I had a conversation with a person I met in the gym about what it takes to accomplish your goals when it comes to being more physically fit. I explained to this person that for me it was a journey. You not only have to be physically fit but also mentally fit to get to where you want to be. You have to have a strong will or someone behind you who is willing to accept the fact that you are changing and is not threatened by the change that is occurring. Just like any other long journey you would take on foot you will find yourself coming across a lot of obstacles. You just have to keep in mind that at the end of the journey it will all be well worth it.
A lot of mistakes are made when people are on this journey to better their health and fitness. I'm just going to touch on a few of the many that exist. The first one I'm going to talk about is..... "Trying to bring others along for the journey." Only you will know when it's time to make that change to better your physical fitness and health. Until you have made up your mind that it's time to do something it will not happen. You're going to feel so much better about yourself and you're going to want to share that with everyone you know. You may get a compliment or two and people will ask what you are doing. Once you tell peoople what you have been up to you're going to become like an evangelist for what you are doing. You'll invite people along with you to workout and give them advice on eating better but it's not their time yet. It's your journey and not theirs. If you do convince them to follow your lead it won't last long. You'll find yourself on the journey the same way you started.. Alone.
Something else that I see a lot of is.. "Being cheated out of your success by the negativity of others." You want to know if you are progressing on your journey? If you get outside influences trying to stop you from what you're doing. See you may not be able to notice but people around you will. Either your body is starting to change or you're able to move a lot faster or be able to do things physically that some of the people around you can't. All of these things are changes for the better, which ultimately makes you better. Most individuals don't like change and when you start to, for some reason it shakes their worlds up. You may get comments like, "You're obsessed!", "You're crazy!", "You're losing too much weight!", "You need a real hobby!", "When do you have time for fun!", "Why can't you eat this!", "You're starving yourself!", "You workout too much!" and one of my favorites of all time. "Your trainer doesn't know what he's doing!" Yeah ok.. Lol! It's times like this where you need to reflect back on what you were doing prior to making all these changes in your life. If you are doing a lot better than what you were then you need to blow the negativity off you just like blowing a piece of lint off your clothes. If you choose to listen to the negativity and stop you run the risk of having to start all the way back over again with your journey. It's then when you'll realize how far you had come before having to start over again. Trust me, you don't want this for yourself.
Lastly, "Being able to accept what you have accomplished." Once the journey is done and you're a better person, just being able to accept yourself is very important. I've seen some that are more critical of themselves now than before they started. This type of behavior is just pure insanity almost. Instead of seeing yourself as better you try to point out every flaw you have. Not only do you point it out to yourself but to everyone around you. This is where you need to call a time out for yourself. You've spent all this time being beat up by others on your journey and then when you finish and you beat yourself up. How does that make sense at all? I suggest finding an old picture or an old article of clothes. Look at the picture, try on those clothes, and if you see a difference then you have accomplished something. If you can't accept that then all of what you have done was for nothing. Make a vow to yourself that all of your hard work was not in vein and you going to do your best to love yourself and take care of yourself. At the end of the day if you can't love yourself, how can you expect for anyone else to.
There are many other examples I could give but it would take forever to go through them all. One of the reason why I love what I do is because I act as a guide for my clients to keep them on this journey. I've been down this road so I can show you the right way to go. I cant force them to do stay on it, but if you listen you'll get there. It's going to take a while but when you look back you'll be able to tell it was one hell of an awesome journey.
