It is Monday, a brand new week and no better time to take some time today to refocus on our fitness goals big and small. Think about why you want to workout, why you truly want to get healthy and fit, and what is going to keep you making that effort. You all need to set aside some time to REALLY think about this.
When you have a purpose in mind, it needs to be one that is useable, that can be drawn on when you need it. You need to actually sit down and think about why, fundamentally, you want to exercise. That will be your purpose.
Come up with the big things you want, the long-term plan, and keep those in mind. But remember: they are guiding lines, the constant guardrails that steer our life in the direction we want. Hold on to them, but acknowledge that our minds sometimes need something far more immediate.
Therefore, what we need are objectives. To be able to reach our deep, fundamental purpose (or purposes), we need smaller, achievable steps. Just like a novel is divided into chapters, which are then split into paragraphs, when it comes to staying healthy and being in shape we must divide our overall goal(s) into small, simple, attainable goals that we can reach and conquer.
It’s as simple as this: set a series of clear, attainable outcomes.
We can’t stress enough how important these things are, how fundamental they can be to your success. There are dozens of ways to do it, and they all center around setting measurable, specific goals.
Get visual: Take a series of ‘before’ photos of yourself — in profile, from the front, and from the back. Wear the clothes you use to workout, print out the photos, and keep them somewhere useful.
Set a specific period of days whereupon you’ll take the next set of photos: 15 or 30-day periods are generally a good idea, and can give you a great sense of completion and accomplishment when you see them.
Keep a journal: Write down, in a clear and re-readable fashion, every time you exercise. When you’ve worked out several times over a two or three-week period, it’s extremely gratifying to see how often you’ve done it, because you’ll get a real, tangible sense of the effort you’ve put in.
Keeping other pieces of information in the journal can help, too: healthy meals you’ve eaten, the way you feel after a particular workout — anything that might keep you motivated when you’re feeling down.
It might be surprising, but going back and reading over exercise-related things you’ve written in a journal can be a huge motivation. Even just seeing the words “worked out” on a calendar a few times in a week can make the tiny mental difference between taking that next step or falling off the wagon.
Keep track of your weight the smart way: Our weight fluctuates by small degrees no matter what we do, and it can be difficult to always stay on track when one day it appears we’ve actually gained weight, despite all that working out. To supplement the power of your positive thinking, and make sure that scale doesn’t throw you off track, try and escape tracking your weight entirely (as just tracking weight is a rather limited system of measurement in the first place), if you must, measure yourself by inches or centimeters instead of focusing on pounds or kilograms — because empirical weight won’t ever tell you the whole story.
VISUALIZING YOUR OUTCOMES
Here’s another useful trick: visualization. It’s one of the most simple around, but it works wonders. If you’re thinking about working out, but your motivation is lacking, just picture yourself at the weight you want to be, or in the shape you desire. Picture yourself like this for 2-3 minutes straight, not just a quick thought. Make it a serious effort. Think about different clothes, different situations, different people who haven’t seen you for a while — and then keep doing it, visualize a better, fitter you. A sustained effort at visualization can be just the motivation you need.
If you’re feeling lost about your reasons for working out, unclear about why all this work is worth the effort, or just need a few ways to get focused and make sure your body is doing what your brain wants it to do, spend some time on these two things.
Think about it again: purpose and outcome. Think big, acknowledge those big purposes and grand ideals for what they are — general guidelines for our lives — and then scale downwards. Set realistic goals and attainable outcomes that you can reference in order to reach them.
The more you can engage your mind and clarify your reasons for exercising and getting healthy, realizing which ones will help you and which ones will guide you, the easier it will be to stay on track.
Bottomline, our mind is an incredible and powerful tool — the more we can use it to our benefit, the more our bodies will thank us in the end.
Have a Happy and Healthy Day, Cheers :)
Have a Happy and Healthy Day, Cheers :)