When my son was younger, he had a hockey coach that talked to the boys a lot about attitude and effort. What you believe in your mind to be positive or negative, you display with your attitude. And, what you put out in effort, shows how hard you're willing to work to make the play - on the ice and off.
The coach wasn't worried about if they would make the play or not, but he wanted those boys to go out with a positive attitude and work hard. Although success isn't guaranteed, good things happen with a positive attitude and a little effort, especially when things don't seem to be going your way.
Don't we all fall into a pattern of just doing enough to get by? It takes - here come two words I use a lot - commitment and discipline to train your attitude to stay positive and to keep working hard when things don't come easy.
The thing about attitude and effort, along with commitment and discipline, is there is NO FINISH LINE. When we train for a marathon (okay, a half-marathon, because I still have no desire to run a full marathon), we know the date of that event and have training goals based on that date. We are in control of how many days we train and how many days we rest, how long our runs are, and how hard the runs are based on if it's a speed day, a mileage day or a recovery day. We can expect to finish the race in a certain amount of time given no unexpected incidents occur.
When it comes to our health, that is not the case. We may have a goal in mind, usually something like weight loss, activity level or biometrics, such as blood pressure, cholesterol or glucose levels. And, we may even have a date in mind - our kid's wedding, a vacation, or our next doctor appointment, But, sometimes, even given our best attitude and effort, it doesn't guarantee it will happen by that date.
Wouldn't it be nice if we reduced our calories by 500 each day and add in 30 minutes of activity, that we would be guaranteed to lose a pound a week? That's what the text books suggest. Unfortunately, we aren't in control of how much weight we lose.
We are only in control of our attitude and effort AND our commitment and discipline.
Oh, believe me, I know how easy it is to get frustrated. When clients don't see the success we're expecting, it's frustrating for me, too!
Let me talk about a young client I had for a minute. She wanted to "cut weight", like she had done with her fight training. We eventually both agreed that changing how she thought about food and her food choices would better serve her in the long run. She was in high school and still needed to be able to go out with friends for pizza or chicken strips and fries - you know, still be a kid.
After some time, she could tell she was gaining muscle mass from her workouts at school, and her school lunch choices included a lot more vegetables and protein than before. Then, we noticed her emotional eating habits had improved, along with the symptoms she experienced with her menstrual cycle. Still the scale wasn't moving much. We were seeing a lot of great improvements, just not in that number. We both had to focus on the process, tweak things along the way that weren't working, and trust the scale - and her clothes - would eventually follow suit like the other wins she was having.
We really worked on attitude and effort and commitment and discipline together.
At the end of our time together, she ended up losing that average of about a pound a week - and that included time over the holidays and hunting season. Her clothes were fitting better, and she felt confident about being able to go have an ice cream with friends, not feel guilty about it, and continue with her healthy choices the rest of the day.
It may not be the finish line at all that we should be concerned about, but instead about the changes we can make that help us feel better mentally and physically - about our attitude and effort. Because, as my son's coach taught him many years ago, good things happen when we're in control of our attitude and effort.... and, let's not forget commitment and discipline, too. 😉
The 5-day Spring Into Summer is still open for registration until May 31st. The Early Bird discount was extended until today, Friday, May 24th, so jump on that right away! Information and registration is available here. Be sure to reply to this email if you have any questions beyond what is covered there. I'm here to help however I can!
In love and courage,
Dani
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