try and adjust” — is how one Nerd Fitness community member named Dawn stopped feeling caught in the Doom Loop and found the courage to try again. Since the beginning of the year, she completed six rounds of experiments, learning more about herself and what works for her each time.
“The Nerd Fitness challenge is progressing well. I do what I can and have a sense of peace knowing I have done my best. Keeping track of my progress this year has provided a great view of how I am living My Big Why. I really am living a healthy life!” — Dawn
If you want help setting up and running your own fitness experiment, here’s everything you need to get started.
Things Will Change — Plan for It
One pattern that comes up often when talking with people about their fitness journeys: we’re very good at recognizing how much things have changed in the past, yet we tend to assume everything will stay exactly as it is right now going forward.
That’s rarely how life works. Things are going to change again — that much is certain.
If we can let go of trying to find the perfect plan and start with “good enough,” if we can run small experiments and learn from each one, we give ourselves the best possible chance of navigating through the chaos. It takes courage to try again — especially after being burned in the past, or after a major life change or disappointment. But that willingness to pick yourself back up and adjust, rather than quit, is what makes the difference in the long run.
