If you can learn to achieve your health and fitness goals, you can learn to achieve success in every other realm of life.
The gym is like a microcosm for every day life.
If you can learn to be empowered and achieve success in that realm, you can learn to be confident and achieve success in every other aspect of life.
Here are some life lessons that will help you achieve your health and fitness goals AND help you achieve more success in every day life.
10 Life Lessons You’ll Learn By Committing To A Health Lifestyle:
1. You learn to be comfortable being uncomfortable. To achieve success, you have to be able to step outside your comfort zone – you have to become comfortable being uncomfortable. And working out and eating well can teach you that. To get stronger, you have to lift that heavier weight, run that extra mile, spend that extra minute pushing that sled. You have to force your body to do something a bit uncomfortable. When following a clean eating program, sometimes you also have to be a bit uncomfortable. Sometimes you have to be “different” and order something healthy even while others are indulging. Success demands that we can’t always do things in our comfort zone. If you can learn to be comfortable pushing your limits and doing things that are difficult or beyond what you are used to, you will achieve success.
2. You learn how to create HABITS. To achieve success, you must repeat the same small actions day in and day out. You must follow a routine that moves you forward toward your goals. These actions, this routine that you repeat day in and day out, become your habits. And once habits are formed, it is generally easy to stay on course. HOWEVER, it isn’t easy to create habits. Before things become habit, they must be ingrained through constant reminder. And not only can it be hard to ingrain new routines, but sometimes our new habits go against our current behaviors – behaviors that are all too well ingrained. Therefore, if you can learn to make diet and exercise changes, to create new and healthy habits, you can learn to ingrain other productive habits that will make you successful in every day life!
3. You learn to balance living in the moment with staying dedicated to long-term goals. There are going to be times that you have to buckle down and do things you don’t want to do. There are going to be times where you have to think long-term even when you want to live in the moment. On the flip side, there will also be moments that you just have to seize the day, indulge, and forget about your long-term goals. Leading a healthy lifestyle teaches you a lot about balance. It teaches you to balance indulging with your healthy lifestyle. It teaches you to balance immediate desires with something you may have been working toward for much, much longer. If you can find this balance in the microcosm of diet and exercise, you will be able to find it in every aspect of your life. You will find that you know how to sacrifice immediate desires for long-term goals, but that you also know when you have to cut yourself some slack and indulge!
4. You learn how to push yourself. Our minds will often give up first. We feel a little discomfort or sense some resistance and often our brains will quit even though we have the capacity to do more, to push further. In the gym, you can really learn to test your limits. And often you find that you can push much further than you initial thought. You will also find that your mind is often the thing telling you to give up when your body can do more. Being able to push yourself is really all about mental toughness. And the mentally tougher you are, the greater your chances of success are. You need to be able to push yourself in the face of discomfort and adversity. Because, in order to succeed, you are going to need to push yourself through obstacles, setbacks and naysayers.
5. You learn that you are tougher than you think and that you can overcome any obstacle you put your mind to. Once you know how to push yourself, you will begin to realize you can handle more than you once thought. Our mind can either help us succeed or lead us to failure – it all depends on our attitude. When we learn to push ourselves, we discover that often we will give up first mentally. Once you overcome that mental hurdle and learned that overcoming obstacles is 90% mental, you can push yourself further than you once thought possible. You will realize that, with the right attitude, you can truly overcome any obstacles in your way with a little hard work!
6. You learn that setbacks and mistakes aren’t failures unless you give up and stop trying. Shit happens. Plain and simple. And with any fitness goals, the road to success is filled with ups and downs. There are just so many variables and even with a great program, you will probably experience the occasional setback because life gets in the way. Setbacks are going to happen no matter how hard you work. But mistakes and setbacks aren’t failures – they are simply learning experiences. That is unless you give up. Failure is giving up on something without really giving it a shot. Failure is giving up when the going gets tough. You only fail when you stop trying or don’t even give yourself a chance in the first place.
7. You learn that outlining goals and a clear program are key to success. You aren’t going to travel across the country without having a map to tell you how to get there so why would you not want to outline your journey toward your goals? You don’t just magically hit your goal – you must work toward it every day. When you write up and track your exercise and diet program, you are way more likely to succeed. Not only do you have a plan of action to keep you on track and guide you, but you also know exactly what you are doing so that if things aren’t working out, you know what to change. Plus, having a clear program and tracking your results helps you see progress even if you haven’t hit your overall goal yet.
8.You learn to cut out the “crabs.” People can hold us back from achieving success even if we are confident individuals that supposedly don’t listen to what others say. Think about how often people try to get you to cheat on your diet. They act like you are crazy for trying to do something good for yourself when they should really be supporting you instead. Surround yourself with people that support you and lift you up. You are way more likely to achieve your goals if you have people around you that want you to move forward and that are excited for your success. Whether or not we care to admit it, we all need help and support so surround yourself with people that will help you.
9. You learn to enjoy the journey. This is often the hardest thing to do because we all want instant results, but it is honestly one of the most important things we can all learn to do. Enjoy the journey. Make the daily tasks fun and appreciate even the smallest victory. Enjoy the fact that you are moving forward and pushing yourself to accomplish new things even when times get tough. Learn to appreciate the little things because that appreciation keeps you moving forward. If we are only focused on success, on getting results, we will often give up when we don’t get results instantly enough.
10. You FIND YOUR STRONG. I’ve found the gym to be one of the best ways to realize just how strong we are both physically and mentally. And that empowerment we find in the gym generally transfers to confidence in other areas of our life. Appreciate your inner strength, your personal talents. Celebrate victories and understand what motivates you to move forward. While you need to understand your limits and where you need to learn and grow, you also can’t ignore all of the wonderful qualities and strengths you do have. We all want to improve, but that doesn’t mean we don’t already possess some wonderful traits. Appreciate those wonderful things about yourself and recognize just how strong you are even if you have further you want to go. Be confident in who you are even as you seek to learn and grow!
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