Have you ever experienced those days where your workout or training session seemed more difficult than usual? Have you missed a few sessions and then found it very hard to return to training? Let's identify that wall that stops you and throw some advice your way.Our minds can act as a great asset or a great hindrance to our lives. The power of the mind is unlimited and can literally propel us through any wall that stops us from achieving what we really want to.Now, your mind is subject to the conditioning that both you and the world around you give it. The exciting thing is that you have the power to influence your behaviours. You can do this at any point you choose, through your thoughts. Let's take a practical example. How many people join the gym, fired up to make a difference to their health and fitness yet find that a few weeks or months later they are rarely, if ever, working out? I know it's happened to me in the past and chances are it's happened to most people at one time or another. Why does this happen?Think of your life as a line. You may have spent months or years not going to the gym. You have months or years of experience of not working out. You decide to join the gym because of some stimulus (advertising or new year for example). You start working out but sooner or later your previous programming kicks in and you stop working out. Seems a bit doom and gloom? It's all about mental preparation and conditioning.Think about it, would you enter a marathon when you hadn't done any running at all? Absolutely not! Your body would not be prepared, you wouldn't have put in the training. The mind is exactly the same! When you join the gym to make a difference to your body, you must also commit to make a difference to your mind. How can you do that? Lets look at that.Goals, Goals, Goals!!!When you join the gym and have your induction/orientation session the trainer usually asks you something along the lines of "what do you want to achieve". What's the usual response? "I want to improve my fitness", "I want to bulk up" or "I want to lose weight". That's NOT SPECIFIC ENOUGH!! Those that manage people will probably have heard of the SMART acronym:SpecificMeasureableAchievableRealisticTime BoundWhen you answer this question, it is best to have thought about your goals using the SMART acronym. Let's take an example of a SMART goal related to fitness.Gym instructor - "What do you want to achieve?"You - "I want to lose 20 pounds in weight. I want to have lost the 20 pounds by the end of the sixth week from today. I can workout three times a week for an hour each session".Now the gym instructor can give you some feedback about that statement, he or she will either tell you that it is realistic and achievable or will alter your expectations for the desired weight loss. They can also tailor the exercises to ensure that you reach your goal. The other benefit to this is that you are making a definite contract with yourself. You are clear what you want to achieve, you know your timescales and you have obtained a means of achieving that goal. Already you feel mentally clearer about how you are going to bring about your desired change.
Talk to yourself - Yes, really - do it!If you dip a toe into most of the self-help literature that is available on the market you will see that self-talk is the foundation of their methods. How many times have you felt your mood change due to a thought? A thought it a form of self talk. Your thoughts affect your feelings, which in turn affect your behaviours. So if you are thinking "it's cold, I don't know where my gym bag is" or "I can't listen to my music, I'll go to the gym later when my phone is charged", you are affecting your feelings and therefore your behaviour (i.e. you don't go to the gym).Most of our behaviours are on auto-pilot because of habit. When you start a new workout regime, to make it stick you have to create a habit. You have all of this pre-conditioning that tells you that it is better to stay in bed or do something else now and workout later. You need to change that with self-talk. Let's take the goal to lose 20 pounds in six weeks.Use something like the below:"My goal is to lose 20 pounds in six weeks from XX date. I will achieve this by going to the gym XX times a week and following the workout that has been provided to me to reach this goal. I feel good about exercising and I always have the energy and motivation to complete my workout. It feels good knowing that I am taking action to reach my goal".Say that to yourself everyday, morning and night. You are starting to mentally prepare yourself. You are personalising your goal, which you have made definite through the SMART acronym. You have a definite means of achieving that goal and you are firing yourself up to achieve it.If you still find that you are hesitant to get up and go workout try a method recommended by Dr Steve Peters in his excellent book "The Chimp Paradox". Dr Peters recommends counting to ten the moment you wake up. By the time you reach ten you should be up and taking action. If you are getting up to go to the gym, you should be up and have you hands on your gym clothes. This is a great way to outsmart the excuses, they don't have time to try to convince you that the bed is warmer! I recommend Dr Peter's book to you as a simple way of explaining why people act the way they do and to help you get some control over your thoughts.Another great book to read is "What to say when you talk to yourself" by Dr Shad Helmstetter. It's a fantastic book on self talk and includes pre written statements on all subjects from controlling worry to losing weight.So, to recap. Be specific with your goals, talk to yourself positively about achieving your goals and stick to your plan. You'll soon develop the habit of exercise. Once you've lost your 20 pounds, if that is your goal, set yourself another SMART goal and ask your gym instructor to set your program accordingly.I would love to hear from you about the methods you use to keep up your motivation to exercise. I've set up a post on my blog, which can be found at http://pmcfitness.blog.com/2014/08/31/staying-motivated/To your health!Bye for nowPaul
PMC Fitness
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