Walking past Brown Thomas yesterday I saw a lady who was laden down with bags and a post shopping spree smoke in her mouth. For some reason she looked extremely stressed. Looked like she almost felt guilty about all of the things she had just bought. Reminded me of a tip I read in a sales book once.
Always become even more enthusiastic AFTER you make the sale – helps with up sells and to dispel any buyer’s guilt.
Very often I am told by people coming to the Christchurch Fitness Centre for the first time that “they used to be really fit but let themselves go.” Or that they got into great shape about a year ago and then fell back to their old ways.” Pity there isn’t a chapter about becoming more enthusiastic about your body AFTER you got into shape.
If you’re in the process of getting into shape, below are some tips for you to maintain it and progress once you have hit your target:
- Celebrate and realise you deserve it: One way of creating burn out is to constantly push yourself with no reward/letting some steam off in sight. You need to reward yourself for hitting certain targets – things like a new outfit/a weekend away/couple of days off from the gym will help keep you motivated and fresh for moving forward with your regime again.
Another thing that seems to catch people out is that they don’t seem to think they deserve to look after themselves. It’s almost like they think that something that may have been in that woman’s bag outside Brown Thomas is more worthy of being looked after than their body which is the only thing that any of us will carry around all of our lives. If you don’t think it is worth taking care of then consider how much of an inconvenience it would be losing even a baby toe and trying to sort your balance out again. Or your eyesight.
Everyone deserves to be in the best shape they can possibly be and getting and staying in shape brings about far more benefits like better energy, confidence etc than the perceived negative of the work that has to be put in. - New Challenges and Enjoyment: Ok you’ve lost the weight (for example). Your focus for the last 6 or 12 months has been on that. What next? By having challenges lined up and areas that you can improve on this will keep you focused and interested in progression. Otherwise you can get the feeling that you are just training for the sake of it. Another big thing here is to make sure you enjoy your workouts and like the place you train and the people you train with.
- 80/20 Rule: You don’t need to be 100% perfect 100% of the time. Every piece of food you eat doesn’t have to fit a perfect macro nutrient blend. Every workout you do doesn’t have to be an exact breakdown of a scientific range of weights and reps – sometimes you can just go and play football with your nephews/nieces for example. Just make sure that you are getting most things right a good percentage of the time and you will be far more likely to enjoy long term results than someone placing unrealistic expectations on themselves.
- Keep up the good Habits and work to build New Ones: Just because you have cracked a result that you’ve been working towards for a while doesn’t mean that you should/can give up the habits that got you there in the first place. Keep them solid and slowly add to them to help drive you to the new challenges that you have set for yourself. Otherwise you’ll end up stagnant or going backwards.
One example of a great habit to build is a proper sleep pattern. Some of you who have read this far may be thinking “great but what about those of us who haven’t gotten into shape yet.”
Funny thing is. The four points above will work just as well for you also…