This morning at the gym, I got a brutal reminder of the importance of rest. My workout partner and I were finishing up our session with rounds on the assault bike—a machine that lives up to its name. If you’ve never used one, it’s a high-intensity bike that increases resistance as you push, pull, and pedal harder. We typically go all-out for one minute, then take a break while the other guy goes.
But today, I had the genius (or maybe ridiculous) idea of doing push-ups instead of resting between sets. And let me tell you—it was miserable.
By the third round, my quads were locking up, my head was spinning, and I was seeing stars. That minute of rest I usually had? I never realized how valuable it was until I took it away.
And that got me thinking…
How often do we do this to ourselves in life?
Most men I talk to say the same thing when I ask how life is going:
We’re constantly running from one thing to the next without ever stopping to breathe. And just like that workout with no rest, it leaves us exhausted, overwhelmed, and barely keeping our heads above water.
It’s hard to be joyful when you’re always stressed.
It’s hard to be present when you feel like you’re drowning in responsibilities.
It’s hard to be intentional when life feels like one long, never-ending sprint.
That’s why today, I want to introduce you to one of the most powerful habits you can implement:
An intentional transition is simply taking a moment to pause, reset, and refocus before moving from one activity to the next.
Think about all the transitions in your day:
Most of us move through these transitions mindlessly—carrying stress, frustration, or exhaustion from one thing into the next.
But what if, instead, you took just one minute to reset?
Before moving to the next activity in your day, pause for a moment and ask yourself:
This can be as simple as:
It doesn’t take long. But that short pause changes everything because it ensures that your next moment isn’t dictated by stress, frustration, or distraction.
If you don’t control your transitions, your circumstances will control you.
But when you are intentional in your transitions, you take control. You set the tone for your next moment instead of letting it be determined by your past one.
I’ll be honest—when I don’t do this, I tend to live a self-focused life. Everything becomes about me.
But when I pause, reset, and set my intentions, everything shifts.
Abraham Lincoln once said,
"Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be."
Being intentional with your transitions is one of the best ways to choose joy.
This morning, I was at the gym working out and my workout partner and I jumped on the assault bike near the end of the workout - if you haven’t seen these bikes, they are properly named that’s for sure.
They were made to be a really good high intensity interval training workout. They are popular in Crossfit gyms typically. It’s a bike where you use both your arms and your legs. And the thing about the assault bike is that it automatically ramps up the resistance that you feel when you push, pull, and pedal harder.
So if you go hard on this thing, it’s a great workout.
Usually, we take turns where we go really hard for a minute and then alternate and do that for 4 rounds. Just that, if you are truly pushing yourself is a really difficult workout.
But today, I had the genius idea of doing push-ups in between sets. So I would do the assault bike for 1 minute as hard as I could, and then would immediately go to push ups for the minute while my partner was doing the assault bike.
And keep in mind, this is after doing a full push day workout where we fried our chest, triceps, and shoulders.
I have to say, I completely underestimated how much harder the assault was going to be by adding the pushups in between instead of taking that minute to rest. It made it so much harder. By the time we got to set 3, I was starting to get a little lightheaded. There was no time to ever catch your breath and then you were straight back on the bike.
You should’ve seen both of us after that 4th set…quads are tightening up…we’re seeing stars…trying not to throw up.
If you have an assault bike at your gym, give it a try next time with a minute of push-ups between sets and see if you can fare better than us!
It made me realize how valuable that minute of rest I typically got was. Usually, we would rest for a minute while the other guy was on the bike instead of doing pushups. But today, without the rest, it made the assault bike way harder when we got back on it for the next round.
And it got me thinking about how we actually do this to ourselves all the time in life.
How many times do you just blow through the day going from one activity to the next without ever stopping to take a break?
Stress is a major problem in our country. Business is a major problem. Ask someone how life has been lately and the chances are pretty good that they say one of those two things as their answer.
I’ve been noticing this a lot more lately - almost every guy when I ask how life is going, typically says busy. Start to pay attention to it. I’ve even caught myself wanting to say that a lot of times.
And stress is as big of an issue as it has ever been in our country.
Men are stressed and burned out. Men are overly busy - and because of it, it’s really difficult to live with joy and gratitude on a consistent basis.
It’s really hard to enjoy the moments throughout the day when you are stressed out.
It’s really hard to invest in people when you feel like your head is barely above water.
It’s really hard to be intentional when you feel like you are putting fires out all day.
Just like the workout, if you go from one thing to the next without ever taking a break, you are going to be exhausted.
And this includes pulling out your phone to get a break. That isn’t giving you rest, it is usually to look at social media or something that drains your energy even more. It feels like it’s a break, it feels like it’s rest, but ultimately, it is contributing to your stress and draining your energy even more.
So today, I want to talk about my all-time favorite exercise to help you live with more intentionality, live with more energy, fight against stress, and make sure you are living with more joy and gratitude.
I call these Intentional Transitions. Being intentional with your transitions throughout your day could be one of the most impactful things that you can do.
So what do I mean by transitions - pretty simply, any time you switch from one activity to the next. Or from one responsibility or role to another.
This is what I mean when I talk about transitions.
Think about the scenarios that I just laid out for you. Do you ever take a quick pause to set your intentions for that next activity? Or do you just go into the next thing without even thinking about it?
If you’re like I was for pretty much my entire life, you probably just mindlessly head into the next activity without much thought.
If that’s the case, let me ask you, have you ever carried over any negativity or stress from your previous activity into the next?
Maybe you just had a stressful meeting at work that didn’t go as you thought it would, and then you get home and carry that bad attitude with you?
Or you didn’t get a great night’s sleep or just woke up feeling tired, and you let that dictate your entire mood for the morning?
I’ve been there many times!
If you are not intentional in your transitions, then you will almost always let your mood or your circumstances dictate your attitude. You will let how you are feeling that day dictate how you treat people.
You will let how you are feeling dictate how focused you are or how hard you work.
Leaving how you treat people up to your current mood or circumstance doesn’t feel like a great strategy if you want to be a man that encourages and builds others up. It doesn’t feel like a great strategy if you want to enjoy the day and be present with those who are in front of you.
It doesn’t feel like a great strategy if you want to give your wife and your kids your best.
I don’t want to leave those things up to chance. I don’t want to be happy, encouraging, and loving only when my day is going well…I want to be those things all the time.
So here is the exercise, it is so simple yet can have a huge impact on your life. Take one minute before you move into your next activity to pause, take some deep breaths, and then set your intentions for the next activity.
Use this minute to ask yourself some simple questions like - how can I best encourage the person I am about to see in this meeting? How can I have the most fun possible in this next activity?
How can I give my absolute best at the gym this morning? How can I be the best possible husband and father when I walk through the doors?
How can I make this next activity about others instead of myself?
It doesn’t have to be those exact questions. Find the ones that really resonate with you. Find questions that line up with your values and how you want to treat people.
Can you imagine how big of a difference this could make in your life?
Instead of letting your mood or circumstances dictate your life, you take the time to pause, reconnect to what’s important to you, and then go into the next activity with intentionality.
When you are about to take on a project at work that you are dreading, take a minute to be grateful for the fact that you have a job and then tell yourself you are going to give your absolute best for the next half an hour as you work on the project.
When you wake up and you don’t feel very motivated, give yourself one minute to connect to what’s important to you and go into the day with joy instead of negativity.
I’ll be completely honest, when I don’t do this, I usually have a pretty self-focused day. I’m usually extremely self-centered. All the activities become about me - how I feel, if I feel motivated, if this meeting will benefit me, if these people are going to be fun to be around
But when I pause, regroup, and then set my intentions on being about others, I’m way more intentional, and honestly, have way more fun in life.
Abraham Lincoln has a famous quote where he says, “Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”
Being intentional with your transitions is a great way to choose joy in the moments throughout your day. It’s a great way to make sure you are living in alignment with what is most important to you.
And it’s one of the best ways to fight stress and busyness because you train yourself to pause and let go of all the previous stressors of the day and just focus on the next thing in front of you.
I would encourage you to give this a try today. Before you transition into your next activity, pause for a minute and set your intentions for the next thing. It could be a great time to say a quick prayer, or think about a few things you are grateful for.
I really believe that being intentional with your transitions is one of the most impactful practices that you can put in place.
So give it a try today! You won’t be perfect everyday, but continue to working on making this more of a habit in your life and just get better as you go!
I would love to hear about some of the ways that you make these transitions more impactful or stories of how it has helped you! So please leave a comment if you give this a try! And also please share this with someone that you think might benefit from it.
Thank you for joining me today! Go live intentionally throughout each moment of your day by being intentional in the transitions!
