Time for a tip- It’s a simple tip, but it’s a principle that held me back from reaching my goals in the past. I hope this post will be an encouragement to you!
If we haven’t meet.…I’d love to introduce myself. My name is Mary Beth West. I’m a Certified Personal Trainer. I’m currently finishing my certification in Fitness Nutrition. I’m a mother to teenagers and I’m married to my best friend. I’m generally a goofy person who likes to have fun & encourage others.
Today, let’s chat about goal setting. We all love goals. I love organization. I love lists. I love goals. You may set a goal for the New Year, or maybe for the quarter, or even just the day. It feels amazing to write goals down! But once you’ve written down your goal, what do you do next? Because just writing it down on a piece of paper is not going to get you there. You have to start.
Change is hard. It’s hard to change our habits. It’s hard to re-balance our time to start working out or spending more time with family. The good thing is, hard is not impossible.
To start on your goals, you have to be in a good mindset. So often, that includes overcoming self-doubt and overcoming fear. A lot of my clients have big goals but struggle with a negative mindset. Some have nagging thoughts of, “It’s going to be hard to change. It’s going to be hard to find time to exercise. My family doesn’t support me”. Their negative mindset will have a negative effect on progress.
I’ve noticed clients that focus on their challenges do not move forward. If they focus on, “It’s hard to have time to meal prep”, they won’t have time to meal prep. If a client focuses on how hard something is it often leads to self-doubt . I understand change is hard. It is hard to start the habit of meal prepping. It is hard to get your family onboard with a healthier lifestyle. I’ve learned that if you focus on your fear or difficulty it will become your reality. It’s important to stop wasting our energy on fears, and doubts.
Recently I was reminded this is an area I need to improve on. Life is a process. Everyone is learning and growing. No one has “arrived” yet.
I love to work out and challenge myself. But box jumps are difficult for me! I’ve been practicing this exercise for a while. However, I haven’t progressed very much in my jumping height. This has been discouraging to me. So I reached out to two different people that I trust for advice. Both friends gave me the same advice on how to jump higher. It wasn’t what I was looking for. Both people told me that I needed to fall. I didn’t like these conversations because I saw I needed to address my fear. I was fearful of falling. I was fearful of being embarrassed, fearful of skinning up my knees, you name it. I wasn’t challenging myself because I was only focusing on falling.
Their advice to me was, “Test your limits. You don’t know how high you can jump, Mary Beth, if you aren’t trying. If you’re not testing your limits, you won’t make progress.” This was not the advice that I was looking for! I was looking for some exercise ideas, some ideas on stance, or anything. But basically, it was “You need to test your limits and fall”. After I processed this, I realized that I needed to overcome my fear by testing my limits.
I believe this advice can apply to our fitness journey or life in general. We love being in our comfort zone and can get stuck there. Sometimes we don’t even realize how much we hold ourselves back, because we naturally crave to be comfortable. Because getting out of our comfort zone is uncomfortable. It takes courage to step out to start reaching our goals. My tip today is to get rid of your fears and self-doubt. If you allow those nagging thoughts of fear of failure take root, it will become your reality.
If you focus on your goal with a positive mindset, you will get there. You’ll find your limit, and you’ll learn you’re stronger than you knew. I found that to be true in so many different areas of my life. I’m going to apply it to my box jumps. I probably will fall and that’s okay. I need to challenge myself but first I need to get rid of my doubt.
I hope this was helpful to you. Tell any negative nagging voices to shut up and start working on your goals. If you need any help with your fitness or nutrition, please feel free to contact me. I’d love to encourage you and hear about your journey.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=oGJ_YpAZohA%3Frel%3D0%2520frameborder%3D0%2520allowfullscreen