I have recently started to pay close attention to my attitude, and the attitude of others on health and fitness. I have learned a few things along the way, and would like to pass on a little advice.

I understand better than most how difficult this lifestyle can be, and how much it can test your limits. Whether you have a family with children and a spouse who seem to almost fight agents you when it comes to working out, training for a competition, and/or eating clean, or you are fighting agents your own self to become a better, healthier, stronger, faster version of yourself. For what ever reason you cannot seem to keep it together for long periods of time. Something takes your focus away from your goals, and diminishes your motivation to achieve what you really want. Before you know it, one day turns into a week, and a week turns into a month and so on and so forth. Your excuses become your new focus, and you feel resentful to the entire process. The question is how do we stop this cycle from happening? How do we keep that fire inside of us, where nothing, and no one can do or say anything to make us lose our focus? 

First and foremost, we need to learn how to forgive ourselves when we have a bad day, and make a unhealthy choice. The sooner you can accept what you did, and forgive your actions, the sooner you can get back on track. When we continue to beat ourselves up over and over it's only inevitable that we will sabotage the entire day or week, instead of just that short moment when we lost focus. You have to shake it off, and stop punishing yourself. YOU have the power to change the outcome of your day, NO ONE else has that power. 

Change your attitude. This lifestyle isn't suppose to be a punishment restricting you from everything you love, it's a gift to keep you around longer to enjoy everything you love! Don't tell yourself  "I can't eat that" instead you should be thinking " I CAN eat that, but I don't want it" 

Your attitude will absolutely determine your outcome in what ever you do, there is no going around that. 

Find someone who is on your side, who can motivate you, empower you, and hold you accountable. It's makes all the difference in the world to have someone simply ask you to see your food log for the day. Or care to hear how your training is going, and if you made a personal record! This is one of the many reason I love CrossFit as much as I do, we have an entire community cheering each other on, supporting one another, and helping without judgement to reach our goals. We want nothing more than for the person standing next to us to succeed!

If you can relate to these challenges in any way, I hope you can take something away from this and use it to help you along the way. If you have fallen off track, change your attitude and get back on again!! If you are going strong, keep it up! No one ever regrets being healthy! :)

I was doing some research this morning on mentality, and how it correlates with fitness, health, and wellness. I found what I am about to share with you, and read it a few times. It was written 5 years ago, the author at the time was 29, and in my opinion, wise beyond his years. 

Please forgive for not finding my own words to write, but I have found there are times when you simply cannot say it better, this is one of them! 

I hope you can take away the value of his message, and the great advice he gives. I promise it is worth your time reading!

I wanted to share with you my thoughts on how we can automatically change our motivation to exercise with a shift in our mentality. I've used this for myself and explained it to many others who were then able to get into gear, so hopefully it will have the same effect here. It's a very basic explanation, but I think you'll get the gist of it.

First

To start off, our motivation to do something - and then continue following through with it - is based on 2 things. The first is an emotionally compelling reason, the second is our self-perception of who we are relative to the rest of the world (in short, our identity).

Second

The initial motivation to become fit results from the desire to fulfill a presently unfulfilled emotional need. Everything we ever want has some sort of emotion tied to it. Everything we want and actually get has a strong enough emotion behind it that it drives us to follow through.

The key to lasting motivation then is to find a strong enough emotional reason to take action. This doesn't need to be complex, and very often it is in fact quite basic. For instance, the desire to feel attractive, confident, respected, etc., are very basic emotions we all want to experience. However, if an individual does not actively experience one of those feelings, it creates an emotional void that needs to be filled. Obviously there is more than one way to go about fulfilling this need, but if we mentally link physical fitness as an effective way to fulfill this need, we create an internal motivational force to get us going.

This is what happens at New Years. Many people associate excess weight as the cause of some emotional problem, and realizing that losing this weight will resolve this issue, they go to the gym. They are motivated to make change... at least initially.

Third

The problem is, having an emotionally compelling reason isn't going to be strong enough unless you identify yourself as being someone who can achieve the desired result. Whether your goal is to lose weight, put on muscle, or anything else, if you don't perceive yourself as being capable of achieving it, your motivation will fizzle, regardless of your reason.

Fourth

This creates the need for us to change our internal perceptions of who we are. This is done through what I identify as a self reinforcing mental cycle I call the "FIT Circle". F = Feelings, I = Identity, T = Thoughts. Feelings affect Identity which affects thoughts which affect feelings. The FIT Circle is a representation of our mental conditioning, and if you understand how yours is set, you can change it.

Fifth

I like to introduce how this works by looking at identity. Everyone of us has an self perceived identity of who we are. If you are overweight you may identify yourself as a "fat person". If you are in great shape you may identify yourself as an athlete. Now what's interesting about identities is that they are all made up of a certain belief system. You could say that your belief system is the DNA of your identity.

Here's how it affects your motivation. If you have a compelling reason to take action but you don't believe you can achieve your goal, you are identifying yourself as someone who won't succeed. And this is the problem a lot of people run into. If you don't see yourself as someone capable of making changes, ie. identify yourself as a fat person, you quite simply won't make the changes.

This is because seeing yourself as incapable spawns thoughts that reinforce this belief. For example, when I was overweight I would think things such as, "I can't do this I'm not fit," or, "I don't have the genetics to lose weight so why bother trying. It won't work." Obviously thoughts like this kill your motivation quickly.

As you continue thinking negative, self defeating thoughts like this, it will make you feel terrible about yourself. And if your feelings coincide with your identity, it reinforces the whole cycle. For instance, many fat people feel bad about being fat, and this reinforces their identity that they are a fat person who can't do anything.

Fit people are obviously the opposite of this, thinking things like "I CAN do this", feeling good about being fit, and as a result of feeling good about their identity, they continue doing things to reinforce it, ie. exercise.

Sixth

The beauty of this is, anyone can take control of their FIT Circle and change how they think about themselves. With a strong reason to take action coupled with the mentality that success is possible, they create the motivation to take action regardless of how tough things get.

The easiest way to this is a two step process.

The first step is to constantly visualize/imagine achieving your goal. If you can see yourself doing something in your head, your mind starts to accept the possibility of it happening in reality. This is because your brain can't distinguish between an imagined experience and a real one. So by doing this, you start to shift your identity from someone who can't to someone who can.

The second step is to consciously monitor and replace any negative thoughts you have. If you have a thought like, "I can't do this because ___", immediately cancel it and replace it with a positive thought that affirms you CAN. This is going to make you feel better about taking action, and work through the cycle to reinforce your newly changing identity. The better you feel about exercising etc., the more motivated you will be to do it.

Keep this up long enough, and you will discover that your whole mentality has changed to someone who view themselves as a FIT person, and you will then be self motivated to take action with very little mental effort.

Trust and Rapport

Coaching isn't just our job, it is a lifestyle. A great coach needs to establish relationships with all types of people, learn from each one, and listen to their specific needs. You (the client)  have a choice of who you will have as a coach, whom you will share your fears, secrets, and victories with. For many, this is a deep and meaningful relationship. Some would even say one they cannot live without. Needless to say, this is not to be taken lightly, or treated as just a "job".

I am going to take a different approach and coach the coaches. Let's just say it's a "friendly reminder" as to why we do what we do! A reminder that the people standing in front of you, taking your guidance, have made the choice to hear it from you, NOT from someone else. The value in that is beyond words, so let's make sure we are damn good at it!

The coaching relationship requires the establishment of strong trust and rapport in order to generate a productive and fulfilling connection. Trust can be defined as, willingness to be vulnerable to another based on the confidence that the other is benevolent, honest, open, reliable, and competent. Understanding the importance of these 5 qualities sets you apart from other coaches. The key is to have unconditional positive regard for each and every client. In other words, being completely accepting, without reservations. Holding such regards for clients will establish rapport and trust. The coaching alliance will be weak and unsuccessful if clients do not believe that their coaches are on their side, accepting them unconditionally.

Showing empathy, a real understanding of anther persons' experience, including his or her feelings, needs, and desires will effectively build a bond between you and your client. When our clients are struggling, it is especially important that we connect with their feelings in a supportive, and understanding way. When clients feel judged, their self-efficicy and readiness to change may be broken. When clients feel a lack of compassion, they may become resistant and isolate themselves from the resources needed for change-that's us-we are the resource for needed change!

Be a humble role model. Coaches should serve as humble role models for optimal health and wellness "walking the talk" without being boastful, arrogant, or rude. Coaching is a not a service profession, it's a modeling profession. We need to model the behavior that we want to see in our clients and our prospective clients. Our humility comes from continually working on our own fulfillment, balance, health, fitness, and well-being. We know quite well that we still have much to learn. The challenge is to be role models without placing ourselves on a pedestal or talking too much about ourselves. The key is to never dominate the conversation in our eagerness to help, but to always remain humble.

Lastly- PAY ATTENTION! Trust and rapport are not built through multitasking. When coaches are distracted, whether physically, intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, the coaching relationship suffers. Trying to do two things at once may cause us to lose strands of the conversation and degrade the quality of our inquiries. Clients can tell when we are not 100% present. If coaches fail to pay full attention, their energy becomes less focused and engaging. It is up to the coach to take the conversation to a higher level by paying full attention. After all, you must remember…..they choose YOU. Because YOU are an amazing coach, with unwavering abilities to change lives!

" It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else" -Erma Bombeck

Leggo my EGO

A couple years ago, my coach asked our class while we were warming up for our session…."are you nervous about todays' WOD"? We all just kind of looked at each-other, like….duh, of course we are! One of us finally said "yeah, I'm nervous" to which our coach said "good, you should be"! He went on to explain his question to us, and why it's important to feel some fear before the workout. The reason is pretty simple, no fear, equals leggo your ego, dude!

I think about this often. In fact more often than not. I am a Leo, who by nature is born with a lion size ego. I have to keep it in check all the time. I am guilty of looking at a WOD and thinking "this ain't sh*t, I got this." To only be face down on the floor, gasping for air, not knowing what just happened to me! This is a valuable lesson to learn, one I think more of us need to consider for our own good.

No matter how great you are, or how many years you have been an athlete, you should still be at least a little nervous, and fearful of what you are about to demand your body to do! If you still get that pit in your stomach when you approach the white board, or are a pile of nerves before a competition….well, good-for- you!! It means you're human, and still have respect for the sport! Don't ever lose it, because humility is a beautiful thing!!

"More the knowledge, Lesser the Ego, Lesser the knowledge, More the Ego" -Albert Einstein.