When I first became a personal trainer I thought it would be pretty easy to help people. I was in good shape myself, and all I had to do was teach people how to do what I did – train everyday and eat loads of protein. lol!
If I wrote up a training program and diet plan I just presumed that the client would follow it and get results…
I couldn’t have been more wrong! lol.
Whilst having a solid training program and eating strategy are imperative, the two BIGGEST things that underpin success are…
- Mindset
- Habits
Improve the two areas above and pretty much anything is possible.
CREATURES OF HABIT…
Did you know that 95% of the time we’re on autopilot?
We are creatures of habit and do the same things pretty much every day, for example…
We operate subconsciously, most of the time we’re not even aware of why we do what we do, eat what we eat, think the way we do, etc, etc.
We eat the same foods each week, drive the same way to work, watch similar TV programmes, listen to a certain type of music, see the same people, the list is endless – most weeks feel the same, because we do the same things!
That’s fine if you’re happy with your life.
BUT sometimes It can be good to stop and ask yourself the following questions…
Are you happy?
Are you healthy? (mentally and physically)
Are you leading the life you want?
Are your habits serving you?
Are you inspired and motivated?
If you said NO to any of the above then it could be time to look within and take yourself off autopilot and start re-wiring your mental computer hard-drive to serve you and improve your life.
LIMITING BELIEFS AND FAILURE…
Einstein once said…
“insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”
In a nutshell people don’t change because they don’t do anything differently!”
Often one of the biggest issues we face when trying to make changes to our lives are what’s called ‘limiting beliefs’ – for example YOU want to lose weight and improve your health and fitness BUT deep down you don’t believe that you can or you don’t deserve it…
You’ve tried multiple diets, and exercise programmes, but then eventually reverted back to old ways. If this happens enough times then you start to believe that you cant do it and give up. Next time you start a new diet you go in with hope… BUT eventually those negative thinking patterns kick in again, you remember how many times you’ve failed in the past…and you end up back at square one, feeling powerless and beating yourself up for failing…yet again. This reinforces the failure cycle further, adding petrol to the fire and making that belief even stronger.
These types of limiting beliefs are stored in your mind and influence your behaviour on a day to day basis.
This is just one example of a limiting belief, often you’ll have more than one, in some cases there will be many. Combine this beliefs and they keep you trapped in the same place.
If you tell yourself enough times that you aren’t good enough…
Guess what?
It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.
You believe that you’re not good enough! You may let people walk all over you and any success that comes your way, you sabotage it… because you don’t believe you deserve it.
You may spend your life trying to make yourself happy with means such as: excessive eating, alcohol, drugs, plastic surgery or any type of quick fix that gives you some short term relief from your low self esteem. This is just an example, there are many more interpretations/consequences of such a limiting belief.
When it comes to changing your life, body shape, improving career success – or anything of such nature…
If deep down you don’t believe you can achieve it, or that you don’t deserve it… then you wont. It’s simple.
It’s time to eradicate those limiting beliefs that are holding you back and not serving you, and instead it’s time to rewire your system for success…
As Dr Wayne Dyer says “ when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change” – it’s all about creating change within, and re-wiring your brain, removing the negative computer programmes, and putting positive thoughts/beliefs in your head enough times that they become the default, instead of the negative system that’s not serving you. As time goes on you will evolve and those old thinking patterns will either disappear or wont have the same influence on your mind/behaviour.
Before we dive into some tips for how to do this, let’s look into a simplified version of the brain…
IN A NUTSHELL…
To change a behaviour you first have to become conscious of what you want to change, then you have to think about how you want to react instead of your current reaction, then you have to practice that new reaction and keep practicing it until it becomes automatic.
Some times you’ll need help to get there, it’s not always easy to change alone and you may need a coach, mentor or some specific therapy to help you – so don’t be afraid to ask for extra help.
I hope you found this post helpful, if you did please give it a thumbs up or comment below – it would be great to get some feedback.
Thanks for reading,
