Everyone fails at achieving goals at some point. It’s not just fitness goals, it’s not just you. Goals are difficult to achieve, period. It’s human nature to stay comfortable and stay safe. With change comes unknowns and with the unknowns comes fear, insecurity, and a reliance on past or previous experiences (which are not helpful if you’ve never achieved the goal before anyway).
So the first reason you keep failing your goals is you’re not kind to yourself along the journey to achieving them. What I mean is, don’t beat yourself up more and more if you haven’t achieved a goal yet. Without going into a deep explanation here, beating on one’s self only makes things more difficult to change. Negativity is not good. It’s as simple as that.
Next, They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks right? Well, technically, that’s not true. However, it is much harder because they’re “set in their ways”. The same is true for humans.
Once again, this doesn’t mean that you can’t achieve the goals you want. Trust me, it’s true. It’s not over, you haven’t tried everything (even though you think you have), you’re not too late or too old or whatever other excuse you’ve come up with that keeps you from committing (or recommitting) this time around.
This explains the second reason you keep failing…your mind is “closed off”. You can’t recognize solutions if your mind is already made up. What I’m saying is..open your mind.
Allow your brain some freedom to imagine what IS possible. Let your thoughts wander and dream. I promise you, whatever you think is impossible…someone, somewhere is either already doing it or they’re committed to doing it as we speak.
I don’t want you to think I’m trying to burst your bubble or want you to compare yourself to others because I’m not. What I’m saying is that they BELIEVE in what they’re doing, they BELIEVE in themselves. For whatever reason, their BELIEF is alive and well.
This feeling of BELIEF is the same feeling I want YOU to have.
I want you to win.
I want you to achieve your dream.
But, first I want you to start with incredible, unbreakable BELIEF.
Where do you start?
Let’s take a look…
A Method You Can Believe In
Learn Your Body
Awareness is the first step to making change. If you’re not aware of what you might need to change, where your weaknesses lie, or even understand which things aren’t helping you, then you’ll have a very hard time getting results (or even seeing progress for that matter).
The key here is to get to the point where you feel confident in what you want, why you want it and what you’ll need to know to achieve it. More specifically, it’s a foundational understanding of your body so that you know what needs to be eliminated and what needs to be restored.
How do you get there?
You DECIDE.
The hardest part is to start, but when you make up your mind and decide it’s your time, decide it WILL be you, and decide failure is NOT an option…
You’re READY.
Creating awareness and learning your body will help you understand and build the confidence you need to start and commit to new ways of thinking, different behaviors, and building better habits.
Lean Without Extremes
So many people are clear on what they don’t want that they’ll go to extreme lengths to try and change it. You would think “going ham” on changing something is a good thing. I mean, strict diets and extreme workouts are like badges of honor in many areas of the fitness world. However, these consequential protocols are what drove me to therapy for an eating disorder.
The key in this step is to take action, but not drastic, desperate action. Which is often how people feel when they’ve reached their wits end. It’s kind of hard to get motivated and excited about something that hasn’t worked for you over and over in the past.
Use your past history as a filter for what’s worked and what hasn’t. Be refreshingly honest and ask yourself the following questions about what you truly want:
- What does the “destination” look like?
- What does it feel like?
- What behaviors will support that feeling?
- How will you know when you’ve “made it”?
Use your answers to reverse engineer a blueprint and to evaluate your progress. The goal is fitness, nutrition, and stress management guidelines that fit your life, rhythm, and rituals. There’s nothing worse than trying to fit your life into a diet or training program. That’s a round peg in a square hole method. That’s inefficient. That is unsustainable.
Implementing and practicing how to do things without extremes will help you to create small wins, but support in building the very important pillars of a successful lifestyle.
Lifestyle that Lasts
When most people think of fitness or weight loss goals they either take action by going on a diet or ramping up their exercise or both. There’s little-to-no actions taken on other lifestyle factors outside those two. This is a major reason that “things never change”.
The key here is in addressing supportive lifestyle factors so that the core, your nutrition and exercise, can create the big, lasting changes you want to see. For example, if you don’t make changes to your kitchen, making it easier to cook or less convenient to snack on junk, you’re probably going to fail at your nutrition plan. Or if you don’t make changes to your bedroom or “wind down routine” to improve your sleep you’re more likely to have more cravings for junk and less energy for that important workout.
Things like your environment, a support network (everyone could use a “Hype Girl Tribe”!), and continually educating (formal or informal) yourself on healthier behaviors, tools, tips and more may seem small in comparison to an exercise and nutrition plan when in reality they are the nuts and bolts that often hold it all together.
Aligning and integrating the “other” lifestyle factors will help you craft and mold a healthy lifestyle that just works. You’ll feel happy, at peace and yet full of good energy. You’ll look fit, healthy and confident.
“There’s nothing worse than trying to fit your life into a diet or training program. That’s a round peg in a square hole method. That’s inefficient. That is unsustainable.”
-Jacqueline Sobotka
I totally understand all of the above is a simplified version of the real work it takes, but before you begin to critique or dismiss this 3 step method I want you to ask yourself…
- What could I achieve if I really knew and understood my own body?
- What would the outcome be if I focused on small steps instead of big extremes?
- What would it be like to live a simple, enjoyable, sustainable lifestyle?
Sometimes we make it much harder on ourselves. Sometimes the solution is right in front of us. Sometimes you have to BELIEVE in a mission, a mentor or a method to get there.
If you want to make things much easier, accomplish things much faster, and you’re ready to BELIEVE in your dream, schedule a Confidence Consultation by going here and emailing me with the subject line, “I BELIEVE”.
