Believe In Yourself

I have a confession. Although I love love love my job (did I say love?), one thing I struggle with is when we have clients who don’t believe they can accomplish their goals. Heck, you know what? It’s not just clients, but also friends and acquaintances of mine who convince themselves that they can’t make a positive change in their health, fitness level or body composition. By saying you can’t do something over and over again, you realize that you are convincing yourself you can’t, right?

Now, I’m not saying it’s going to be easy for you to get in better shape, lose those last 10 pounds or choose to eat unprocessed, healthy foods 90% of the time. Believe me, I’m smart enough to know that if getting in shape and eating healthy was easy, everyone would do it. (And we’d probably be out of business.)

I’ve heard more than once that I’m lucky I have time to workout, that I’m petite, that I can eat a lot of calories, that I don’t like fried food, that I have the willpower to turn down desserts, etc.

I mentioned this before when talking about losing weight after having my son, but it’s worth repeating. It’s not luck! Being fit is hard work. I have to prioritize sleep, eating healthy foods and working out over doing many other things like drinking a whole bottle of wine (don’t act like you haven’t done that!), staying out late, watching TV, relaxing (what’s that?) or cleaning my house.

Today, I challenge you start being better to yourself. Make a commitment to something (losing 8 pounds by June 1, doing an unassisted pullup in 2013, etc.) and stick with it long enough to see if it works. Most importantly, believe that you can do it.

First thing’s first. Stop calling yourself fat. Remove this ‘fat talk’ from your vocabulary. I promise it helps. This is a tip I picked up a few years ago from Rachel Cosgrove and it has made all the difference in the world for me. Stop talking about your fat thighs, your muffin top or your double chin. Just forget about it. I know this is easier said than done, but think about it this way. Do you want to be around someone who talks about how fat they are all the time? Don’t be that person. Even if you’re feeling fat, try to fake it ’til you make it. Mind over matter really does work sometimes.

Decide today that you’re going to be good to yourself. Believe that you can be fit and healthy. Believe that you know how to accomplish your goals and start taking one step at a time to get there.

In summary, step one in accomplish your health and fitness goals (and really all goals) is believing that you can. Next up, I’m going to talk about how important it is to also surround yourself with others who believe in you too.

What is one step you can take this week that will help you change your mindset and believe you can accomplish your goals.