How many attempts have you now had at trying to get fit? Three? Four? Five? Are you fed up of waking up and your body is rigid and achy? Are you fed up of looking in the mirror and not being happy with what you see? For the majority of people out there this is a reality and it used to be my reality. In this blog I want to share with you exactly what it took for me to change so that I could achieve my goal and perhaps, it could help you achieve yours and take your personal development to the next level.
Today, I am the strongest, fittest and most functional version of myself. I know what works and what doesn’t work for me. Aesthetics never bothered me as much, but even now when I look at myself, I am happy. This didn’t happen because I spent hours and hours just exercising, no, this happened because of how I looked at exercising.
Before this, I spent years going to the gym, on and off, not really getting any stronger or any fitter. Because I wasn’t seeing results I stopped going, then I’d start again, get bored and stop. I didn’t know what was causing me more harm than good. This was a vicious cycle in which I was losing. So how exactly did I make the shift? The answer: mind set.
I had to be brutally honest with myself. Was my current body the body that I wanted? No. Did I consider myself fat? Yes. Was I happy with myself? No. The first step was self-awareness (you may hear me mention this a lot in other development areas).
I had to use language that shocked me into changing my mind set because no one else was going to do it for me. I realised that I was looking at this all wrong. I was setting myself very short term and unrealistic goals. When I achieved a fitness goal (for example, squatting a certain weight) I got bored and when I failed I gave up because I thought “well I tried”. What I needed to do was look at creating a fit and functional body, but as a journey rather than achievements.
For example, in order to be fit I needed to be strong and conditional. In order to be functional I needed to be versatile and flexible. After researching, this was not something that could be achieved in a few months, this needed to be an ongoing process. So, that led me to creating a vision.
Where do I want to be when I am 30 years old? 35 years old? 45 years old and so on? Do I want to be like every other person I see who complains about aches and pains, who complains about not having time, who complains about an old injury because they pushed it too hard, or do I want to be fit and functional no matter my age? When I started to see ‘being fit’ as a journey my entire mind set shifted.
On a side note, here’s a secret for you. Don’t be afraid to use harsh language on yourself. Today we hear a lot about loving who you are and that is true, but it you are not happy with something, then change it. Don’t be afraid to call yourself fat, weak, flabby, inflexible or unfit. Because it’s that harsh language that will shock you into changing your state.
As always I don’t like to leave you with just a story. I want to give you tools to help you. These tools drastically changed my mind set and will help you too:
- Fitness is a journey, not a sprint where you win
- Create a vision of where you want to be in the future
How does leadership apply in the situation? Remember the last chapter of my book titled ‘Take the Lead’? Part of leadership is about taking the lead in your life. Your decisions shape your reality and you are responsible for your decisions. Once you accept that, you will can start to make a positive impact in your life and others.
Thanks for reading, JT.