Ian Ryves and Ian Spiby own Wellbeing Fitness, a health and fitness studio with main branches in Northamptonshire. They also own Wellbeing Fitness Education Centre where they run Level 3 Diploma courses for people who wish to qualify as personal trainers, sports masseurs and nutritional advisers. In addition, the Education Centre licenses these courses to over 50 gyms and fitness studios in the UK, Ireland and Europe.
This series of articles is about how to get people to take their health and fitness seriously. It’s no good trying to frighten them into it by giving warnings of how they are going to deteriorate as they get older. There has to be a change in the head. At Wellbeing Fitness, we have devised a Mindset course to help our clients to think differently which we are sharing with you.
In this final lesson we look at how you can put everything you’ve learned into action.
COURSE LESSON 10 Burn your bridges and plan your campaign
In 1519 Hernan Cortez planned to march on the Aztec Empire to capture their gold. Some of his army got cold feet and were planning to sail back to Cuba where they would be safe. So Cortez ordered the ships to be scuttled (deliberately sunk) to prevent them from doing that. We use the phrase “burning bridges” to describe what he did. It’s quite an extreme example but it gave his men the desire they needed to advance. There was no other option because they couldn’t go back.
Task 1 Burn your bridges
Think of ways in which you can burn your bridges so that you can’t go back to your old ways. It could be as simple as not allowing biscuits in the house or as extreme as buying three years of personal training sessions upfront with a signed agreement that there can be no refunds. That’d focus the mind all right!!
Task 2 Plan your campaign
The aim with this plan is to focus on things to improve your willpower – either by tackling opponents or by addressing the willpower-improving factors. Willpower increases with practice. Here’s something to consider:
TAKE A BABY STEP
Ever heard the phrase: “Rome wasn’t built in a day”. Or the question, “How do you eat an elephant? Answer, “One bite at a time”. Both phrases deal with the same idea: you can achieve major things by doing them bit by bit. Often if you look at the big picture of what you want to achieve, it can seem overwhelming – and you just give up. You think, “I’ll never be able to accomplish that” But if you take it one step at a time, soon, you’ll find that gradually little by little, baby step by baby step you’re getting nearer and nearer to the end result
As an example:
Do you feel really unmotivated to do something you know will take you further towards your goals? Is the idea of an hour-long walk far less appealing than an hour on Facebook? Instead of walking for an hour, just do five minutes. That’s it! You can do five minutes, right? Of course you can! So just do that. After a week, you might find that you want to do 10 minutes, then 15 and so on. I have found that taking things step by step to be one of the most effective ways of achieving goals that I’ve set for myself in all areas of my life. And for things like exercise and fitness, it’s easy to think that small steps don’t work. We want results NOW.
But they do work – five minutes exercise is better than no minutes! As a yoga teacher I know once told me: “The only bad practice is NO practice”
Good luck – and every best wishIan and Ian