I am in my 24th year of service in the fitness and nutrition industry.
Man, I am getting old!
With those 24 years, I can gratefully look back on my career and find patterns that have emerged.
Those patterns always point to whether somebody will succeed or fail.
The mental pattern that I am about to reveal is a subtle killer.
The unfortunate reality is that 99% of people possessing this destructive mental habit are not even aware of it.
Yet it dominates them.
It has full power to determine whether they succeed with long-term health and fitness, or whether they fall back into unhealthy habits.
And to be honest, it’s downright SAD!
It’s sad that we have come to a point on our culture that this mental killer is so ubiquitous and nobody seems to care.
In fact, our current level of reactive behavior is to dig in our heals around this destructive pattern and somehow hope that it will solve the problem that it created in the first place.
Isn’t that the definition of insanity?
Can We Break This Killer Pattern?
Unfortunately there is no quick fix or a cure-all for what besets us.
But that does not mean that a cure does not exist.
The cure will require a few things from us, including the following:
-A permanent change in our mindset
-A willingness to see the big picture in our lives
-A willingness to put in the hard work for permanent lifestyle change
-A willingness to drop our victim-mentality
-A willingness to do what it takes.
Okay, so what is this mental killer that I am speaking of?
In a word…
Impatience!
This is the #1 mental killer to all things health and fitness holy!
Think about it…
How many of us get impatient when we set a health & fitness goal?
We want to lose weight, but then we get frustrated and impatient when the scale does not move in the way that we think that it should.
We want to eat better, but we are impatient with the fact that we have to change our lifestyle and take time for food prep, grocery shopping, etc.
We want to get stronger and we hit the gym strong for a week or two and then we get pissed when we look in the mirror and feel like we should be further along.
We get impatient when our spouse or partner loses weight faster than we do, forgetting the fact that our body is unique.
We get impatient when we “eat perfect for a week” and we expect that we should have reversed at least the last 10 years of poor nutritional choices.
I could go on but I think you get the point.
If I could give you one single piece of advice if you are embarking on your health and fitness journey, it would be to be PATIENT with the process!
We live in a quick-fix society that has hypnotized us into believing that we are entitled to fast results, minimal effort, and a painless journey.
Well, I hate to spoil it for you but that reality does not exist.
When you are trying to change lifelong habits and step into a set of healthy habits, you will experience the entire range of emotions, ranging from bliss, confidence, defeat, frustration, anger, happiness and everything between.
This will require “adult-level patience.”
Without trying to sound condescending, adult-level patience means stepping into the realization that life is meant to be hard at times.
Adult level patience requires that we keep things in context when the going gets rough and stay committed to our end result.
It requires us to be with the hard times and understand that they are here to benefit us.
It requires us to stop complaining about how “hard it is” and to accept the process gracefully.
It requires us to celebrate our victories.
It requires us to give ourselves grace along the way and avoid perfectionism.
It requires us to work on our patience level like building a muscle. If you believe that you are “naturally impatient”, its because you are conditioned to be that way. It is NOT in your DNA and it is not your default mode 😉 It CAN be unlearned and it can be changed.
So the choice in yours!
You can choose to stay in the Standard American, entitled way of impatient thinking…
Or…
You can proactively make the choice to be PATIENT with your journey.
Keep it simple:
Step #1: Make a plan
Step #2: Take Action
Step #3: Stay committed and be PATIENT with the process until it feels like second nature to you!
I am excited to hear how this works for you!
You’ve got this! Time is on your side!
Life is Good!
P.S. If you would like help in your health and fitness journey we can help! Learn more here: www.llfit.com