.png)
Sleep. Think. Eat. Drink. Connect.
“When a man does not know what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind.” —Seneca
“I just can’t get myself out of bed in the morning to workout.”
“I start out great, with tons of motivation, but then after a couple of weeks, I go back to my old habits.”
“I know I should improve my health, but I have no idea where to start.”
Which of those statements have run through your mind most recently? All of us have used one of those complaints (or something close) at one time or another.
But true or not, feelings like those don’t need to hold you back.
When it comes to fitness, there’s a huge step that most people fail to take, which ends up leaving them unsuccessful and disappointed.
The problem is, they don’t know what results they really hope to achieve, which affects their motivation and planning. And they get lost before they go very far on their fitness voyage.
To borrow from Seneca’s quote above, they quit because they never knew what harbor they were headed for in the first place.
Knowing where you’re headed from the beginning will keep you motivated and help you to have a specific plan to make sure you end up there.
How can you make sure you have a clear picture or your destination? How will you know when you’re ready to get started?
With all of our clients, in the gym and virtually, we take time to help them to begin within.
In other words, before they ever workout with us, we sit down with them and ask some important questions to help them direct their thinking to paint a crystal clear picture of where their life is headed as they improve their strength, lose body fat, and get healthier.
We help them focus on what the person they want to be looks like. Not just how much they’ll weigh when they reach their goal, but how they’ll feel, how their life will be different.
Most importantly, we help them connect their fitness goals to what’s most important to them.
So, our clients start their fitness journey knowing exactly where they’re headed. And that’s exactly what I want for you.
Investing time to do this is valuable because having a clear vision of the person you want to be keeps you motivated and gives you something to celebrate along the way.
As you make decisions that align with your destination, you can feel good knowing you’re headed in the direction, which keeps you from giving up.
Even when you run into an unexpected barrier, you think to yourself, “I’ve already come this far; I can’t turn back now.”
Using your powerful imagination with intent to get to know the person that you want to be also allows you to plan in reverse.
As with every trip, decisions about how to travel, when to leave, what to bring start with knowing our destination.
We start with the destination in mind and think backwards to actually figure out how we’ll get there.
Right?
It’s the same with fitness.
Knowing the person you want to be will help you because you can begin to model your current behaviors after that future version of yourself.
For example, if the person you want to be has a different size or shape than you, you might ask: “How did she get that way? What has she been eating and how often? What have her workouts been like?”
Then get to work modeling your daily decisions after hers.
Make sense?
It takes some time and thoughtful effort to work on getting a clear picture of the person you want to be when it comes to your fitness goals.
But the sooner you sit down and put some work into it, the sooner you can begin to experience the benefits of knowing your fitness journey has a fixed destination and know you are staying right on track.
If you’d love to spend 30 minutes connecting with me or one of our other Begin Within coaches for a free goal setting session, please contact us on Facebook by clicking HERE.
Nate Sleger is a certified personal trainer, life coach, and author of Exercising Backwards. His passion is helping others to become better through coaching, fitness, and nutrition.