I’ve been sitting down with a lot of clients recently and one of the most common pieces of feedback that I kept hearing was that they have never felt as good as they are feeling now.
As we always want to improve as a facility to provide our clients with better services and results, I always clients why that is so we can do more of it.
And do you know what I hear over and over from clients who say this?
They say because every other time that they tried to get fit and healthy in the past they went crazy at the start- LOCO.
Practically overnight they:
- dropped all the junk
- started training 5-6 day a week
- Intensity went full throttle- 0 to 100 in 3 seconds
- stopped smoking
- quit the beer completely
- told everyone about it on Facebook- you’re not serious if you don’t do this!!!
- started posting everything they ate on instagram- there wasn’t a 3 hour timeframe missed missed
- and on and on…………
Not that there is anything wrong with any of this stuff but if you are in a bad health and fitness rut then I hate to tell you but this approach is FUCKING CRAZY!!!!!!
Sure, it looks great on paper and sound like a great story to tell your friends but it rarely works and soon comes crashing down.
Here’s why.
You simply can’t break so many lifetime habits in such a small period of time. You can definitely change them all for a small period of time but once you come up against the dragon slayer that stops so many people in their tracks you’ll revert back to what you know- eating shit, sitting on your ass, partying much too often, watching mind-numbing tv.
And hey presto, you’re right back into the rut you thought you were out of just as fast.
So, what’s this dragon slayer that puts an end to so many peoples positive intentions?
Simply put, it’s any little unplanned challenge that doesn’t fit into what they had planned:
- a missed gym session
- a little detour from their planned nutrition
- a tough day at work
- a bad training session
It could be anything and the reason it’s so powerful is this.
Because you went crazy at the start and changed too much too soon, you put yourself under so much pressure that you simply couldn’t live upto.
The enthusiasm was super high but the pace was too fast. You were so psyched up for this and convinced that nothing could or would get in your way that this one tiny little obstacle threw you off completely.
It didn’t fit with your plan and therefore you have failed. You said you were going to train 6 days a week but only managed 3 (which compared to 0 is great).
Or you skipped breakfast and grabbed a scone on the way to work. That wasn’t part of the plan. Disaster, might as well have a can of coke now.
Once you start to think like this it becomes so much easier to revert back to what you know, which for most people is a horrific lifestyle that makes you feel terrible.
That’s exactly what these people had done previously. Now however they had gone about it the right way (truly committing to life-long change, making gradual changes and not getting thrown off course by the challenges which you are 100% guaranteed to come up against.
If you only pick one thing to change and give it 100% commitment, you can still fuck up on the other stuff and still be on track and therefore successful. Once this new habit is developed you can maintain it and move onto the next.
This approach isn’t as sexy on paper but IT PROVIDES 100% BETTER RESULTS FOR ANYONE THAT FOLLOWS IT- ALWAYS!!!
Crazy doesn’t work or last long and when it fails you’ll have another failure under your belt ready to drag you down when you try again. We can all do without that.
Loved this blog Steve!!!! 🙂