Are you killing your results?
Today we are focusing on establishing good habits because the quality of your habits determines the quality of your outcomes. For example, if you want to become a world-class athlete, it goes without saying that you need to consistently train hard, eat to support your training and recover properly. To ensure proper recovery, you would have to establish the habit of getting to sleep on time. Staying up late to update your Snapchat or Instagram profile would cut into your sleep time, slow down your recovery and compromise your ability to train, which in turn would affect your chances of becoming a world-class athlete. While there are countless bad habits we practice subconsciously that negatively affect our results, the following surface time and time again with all people not just athletes. Having negative conversations with yourself - and I am 100% confident you have heard that the quality of our thoughts determines the quality of your actions. This underscores the power of the mind in everything we do. If you are always beating yourself up when times are tough or telling yourself you can’t do something (i.e. stick to a diet) because it’s hard, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. When things aren’t going your way, it’s easy to overreact and think you are a complete failure in life. Our brains tend to blow things out of proportion whenever we face a little adversity. To calm down the mind and get back to a more positive state, try the following strategies:
Show gratitude. This exercise should be as low tech as possible. Grab a sheet of paper and a pen and simply write down everything you are grateful for in your life. Spend 15-20 minutes on this exercise, free of distractions and I believe you have a more positive mindset when you are finished.
Take inventory of your strengths. When the chips are down, it’s easy to think you’re not good enough or not worthy of achieving the goal you set out for yourself. Curb these thoughts by writing out all the positive traits, the skills and the talents you have on a sheet of paper (yes, go low tech again :)). After doing this exercise, your brain will calm down and your mindset will shift to a more positive state.
TRAIN. This is often the best solution. Hit the gym hard for 45-60 minutes and the positive physiological changes you experience will work like a charm to shift your mindset from negative to positive. This is so effective it should be considered a universal law.
How many times have you heard some say or said this to yourself - Waiting until tomorrow: “I’ll do it tomorrow.” “I’ll start my program on Monday.” These types of excuses are just procrastination at its best. Time is our most precious, non-renewable resource. We don’t get back yesterday. By constantly putting things off, we lose valuable time that we could have spent working toward our goals. Instead of waiting until tomorrow, or next week, challenge yourself to do something today. That “something” should be small and manageable. It should almost be too easy. Then follow up the mini victory of today with a little something tomorrow. These mini successes will build momentum and carry you forward. Before long, you will have replaced the negative procrastination mindset with a positive, “GSD” mindset. Failing to plan, as I am sure you have heard many times before = if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Anyone serious about achieving a goal (i.e. improving their physique, becoming elite at a sport, or simply wanting to do a push-up for pull up for the 1st time) should have a plan – a course of action – to help them get there. Without a plan, you can easily get blindsided by life’s unexpected twists and turns and before you know it, you’ve fallen off track. When it comes to achieving a fitness goal, or any goal for that matter, one of the best tools to help you create a plan and stick to it is a journal. The journal helps you to prioritize, track your progress, make adjustments, and record important feedback.
I hope this helps shed a bit of light on how habits can kill your result by not allowing you to achieve your goals.
If you need any help in setting a plan in place to achieve a certain fitness goal leave me a comment or send me a message so we can set up a time to chat.
Yours in health
