By: Tayler Glenn
Wouldn’t it be amazing if improving your body and your lifestyle were as easy as cooking? Start with a healthy diet and add in a great workout plan. Then just combine consistency, accountability, some motivation, and boom. You’re good to go! Unfortunately, adding up all the right elements doesn’t always lead to success. While ingredients are important, a mental roadblock can sap your motivation + derail your best efforts. So, let’s rewrite the recipe with these 4 tips for breaking through that mental plateau!
Find Your Why
We’ve heard it everywhere from fitness quotes, the MAWC main stage, and even from JR Ridinger himself – you have to find your why!
Your why could be anything: perhaps you want to have more energy to play with your kids, have a better quality of life, or to just to feel good enough to be the very best version of you every day. But here’s the most important part: Your why is all about you, not other people’s judgment of you.
Sometimes you need to prioritize your own goals regardless of what others think. This is because the odds are that they are truly focusing more on themselves rather than thinking about you. Your why can give you focus, drive and the determination to help you keep going when things get hard. When you’re dreading a workout or find yourself coming up with excuses to stray from your plan, focus on the reasons and motivations that caused you to commit to #FindYourFit in the first place! Often, that can be the first step to overcoming the overwhelming urge to fall back into old, bad habits.
Clarify Your Plan
When you start a plan, most of us tend to lack any real concrete goal. Most people approach their lifestyle change with hazy generalities that look great on the surface such as:
- “I’m going to lose some weight.”
- “I’m going to start being active.”
- “I’m going to cut back on sugar.”
These unclarified goals leave a lot of wiggle room which isn’t helpful when you’re trying to lose weight!
The solution? Write down your goals in the form of a SMART goal. This means it should be
- Specific
- Measurable
- Attainable
- Relevant
- Timely
By specifying that you want to “cut back to 10 grams of added sugar per day”, “go to the gym for 30 minutes 4 times per week”, or “be able to run 3 miles in 25 minutes by July”, you reduce your chances of failure. A plan with defined, clear steps towards your goal is a plan designed for success!
Take Your Time
Lifestyle changes are a marathon, not a sprint! Often, people jump in headfirst without the knowledge or skill-base to know what they’re doing. This can lead to exhaustion, injury, and regaining weight that you worked so hard to lose! Rather than starting at a sprint, spend the first few weeks purposely working at a lesser intensity than you think you can handle. Try some of the following ideas:
- Replacing one soda per day with a sparkling water
- Substituting a TLS Shake for your nighttime snack
- Replacing one serving of carbohydrates with one serving of veggies at dinner
- Beginning a walk-run program rather than trying to spring 3 miles
These approaches are not only going to give your mind and body time to adjust, but you’ll gain a better udnerstanding of how your body is feeling as you make these healthy changes!
Progress, Not Perfection
When you start a new program or hit a roadblock, it’s easy to fall into thinking that you should throw in the towel because you messed up once. You may think you need to be the perfect size (heads up, that doesn’t exist!), or that your sisters birthday cupcake made you fall off the wagon for good. The truth is, this approach can lead to your downfall.
Here’s the thing: You don’t need to be perfect to improve yourself.
Success is built in habits, so focus on sustainable changes that you can maintain over time. Small changes applied consistently in your life make the biggest impact and set you up for a transformation without the added stress!
What are your tips for pushing through a mental roadblock?
Tell us in the comments below!
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