New year resolutions, the media screaming about new year, new you and you’re telling yourself this year is the year you’ll achieve your health and fitness goals. Whether it’s to run a 5k or a half marathon or simply to just move yourself a couple days a week setting new goals are difficult to achieve simply because we aren’t all that great with change.
By focusing on your mindset and developing your mindset techniques it’s really surprising how much you can achieve. I’m lucky enough to have been brought up in a home where my stepdad is huge on self-development and mindset so along my years of school, uni and my career I have been exposed to plenty of his learnings. See below for my top tips of improving your mindset to help with your health and fitness goals:
You don’t always have to be positive
This was one of my biggest learnings. Across social media we are always told to ‘be positive’, ‘keep smiling’, ‘chin up’, ‘be happy’ but actually that isn’t always the case. We are going to have bad days and better days - things in life will go wrong and things will get in the way of our goals meaning we sometimes find ourselves feeling unhappy. We demonise the feelings of sadness when actually I believe every feeling should be welcome, it’s just about acknowledging that we are feeling that way and letting it go. Feeling sad about having to miss a gym session or run this week and worried it will mess your goals? - accept you feel that way, acknowledge it and let it go. Don’t beat yourself for not being happy 24/7, everyone is allowed bad days and everyone is allowed to be sad. It doesn’t mean your not working towards your goals if you suddenly have a bad day.
Fixed mindset vs growth mindset
‘I’m just not the running type, none of my family are’. ‘I’ve never been good at sport so I won’t even try’ - these are sentences from someone with a fixed mindset. ‘I’m not the running type, yet’. ‘I wasn’t that good at sport when I was younger so im going to try it now’ are sentences of a growth mindset. Viewing everything you do as an opportunity to learn and grow rather than just putting yourself in a box and not even trying is a great way to start to achieve your goals. Believe that you can learn to do it even if you can’t at the minute.
Viewing failure as a lesson learnt
Failure doesn’t mean the end. Failure doesn’t mean to stop what you’re working on. Failure simply means that whatever you just tried, doesn’t work - you learnt that. Failure is a lesson not a reason to stop. Failure is an opportunity to try a new route. Going for a PB and didn’t get it? Analyse why and try something different next time.
Pain vs Pleasure
I feel as though a lot we do as humans is to avoid pain or seek pleasure - check out Tony Robbins, Awaken the Giant within book! I use this thought as a way to stay mindful in things that I do. For example, if I’m feeling lazy with no real reason to not go to the gym to work on my handstands (a goal of mine in 2019) I ask myself this:
‘Is the pleasure of sitting in front of the sofa for an extra hour instead of going to the gym tonight bigger than the pain I may feel I haven’t mastered my handstands by summer?’
if it is then that’s fine but the answer is 90% of the time no.
Gratitude
It’s surprising that just being grateful of the opportunity to be able to set these goals and work on your goals can actually motivate you to practise or achieve them. I try to write down 3 things im grateful for each day as a way to keep me smiling - when you’re truly grateful for everything you have the opportunities you have it’s a really refreshing way to keep you on track.
My aim in life to create happy energy to achieve all my goals in life, I document all different things and project im working on over on my instagram @chlohodgkinson and would love for you to come say hey!
www.chlohodgkinson.com
