Hi there, when it comes to fitness and achieving our fitness goals, there are many obstacles (sometimes imaginary) that come our way. But did you know that your mind is the number one obstacle and if you can take care of that the rest should be rather easy. In exercise, do not just take care of your body, by exercising & eating well, but take care of your mind as well: Find out how your mind can hurt your goals and how to overcome it.
1.) Your mind can hurt your goals by fantasizing too much. It is common to be told to be positive, think like you
want to become, fantasize about that dream body and so on and so forth. Would you believe that fantasizing is the #1 way your brain can unintentionally ruin your goals?
It seems unlikely, right? Psychologists have found that while positive thinking
about the future is broadly beneficial, too much fantasy can have disastrous results
on achieving goals.
The problem with positive
fantasies is that they allow us to anticipate
success in the here and now, and a fit body like any
other worthwhile goal takes time to achieve.
However, they don’t alert us to the problems we are likely to face along the way and can leave us with less motivation—after
all, it feels like we’ve already reached our goal.
It’s one
way in which our minds’ own
brilliance lets us down. Because it’s so amazing at simulating our achievement
of future events, it can actually undermine
our attempts to
achieve those goals in reality.
Again, this is not to say that
visualizing goals is necessarily a haphazard strategy for achieving them, it’s
just that we need to be aware of the dangers
of excessive
fantasy. Instead of being
entranced with what the future may bring, we
need to learn to love the work here and now. Enjoying
our day by day progress and realistic checkpoints’ is a much more practical way to create our future; getting lost in grandiose dreams that
focus on the ultimate end is not.
2.) Your mind procrastinates on big projects by visualizing the worst parts. This is one of the most common reasons for inconsistency
in fitness.
Procrastination, of all of the
things on this list, is likely the most
recognizable: everybody realizes that they procrastinate from time to time, and it’s
something we are forced to battle with every
day. How can we fight this persistent opponent?
The best way to beat procrastination is to start somewhere… anywhere .Our minds have the
habit of envisioning the impending huge
workload of an upcoming task. It also tends to
focus on the most difficult parts or sections,
and this is where procrastination begins to
set in: as we try to avoid the “hard work”, we find ways to skate around
it and trick ourselves into thinking that we’re
busy.
Just starting though, triggers our
mind in a different way. Start, and your brain will overcome the first hurdle. This seemingly small milestone appears to be the most important one to overcome if you wish to defeat procrastination.
After starting a task, your mind
will be more enticed to finish it to its
“conclusion.” You also tend to see that it’s not as big a mountain as you initially
imagined, and that the work involved in completing this task won’t be so terrifying after all.
So start that fitness program that
you’ve been meaning to start,
call that personal trainer, join that gym, and you'll be amazed.
3.) Your mind will “abandon ship” at
the first sign of distress
Anyone who’s fought the good fight with dieting will likely recognize this
phenomenon. Psychologists have
observed that this is much more likely to happen as a
result of you missing a previously set goal.
Truly, our mind is geared towards
a call of “Abandon ship!”,
whenever we come short of our goals. Don’t let this happen to you! The
best way to combat your mind from signaling ‘Mission Abort!’
after you’ve missed a short-term
goal is to re-frame what just happened.
Yes, you did fall short or maybe
mess up this time, but remember the progress that you’ve
made.
With a fitness program for
example, you could look at all of the “good
days” you’ve accumulated thus far: even if
you fell after only a few days of starting your new program, it’s still an accomplishment to
have started one and to have set long-term goals for yourself. Short-term lapses in your end-goal are not like a bad apple spoiling the bunch: you have gotten things accomplished so far and you need to stay focused on the long-term, not become distraught by a single mishap. Research tells us
that this is the best mindset to take for
misfortune and failure in general: your
progress and achievements go so much farther
than that slip-up; don’t let your mind convince
you that all is lost!
4.) Your mind loves mindless busywork disguised as progress.
One of the ways in which your
brain continues it’s trickery is through busy work:
work that gets “something” done, but not something that
produces any measurable results.
Our mind just loves to become robotic and to even mimic people out of habit. This busy work is often a mechanism our mind uses in cohesion with avoiding big projects instead of diving into the difficult
tasks we KNOW we should get done, we’ll
instead float around doing semi-related (read:
barely related) menial tasks to make ourselves
feel productive without actually getting anything done, (one of the main
reasons why people spend years & money in the gym and not get any significant
results). Here’s
the thing: you’re
not going to build a thriving business or a
fit body with that kind of busy work. It takes
doing the hard work and it takes deliberate
practice, there’s no
way around it.
The thing is, your mind knows
this, that’s why you have to remind it
remind yourself that the challenging stuff is
often the stuff that produces the results you
desire. Also remember that you can fight that
procrastination by just getting started. When you look
back at what you’ve
gotten done by the end of the day, make sure you’re
proud of what you got accomplished, don’t let your mind ruin your goals by diverting you from what needs to be done!
5.) Your mind gives you a false sense of time.
Your mind says: “Relax,
you’ve got plenty of time to workout later.” The reality: You are straight-up terrible at estimating how long it will take you to finish tasks. You’ll almost assuredly
underestimate the time you’ll need. When you need to
determine a time frame for a certain project,
imagine someone else will be completing the
task and your guess will be closer to the
truth. This is because your mind isn’t as bad at determining how long it will take someone else to complete a task. You’ll
overestimate in most cases, but it’s nothing compared to the wildly overoptimistic standards you’ll
set for yourself.
6.) Your mind is not good at “winging it” when
it comes to planning…
ever!
You not only do well when you plan
but laid plans seem to get accomplished more
often. When you want to start your fitness journey, plan: plan for your
workouts, plan your meals, monitor your progress, and you’ll accomplish a lot more.
Bodyfit gives you the options of Personal Training and Bootcamp style of Training for those who love the outdoors. Get a trainer to help you overcome this obstacles. Don't walk in this journey alone.
For one on one Personal Training call David 0726 316 559
For outdoors fitness, Join our Nairobi Bootcamp Call Wagude 0724 916 981
Getting results is what we do at Bodyfit. Join our movement and lead a healthier, better, longer. Let's keep moving.
