Are you insane?!?!

The definition of insanity is to do the same thing while expecting different results. I don't know about you, but I have been guilty of doing that in many areas of my life. We don't want to quit something because we will feel like a failure, but it really wasn't a good idea or we just have such bad habits we can't quit that thing that we want to. One of the biggest areas I see this insanity is in health and fitness. How many times have you, on a Sunday night, realized how badly you messed up your eating over the weekend and the proceeded to beat yourself up over it.  Or even worse, because we've tried so many times and failed we've just given up? Same with exercise, we start on Monday and quit by Wednesday and tell ourselves we were too busy and we will start back next Monday.  We repeat this cycle over and over again (insanity), and then we are confused when nothing is changing for the better in our lives. The good news is, the cycle of insanity with your health can be broken, and here are four steps to help you break that cycle:

1.      Forget the past-- I feel like one of the major things that holds us back in fitness and in life is our past. After enough failing we can give up or just accept mediocrity. If you want to change you have to forget about all the failures and focus on how you are going to change today. This is true in every aspect of your life like whether it be your marriage, parenting, your job, and even friendships. So, if you messed up you need to let it go, learn from it, and do better. Another huge problem can simply be procrastination.  What we could do today, we put off until tomorrow and that turns into weeks, months and even years. FOCUS on the PRESENT! Like Martin Rooney, founder of TFW, likes to say in his book Rooney Rules: “Instead of worrying about something you did in the past, or something that might not happen in the future, Do something right NOW”.

2.      Make a Plan-- As the saying goes, if you fail to plan you plan to fail.  You have to know what steps to take to make a change. We know that eating better will help us feel better and reach our weight goals, but if we keep eating pizza and drinking sweet tea everyday then we are planning to fail.  Sometimes it is hard to plan meals, especially when we are so busy, but we have to if we want to succeed. Same goes for training.  If we sit on the couch every day or just find time to train when training is convenient, we are planning to fail. So, make a plan and figure out how to make it happen. Stick with the plan!

3.      Get a Coach-- I've learned this lesson over the last few years, and now I have people I can turn to help me get through difficult times. Coaching, to me, is giving someone a plan of action, praising them when they succeed, and teaching them when they fail. Most people associate coaching with screaming or being a dictator, but I think coaching is more about being a teacher. If you want be better, you need to find a coach and let them guide you to success.

4.      Be Consistent-- If we make a plan we need to execute that plan day after day, and in the case of health, for the rest of our lives. I was talking to a friend of mine recently, and he was telling me how he can do so much more than people his own age.  The reason why is because he has consistently done the right things to stay healthy for years. You can't do it for a month or 90 days and succeed long term, it has to be a lifestyle or you will always fall back to the way you were. Sometimes people think it's just easy for those who always train and eat right, but it is honestly just has hard.  Those people have consciously made a daily decision to do their best, but every single one of them was in the exactly same spot that you might find yourself in today.

If you are looking to make changes in your long term health and fitness, Training for a Warriors (TFW) will help achieve it. There is a mental aspect to TFW that helps you be tougher mentally to fight off the fear of past failures; TFW offers a plan that has been proven to work over a seventeen-year period with fighters, professional athletes, and normal, everyday people. It provides you with coaching and teaching to help you learn what steps to take in a positive approach. Finally, it gives you a support system of people who are working together to achieve the same goals.  To lose fat, build muscle, and feel good!  Now the ball is in your court, and it’s up to you to make that call and reserve your spot in our next 8 week warrior challenge class that starts on Tuesday, September 8^th.  I truly believe that you are just a phone call away from stopping the insanity!