8 days ago, I wrote an article asking you to think about how you wanted to start your next decade.
That start begins in 2 days.
Starting on the right foot can be daunting, but over the next 6 days, we will give you the step by step road map.
- Today: Step 1 – Create Sustainable Motivation
- Tomorrow: Step 2 – Forge the Right Mindset
- Wednesday: Step 3 – Guarantee Results by Leveraging Your Best Asset
- Thursday: Step 4 – Take Action
- Friday: Step 5 – How to Deal with Setbacks
- Saturday: Step 6 – Finish the Right Way
THE EBBS AND FLOWS OF OUR MOTIVATION
If I plotted our motivation to workout over time it would look eerily similar to the result of giving a toddler a crayon and a blank sheet of paper – a seemingly random assortment of ups, downs, and circles that inevitably end up off the entire page all together at some points.
Sound about right?
MY OWN STRUGGLES THAT CHANGED THE WAY I Coach AND TRAIN
In my fourth year in business, I was at a major low point in my own fitness journey. A perfect storm of professional and personal challenges just crushed my motivation to workout.
Professionally, I was completely burnt out. In a profession of passion, it’s easy to give too much too often and I had done that for far too long. Frankly, there were weeks at a time I didn’t even want to walk in to one of my own gyms – to work or workout.
On the fitness side of things, I lost sight of a reason to train. My mid-30s body couldn’t take competitive training any more, I never really cared about having a 6 pack, and training for long term health reasons was too far off in the future to have any kind of substantial value to me.
Then I did something that forever changed how I approach fitness as an athlete and Coach – I decided to train for something I enjoyed.
In my case, I loved to lift. I decided I wanted to have a 300lb Bench, 400lb Squat, and 500lb Deadlift all at the same time. I wasn’t terribly far off but I knew it would take a solid 3 months of work. That was a timeframe short enough that I could see the light at the end of the tunnel, but long enough that I had to work for it.
I circled a date on the calendar, created my plan, and got to work.
Suddenly, the gym was my happy place again. Each week I saw my working numbers start to climb. Each session I was having fun and left feeling accomplished. I no longer HAD to go to the gym…I WANTED to!
90 days later it was the day I circled on my calendar. I was nervous and wanted to succeed, but funny enough I didn’t even care if I failed. I knew I was mentally and physically in a much better place than I was just three months before.
I entered the gym. Prepared my body and mind. Then proceeded to hit each one of the marks I had trained for!
Now here’s the funny part. I was the strongest I had ever been, but not the fittest. I became a bit of a specialist, so my endurance wasn’t great. But here’s the thing…who cares?
It’s not always about being your absolute fittest at every point in every day. It’s about keeping motivated to show up day in and day out so you can maintain and enjoy healthy habits.
Sometimes that means you need to focus on what brings joy. Other times you may need to focus on getting better at your weaknesses. And yes, sometimes, it may be the right choice to set your sights on being the fittest you’ve ever been.
The point is to simply work towards something meaningful to you.
ACTION STEP #1 – DECIDE WHAT YOU WILL TRAIN FOR THE NEXT 60-90 DAYS
Now, it’s time for you to start your decade by choosing what you will train for!
You can choose anything! Just make sure it hits a few criteria.
- You can realistically achieve it in 60-90 days.
- It’s measurable. E.g. “I want to be better at gymnastics” isn’t measurable. “I want to do 10 butterfly pull ups unbroken” is quite measurable.
- Training for this goal and achieving this goal actually makes you excited!
THOUGHT STARTERS
Folks tend to do better with a little direction, so if you have trouble coming up with something, here are some ideas.
- Benchmark week is next week! Next week will test everything: strength, gymnastics, work capacity, etc. You could always see how it goes and choose one of those tests to improve on. We will do benchmark week 90 days later 🙂
- We have an internal competition on February 22nd! I will 100% program a heavy olympic lift. Perhaps aiming to add 10-15 lbs to your lift by then is a good goal. Or if you want to improve work capacity by then, perhaps you can train to improve your Fight Gone Bad score.
- We are doing a spartan race May 16th! That’s further out than 90 days, but perhaps make a goal that will help with that. Example: I want to be able to traverse 10 monkey bars in a row by end of March. (I’ll be building us monkey bars soon!)
- Pick a discipline you want to be better at and choose a good metric inside of it. Example: A big weakness for me is endurance. Eventually one of my goals will be to row a 2k in under 7 minutes.
Taking 5 minutes now to set a goal can easily motivate you for the next 90 days. That’s one heck of a payoff. Get it done!
Mike
