TLDR
- Funnily enough everything to do with mindset simply relates back to setting expectations
- Set the right expectations, insist on some form of solution, and you’re probably on the right track
Overview
Just like goal setting and habit formation, these are broad topics that could necessitate its own tome.
We don’t pretend to be a pseudo life coach here (a growing trend in fitness circles, sadly) so we are going to keep this short and specific.
All we can do here is point out common pitfalls, and hope that if you have temporarily fallen victim to this, raising an awareness of the issue helps resolve it.
Get to yes
This is a pretty simple concept, but if you ever become lost in the weeds it’s a useful refresher.
Here’s a classic story between a trainer and a client. The client is looking to lose weight and has tried by themselves without success.
The trainer asks, ‘What strategies have you tried so far?’ The client replies with the usual, keto and intermittent fasting and all the recent popular fads.
So the trainer asks ‘Let’s discuss snacking, perhaps we could gradually reduce the portions of snacks’. ‘No I need it because I’m stressed after work.’
‘How about fizzy drinks. We both know it’s not great for health and its counterproductive to your goal.’ ‘No I need it in the office, there’s too much work going on.’
‘How about the diet or zero sugar versions of the drinks to start out?’ ‘No I don’t like the taste’.
‘What if you ordered high protein low calorie meals from a delivery service?’ ‘No I need a fresh stir fry to watch Netflix with after a stressful day at work.’
‘How about…’ ‘No.’
This caricature is a bit of an extreme example, but you may well have seen this with a friend or experienced this yourself at some stage.
The point is the person here isn’t genuinely trying to figure out a solution in good faith. They’ve closed off their mind to the possibility of success so much they cannot get away from their instinctual response of ‘no’.
Instead of starting with ‘no’, try starting with ‘yes’.
Let’s illustrate with some classic examples:
With training…
- Too busy to train after work? Consider getting used to a shorter, 30 minute morning workouts.
- Too busy to train before work? Maybe you just need to do bodyweight workouts at lunch times until you get less busy.
- Busy the entirety of the week day? Cram in 2 sessions on early Saturdays and Sundays.
And with dieting…
- Can’t get your meals in? Have a meal prep day to prepare a weeks worth of food.
- Don’t have time to meal prep? Order a box of high protein food from meal delivery services to keep in the fridge.
- Don’t have time and don’t have money? Canned tuna and sardines are your friend.
If you find yourself doing this realise that it’s a normal self human thing to do. We’re all creatures of habit to an extent and a gut reaction of ‘I can’t’ is understandable.
But if you can pull yourself back a step and realign your priorities, you’ll probably find a way to get it done, perhaps not in the way you originally planned. Where there’s a will there’s a way.
This was originally inspired by a great post by ‘Mythical Strength’.
Progress not perfection
The concept of ‘optimal’ training doesn’t exist, so we can stop trying to chase it.
Instead, chase small wins and steady progress.
Here’s the thing. The only way you could truly be ‘optimal’ is if you get on a time machine, go back a few hundred years, and optimise your parent’s genetics.
Following that, the next best thing is to be stupidly wealthy, then quit your job and build a private gym and hire a personal chef.
Hyperbole aside, hopefully you see the point. You’ve probably got family and friends. A full time job. Other obligations and hobbies. We’re already so far removed from optimal that it starts to lose any meaning.
You might say shouldn’t the goal be to optimise the hours we do spend training and recovering. Absolutely, but the point is we can’t even differentiate between ‘very good’ and ‘optimal’.
So don’t fall into the trap of analysis by paralysis, and just start doing bite-sized actions now.
Scaling the wall
The classic fitness-adjacent story here is the 4 minute mile.
Before Roger Bannister broke the record in the 50s, it was almost universally agreed upon that this was impossible. The top athletes and minds of the day tried and simply did not believe it was doable.
After this event, multiple runners suddenly broke the record as well within the year. Nowadays, in running circles it’s seen as doable for top high school athletes.
The same can be said of the 10 second 100m, or any number of fitness records, or countless other non-fitness related disciplines.
Taking this back home a bit, if you’ve spent some time in the gym you might have experienced this already.
You hit a wall with a particular exercise, it feels like no matter what you try you can’t add another rep or more weight. Then you look across the gym and see someone else lifting a heavier weight with apparently little effort. You give it another try and it suddenly doesn’t feel so hard.
Morale of the story is don’t mentally box yourself in. If your progress stalls, ask yourself a second time if you can push past it.