You work out all the time but you are still not seeing the changes in your body that you want to see. Being physically fit is not just about working out the body, it is also about working out the mind. You can work out every day but if you keep filling your brain with negative self talk you are fefeating all the hard woek that your body is doing. The mind can be very influential on exercise performance and results. Let’s start with destructive criticism – we start by setting ourselves up by comparing ourselves to unrealistic images. Images of both males and females that have been airbrushed and photo shopped, images that nobody can live up to. Not even the people in the pictures or commercials. So when we workout and don’t look like that we tell ourselves we are failures, that we are fat and that we can’t do this. Our bodies hear everything our brains say whether we say them quietly to ourselves or out loud. We need to change our mindset. We don’t need to look like a model, we don’t need to be skinny. We need to be healthy and healthy comes in all shapes and sizes. We need to love ourselves for who we are and what we can be. It is time to replace those negative thoughts with positive ones so that we can succeed. Stop looking at what’s wrong with you when you look in the mirror and find one thing that you like and repeat this to yourself everyday for a week. Then the next week find something else about yourself that is positive. It doesn’t’ just have to be a physical trait. This way you are focusing on the positives not the negatives. The only person you should be comparing yourself to is you! Not the you from 20 years ago but the you from yesterday. Ask yourself “what have I done today to make me better, better physically, spiritually, emotionally and mentally.”
Next is fear of failure – nobody wants to fail, but failure is where we learn and grow. Failure is what will lead us to success. It is where we learn what to do differently next time to make us faster, stronger, and better equipped to face whatever challenge we set before us. This is true whether we are trying to lose weight, change the shape of our bodies or compete in an event. Olympic gold medalists have failed but what got them to the gold medal was that they used that failure to inspire them to keep trying. They took chances. People who are afraid to fail will never take enough chances to be successful nor will they have the experience necessary to succeed. So put yourself in the same category as those Olympic athletes and tell yourself if you fall you will get back up and keep going, if you come in last that’s okay because you finished and next time you will do better, if on your journey to lose 20 pounds you slipped and gained 2 back it is okay because I know what to do to get them back off. If you never try then you have already failed and you live your life with regrets, but if you try then you at least know what you can do so that you can try again and get better. Fear of failure can lead to limited self concept – if you are afraid to fail then you will limit yourself on what you think you can do. Our beliefs control everything we do. If we believe we can or we believe we cannot, we are correct. Belief is the knowledge that we can do something. It is the inner feeling that what we undertake, we can accomplish. So, if we believe that we can do something our eyes are opened and our visions become realities. Accomplishment is more than a matter of working harder; it is a matter of believing positively. If you expect to succeed, naturally you will. We become outside what we believe inside. In today's society there is a standard that beauty and fitness come in one size, size zero. Well let me just tell you that is not true. You can be skinny fat and skinny unfit. what good is it to be skinny if you can't run a mile, do a push up or chase the ball with your kids? There is tremendous power in total attention to the matter at hand. The most successful athletes are able to focus on the task that is in front of them. Too many people try to balance a bunch of different things instead of focusing all of their attention on what they are doing.
Use visualization, meditation, and positive statements to improve your exercise and sports performances.
Reach for the stars, challenge yourself to do something you have never done before. You just might surprise yourself on how strong you are and what you can really do.
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