4 Ways to Achieve Any Fitness Goal (or any goal for that matter) & Stay Motivated.
Over the past five years as a Personal Trainer, I’ve come across an array of methods/ideologies with regards to achieving particular weight loss, fat loss, or the good ol’ “toning” (myth) up goals. Some of these have been a revelation, some have not been so successful.
Obviously the aforementioned goals are physical ones. But with that being said, it got me thinking about the underlying principles behind these methods and how it can be applied to (almost) anything.
What I’ve put together will hopefully make complete sense and be something you can apply (or take home some of these pointers) with your own ambitions or forward onto someone else who may want to do the same. If it’s a load of rubbish, well hey ho, you’ve got this far!
1. Consistency
If it’s your goal to get in great shape, write a novel or learning a new language. Being consistent with your approach makes an immense difference.
Say if you’re wanting to learn to play the guitar, do you think you’ll achieve success by playing it once a week?
Or if you were to practice five, six, seven times? No doubt it’ll be the latter. Consistency and Practice are parallel in this instance.
If you’re truly wanting to better yourself at achieving a goal, doing it day-in, day-out will matter and most likely incur an upturn in results.
If it’s getting in your best shape for your birthday, one superb week of training and dieting, followed by a s*** one won’t serve you. Every week needs to be a good one over a sustained period.
On the flip side….
If you’re looking to get morbidly obese (I’m talking HUGE), you will have to consistently eat more food than you can (ever) imagine and be as inactive as possible for a LONG time. Again this will have to be done consistently, week-on-week, even months to achieve an unhealthy accumulation of fat mass. Bear this in mind, as it can go both ways.
Daily Application + Consistency + Persistence = Results
2. Mindset
An absolutely crucial part to any goal is applying a Growth Mindset. Carol Dweck, author of Mindset defines a growth mindset as the following :
“People with a growth mindset feel their skills and intelligence can be improved with effort and persistence.”
Carol Dweck
I truly believe if you want something (deep down to your core) enough, you can achieve it. A lot of people are unaware of their defeatist attitude (closed mindset) which can cause havoc to actually creating success they want. This can be down to a number of things, potentially limiting self-belief for example.
This is where having a Growth Mindset, turning perceived failures into opportunities and adopting positive affirmation can go to monumental places with any goal or task at hand.
If you want it, visualise your best self and find a reason which is powerful enough to spur you on for the right reasons.
Michael Jordan said a great quote which epitomises this
“You must expect great things of yourself before you can do them.”
Michael Jordan
3. Optimise your ANS
What is he talking about!? You may be asking, read on….
ANS (Automonic Nervous System) is responsible for regulating involuntary actions within our body. Think of your heart rate, digestion, urination, sexual arousal for example.
Our ANS branches down to two divisions : our Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) and our Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS).
SNS is known as the “fight-or-flight” response where we are typically in a highly stressed state of arousal. In pre-historic times this would have been fending off a Lion trying to kill us in a bid to maintain survival.
If we compare this to our PNS, this is the opposite of SNS known as our “rest and digest” response, which is where we are typically able to promote a calm and relaxed state. This could be going through a form of meditation, light yoga or sun bathing.
Where this is important to health is being able to switch between both Nervous Systems when required and having the ability to “escape” the stress of the outside World.
Especially with the current situation, this could be more important than ever with the fear of uncertainty hitting us all.
People will often not realise they are sub-consciously in an elevated state of SNS and not balancing this out by putting themselves in a relaxed state (PNS).
Where this links together is if you’ve got a goal to get a six-pack, run multiple businesses or publish a book, it’s likely with the extra effort required to complete any of these, you’ll be working harder and thus causing more stress to your Central Nervous System (CNS), which then causes more strain on our ANS. If you’re not optimising your ANS, this can potentially cause a downward spiral of doom which can impair our ability to have quality sleep, recover, drop bodyfat, build muscle, limit our cognitive function and mental alertness. This can cascade into a host of health implications potentially leading to (if not managed) :
High blood pressure. Heart attacks. Infertility. Obesity. Diabetes.
Pro Tip : don’t work hard without making sure you’re recovering adequately too.
4. Creating a Solid System (habits/routines)
This will closely link with Point 1, but where I am going with my final pointer is
“Consistency will go nowhere quickly without a solid System of habits being implemented alongside it”.
Ideally if it’s something which you want to do long-term, it’s about creating sustainable mechanisms (mentioned in a previous blog here ) where you get to a point where it’s like brushing your teeth, ie you do it like you’re on auto pilot.
Creating a successful routine can be as simple as writing down and applying how you go about your day and how your new goal will fit into it.
Taken from one of my favourite books “Atomic Habits” by author James Clear. He talks about Identity Based Habits, quite simply this is broken down into three layers. Outcome, Process and Identity.
Outcome how you go about changing your results
Process determines how you go about changing your habits/routines
Identity determines how you create a change in your belief system or view.
For example…
If you’re wanting to drop bodyfat (outcome), it’s likely you’ll have to put a plan (process) together to reduce your caloric intake, meal-prep your food for lunch and snacks, get your workouts in, hit your daily step count and monitor or reduce your exposure to social activities which may disrupt this. Throughout all of this instead of thinking I must be healthy and fit, or I need to be healthy and fit, it could be a thought of “I am” healthy and fit (identity).
“Outcomes are about what you get. Processes are about what you do. Identity is about what you believe.”
James Clear
Where I believe many encounter difficultly from the start is not setting up any sort of plan and hoping sheer willpower or determination will get them through, the reality here is that is far-fetched and short-lived.
Once you’ve got a solid system that you can stick to, implement, persist with and enjoy. It’s highly probable that motivation will fall alongside this nicely without you having to think too much about the emotions related to becoming inspired. Those that tend to lack motivation (or dip in and out) will quite often tend to not have any sort of structure in place and are simply hoping they become motivated one day, which may never happen.
STAY STRONG. BE RESILIENT. REMAIN POSITIVE. @kickstartultimatetraining
