How To Work From The Inside Out

When most people decide to make a physical change, their immediate instinct is to evaluate what they can see. Think about it...walk past a mirror and chances are you evaluate your physique. Look at pictures of yourself and once again, it's about the external. It was no different for me as well. Each time I felt like I needed to lose weight, it was because of how I looked or how tight my clothes had become. There really wasn't any thought process behind the decision. I would "simply re-design" a workout program and then begin "eating healthy." And just like the time before and the time before that, after a few weeks of having some positive results, I would slowly begin to sabotage my progress. Because I was noticing that I was losing some weight, my clothes were fitting looser, and my workouts were improving, I felt that it would be OK to begin missing workouts (sleeping an additional hour) and eating whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. It became this game of "waiting until tomorrow" to get back on the right path. Unfortunately weeks down this road led to the weight coming back and me being right back where I started. I was always disappointed, and feelings of letting myself down and being a failure would set in. If I only knew then what I know now, I could have saved myself over 18 years of this yo-yo approach to healthy change.

Through my current journey, the biggest breakthrough that I have had is that in the past, I was so focused on always being perfect...not missing a workout....eating all of the right foods...that if I did miss a workout or ate something unhealthy, I would feel like I blew my plan and just continue with missing workouts and making poor food choices. I have learned by "Getting my head in the game," it doesn't have to be "All-or-None." Missing a workout or eating an unhealthy meal is just that...just 1. It has no major impact on all of the progress I have made up to that point and the progress I can make moving forward. I am now much more aware of getting back into the groove than I was previously. So what exactly has changed for me? I now start with the inside; my mindset and motivation for WHY I am doing what I do. Using this approach helps guide me in the right direction and keeps me in the right frame of mind to ensure I am being successful.

There are 3 things that I have learned to internally focus on in order to keep my motivation for change "sky-high." Even when I just feel tired, stressed, unmotivated...(place your word here), keeping focused on these 3 things re-ignites the flame and gets me re-energized to keep moving forward. Here they are:

1. Mindset

2. Positive Thinking --> silencing my "Inner Critic"

3. Knowing my TRUE WHY's

I will cover Mindset below and then the other two in subsequent posts....

Having the Right Mindset: Have you or someone you know ever gone through a major event that dramatically changed the way you think? Here's an example. Someone very close to me & who I love dearly, years ago needed to have a triple-bypass heart operation. This person was a very heavy smoker which most likely contributed to the heart condition. Of course, everyone was very concerned, especially the person going through the surgery. Good news is that the surgery was a success. There was a long recovery process and during it, this person quit smoking...completely. WHY? Because the event was still very fresh in their mind and they did not want to jeopardize the rehab or have to ever go through something like this again. For years, this person remained smoke-free. Each visit to their doctor was positive and there were no signs or symptoms of additional disease. Then, several years ago, out of nowhere, the smoking began again. At first it was one or two cigarettes a day. Now, it's a pack a day. What happened? Well one thing that typically happens to many people is that the further someone gets away from a major event, the easier it becomes to forget how much pain & suffering they had incurred. In other words, they go back to old habits.

During the fact finding phase of starting my transformation, as I looked for what successful people were doing to make positive change, a common focus was around changing their mindset. I read a number of books on mindset (pretty dry reads) and continue to explore this topic. What I've learned is that there are two types of people. Those who have a Fixed Mindset, meaning that these individuals believe that their traits are just "given." They have a certain amount of brains & talent and nothing will ever improve this. They feel and think that regardless of what they do, nothing will change because "they have all that they will ever have." The other group believes in a Growth Mindset. These individuals see the opportunity to continue to develop their knowledge and talents through determination & effort. This group fully believes that they can continue to grow, learn and change for the good by giving more to the process. In other words, they focus on having a positive attitude and are confident that with putting in the effort, they will make significant improvements. So my question to you is, which camp do you reside in? If you're not sure, I have included a quiz you can take to gauge which way you lean. Look for "MIndset Quiz" on the Resources Page of the website. The great news is that even if you have fixed-mindset traits, you can change. It's all about being ope to it. Trust me when I say I have been a fixed-minded individual for many years. If I can find ways to become more growth-minded, I believe any one can. I just got tired of doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result (this is the definition of Insanity)..

3 things I'm doing within my journey to foster a growth mindset:

I Acknowledge & Embrace Imperfections This is by far the hardest for me. As I have mentioned, I have always considered myself a "perfectionist." Letting go of this trait has been so liberating for me. I now look at how much "progress" I am making and focus my energy and gratitude on this.

I replace the word “failing” with the word “learning” There's a quote that says, "There is no losing...you either win or you learn." My journey has been full of eye-opening learnings. Looking back, I now see that over the past 18 years, I wasn't really open to learning new ways to approach change. I felt I "knew it all and I could fix my problem." Only when I threw up my arms in frustration and "self-defeat," recognizing that my way wasn't working did I open up to other possibilities.

I value the process over the end result It truly is about the journey. Rather than focus on how quickly I can hit my goals, I have become much more mindful & grateful for everything I am absorbing along the way. This has created such a huge difference in me and how I approach not only physical change, but also family & work related objectives. I am becoming a much deeper person for wanting to "experience the ride instead of just quickly getting to the destination."

I hope that you found some value in this post.

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