As the second month of 2010 comes to a close, where do you stand with your resolutions? Have you made progress or did your motivation fizzle?

Most people wait for motivation to strike them like a lightning bolt. Well, I have news: motivation isn’t something that happens to you – it’s something that you create for yourself.

Now, in the people I’ve worked with, I’ve noticed 3 key challenges that seem to keep most people from achieving and maintaining their physical fitness goals for life:

1. They don’t have enough time.
2. They don’t know what to do at the gym.
3. They can’t stick with a healthy workout/dietary routine consistently.

I’m going to discuss the third one today…

If you find yourself not consistently “sticking to it,” it might be because you don’t feel motivated.

And if you don’t feel motivated to achieve your goals, it may be due to mental roadblocks.

By simply dealing with the roadblocks, the path to the body you want may suddenly seem clear, and you may feel your motivation and excitement return.

Read the following 8 Mindset Tips and see if any of them strike a chord with you:

1. Commit to using all past (and future!) failures as data to learn from–strategies that didn’t work for a good reason, and why. Commit to never again misinterpreting failures as evidence that you can’t do it and it’s hopeless. The story goes that Edison invented superior light bulbs by a process of eliminating thousands of strategies that didn’t work.
2. You can have the body of your dreams, but first you must give up the belief that you can’t.
3. Decide what is important in your life, and focus on that. Get clear about your goals, and visualize yourself accomplishing them.
4. If you don’t know exactly where you want to go, you will likely end up someplace else.
5. Commit to developing the habit of dealing with, understanding, and conquer each negative thought/emotion the moment it enters your mind, when it is weakest.
6. Focus on small, attainable goals, rather than just one monumental goal.
7. Convince yourself that exercise is rewarding, really understand what it means to you, and it will feel rewarding.
8. Excuses or results: you can only have one, and you must be willing to turn your back on the other.

(If you’re suddenly sick and tired of making excuses, and want to take action right now … I’m not going to “leave you hanging” as they say–you can contact us today to get started on a results-driven fitness program. Here’s a link to learn about and apply for our introductory workout experience)

Creature of Habit

What do you do every night before getting into bed? You brush your teeth. It doesn’t take much thought since it is such an ingrained habit.

Imagine if exercise was as much of an ingrained habit as brushing your teeth. Imagine how quickly you would achieve your fitness goals…and then continue to steadily improve beyond them for months and years into the future.

Here’s how to make exercise a habit: 1) Exercise consistently each week; 2) Put it on your schedule as a must – not a maybe; 3) Log your workouts track your progress; and 4) The ultimate way to create the habit of exercise is to get someone else to do all of these things for you – talk about guaranteeing your success! (find an accountability partner or hire a trainer)

Now, if at any point in this newsletter you thought “yeah, that makes sense,” I want you to do something right now…

I’d love to see you write down that one thing you realized while reading this newsletter–yes, actually write it down on paper. Yes, right now. Okay, now write down the next action you are committed to doing, TODAY, as a result of what you realized.

Great, now go to it!

-Chad

P.S. Remember those 3 major challenges I mentioned above?

1. too little time
2. not knowing what to do
3. having difficulty following through

…if those struck a cord, we offer a complete solution to all three at my personal training facility in Los Angeles. Contact us today if you want to get started.