The Mental Side of Fitness

What is it that separates the people who reach their fitness goals from people who don’t? Is it their genetics? Is it their exercise programs? Their nutrition plans? Is it their thoughts? There’s no question that all of these factors play a role, but in this article, I’ll focus on the mental side of fitness.

Original source: here.

            Hopefully, if you’ve struggled with your fitness goals for a long period of time, by the end of this article, you will be able to identify the characteristics of people who are successful with their fitness goals. Fortunately, those characteristics can be developed. So if you don’t possess those characteristics now, with practice, you can develop them.

Ready? Let’s go.

Characteristic #1: An Unshakable Belief in Your Ability to Achieve the Goal 

Whether your goal is to lose 30 pounds, or gain 20 pounds of muscle, or run a marathon, or anything, you need to believe you can do it. After all, if you don’t believe you can do it, why try? Obvious, right?

So we know that you need to have the self-belief. Everyone knows that. But how do you actually develop it? That’s what most self-help gurus don’t tell you. I’m no self-help guru, but I’ll give you two strategies that work.

Strategy #1: Find other people similar to you who’ve done what you’d like to do 

Frequently we think we are the only person in our situation. No one else has been in this situation before. You might think you’re the only person on the planet who’s a 55-year old female, with a 41-inch waist circumference, 30 extra pounds, going through difficult circumstances in your personal life (maybe a divorce, the death of a loved one, financial worries, etc.), and crazy hormones. But you’re not. There are other people who are in the exact same situation as you.

And chances are that some of those people have already done what you’d like to do. It’s up to you to find those people, and listen to how they did it. It’s very likely that it would be a pretty similar blueprint to what you need to do.

Strategy #2: Establish small successes 

There’s a saying that “competence breeds confidence.” If you succeed at small goals, eventually the big goal will be less big. For example, if your big goal is to lose 30 pounds, set a small goal of 5 pounds. Once you’re 5 pounds lighter, now your “big goal” is to lose only 25 pounds, which is a bit smaller than 30 pounds. But it’s still a big goal.

So, set another little goal or dropping another 5 pounds. Then, after you’re another 5 pounds lighter, you’re only 20 pounds away from your “big goal.”

Then your thought process changes from “I have to lose 30 pounds???!!! How am I going to do that?” to “well, I’ve lost 5 pounds 3 times in a row already, for a total of 15 pounds. Could I drop another 5 pounds? Sure. I’ve already done it 3 times.”

This step is very important, because realistic goal setting will put you on the right track. I’d love to hear what your goals are. Let me know through this page.

Characteristic #2: The Ability to Bounce Back from Set-Backs 

We like to think that it’s a very straight-forward path from where we are now to where we want to be. Going back to the example of losing 30 pounds, we like to think that the body will lose weight at pre-determined intervals, like clockwork. Like 1 pound per week.

But the truth is that the path is really much more “curvy” than that. You might drop 4 pounds in your first week, and then your weight will be steady for 2-3 weeks. And then, you may see another big drop of 2-3 pounds.

Or you may be doing great, keeping up with your exercise and nutrition, and then “life” gets in the way. You might have a new job with difficult hours. You might go to a party where the food selection isn’t the healthiest. Or any number of other challenges. And it will set you back.

It’s much easier to get back on track if you acknowledge that there will be times when you will be off-track. And while you’re doing great, create your plan of what you will do when (not if) you will go off-track.

It’s definitely important to plan when you’re doing great, and thinking rationally. If you start your planning when you’ve fallen off the wagon, your reaction will be extreme. Ever had the reaction of “I just had a donut. To compensate, I need to go on an 800-calorie per day diet for 2 weeks.” WRONG!

Or even worse, having no plan. So the situation goes “I just had a donut. OK, I’ll have another one. And another one. And another one. Oh well, I just blew my day. Might as well blow the entire week, and start again next week.” Very wrong. Don’t be one of those people.

So plan for the bad times when you’re doing well.

Characteristic #3: Have an Internal Motivation 

An internal motivation is when you’re doing something for your own sake. An external motivation is doing something for someone or something else’s sake. For example, there are occasionally fitness or weight loss challenges that involve a big money prize at the end. That would be an example of an external motivation.

So when I’m speaking to a prospective client, eventually, I want to hear some internal reason for their goal. And sometimes, internal reasons can be disguised as external reasons. For instance, I frequently work with singles over 40, so one of the most common reasons they give for wanting personal training is so they can look good, to attract other singles. Sounds like an external motivation, right? But when I dig deeper, I see that looking good is really about having more confidence. And that’s an internal motivation. No question about it, people have more confidence when they look good, and when they can do things that they couldn’t do before (like going up the stairs without being out of breath).

Unfortunately, on their own, people don’t question themselves to this level, so if you feel you need someone to bring out your internal motivations, let me know.