I find through emails and website comments that people can be armed with all of the information but still not make real and lasting change in their health and fitness.
We all know that diet and exercise are the only secrets that are really needed but even with this information and a plan most people will not stick to a plan. The reason?
People don’t believe that they can make real change.
Over the years and with all of the bad decisions we will always seem to dwell on the problems that we have caused ourselves and the problems that others have caused and we never seem to think deep down that we can change.
I have been thinking about this a lot lately and I believe that failure in our fitness goals really comes down to the following three factors.
1. We don’t dwell on our successes
2. We don’t trust our knowledge
3. We look at our results today instead of looking a little farther out.
Dwelling On Success
To dwell on our success what we need to do is see where in our life we have succeeded in the past. We all have done great things whether we notice or not.
If you look at what makes you up and what you think about on a daily basis some scientists say that 95% or more of our thoughts everyday are the same as the day before. You can shake this up and start your day by having thoughts about your past successes.
Who cares about dwelling on the past and what use it is I can tell you if you keep remembering the successes that you have then when you are looking at your diet and workouts it will be easier to see what you should be doing and continue it.
Trust Your Knowledge Or Get Some More
I have always struggled with this at times and at other times I act like I should be acting. I will continue working at acting on my what I should but there is one thing that always holds us back, Quick Fixes.
The Quick fix, you have seen these everywhere in the past. The magic diet pill. The secret exercise that will build muscle, the late night infomercial promising easy fast money.
Quick fixes are all around us but the trouble is that they seldom work.
If you want to improve your diet or improve your fitness you can either look through all the info on this blog (How can you not learn from 2500 posts?) or you can just buy the info (I have reviewed lots of products that you can get pretty cheap).
Once you are comfortable that you have the knowledge to get fitter, stronger, and leaner then you have to give yourself the benefit of the doubt that you can do it and all other knowledge is just enhancing what you already know.
Look At Results In a Slightly Longer Timeline
When you are trying to get out of bed in the morning to workout, or putting in those last 5 minutes on the treadmill, or thinking of whether you should do that extra set of bench press or not you need to not dwell on what todays results are.
You really do improve your fitness with every meal and every workout but the great affect of these workouts and meals is found in your body a month from now with every meal and every workout building on each other.
Do the right actions today and tomorrow do the same and by building on each day you will be in a completely different place a month from now.
I have heard a quote many times that we drastically overestimate what we can do in a year but drastically underestimate what we can do in 5 years. It always seems that we have these amazing one year goals that are very unattainable when times are tough, then if we look back 5 years we can see the amazing changes we and others have made.
I know that there have probably been a multitude of books written on motivation and fitness and success but if you keep these three ideas in mind I hope that you, like me, will see the results and belief in your future.