The 5 Step Guide To Shift Your Mindset.
Firstly, I hope you’re well, in good health, doing what you can to help us all beat this virus.
There are still challenging days ahead but know that going through this there will be a huge amount of personal growth.
I wanted to share a few tips I know help me shift my mindset when I’m feeling a little frustrated with the world and hope they fill you with a sense of calm.
Here is my 5 Step Guide to seeing it through.
Step One: Realise You Are Awesome.
Before anything, first take a moment to kick back, reflect and appreciate that whether you realise it or not you are awesome and have shown more evidence of this than you realise.
We are surrounded by an incredible amount of negative energy. We see it daily in the news, we hear it in conversations, we can see it on the faces we pass.
Ask yourself this.
Where have you shown incredible resilience? Surprised yourself in the face of a pandemic? Where have you been truly awesome?
Focus on what has been achieved, not what hasn’t.
Whether you have juggled raising a family, homeschooling and a full-time job. You have worked, trained and lived under the same roof. Have given up alcohol or gone vegan for January. Have given up your free time to volunteer or have been there for friends or family who have needed a calming voice.
Whatever it may be, please take a moment to appreciate yourself and worry less about all of the should haves and could haves because where you are right now is exactly where you should be.
If you find this difficult and sometimes it can be, write down a list of at least 20 reasons why you are awesome and don’t stop until you have 20.
Knowing that with just a few simple questions and some time to think you will come to the realisation, you have accomplished more than you think.
Shift your mindset.
Step Two: Gratefulness.
Possibly the most effective couple of minutes you can spend time thinking about to completely shift your mindset.
When my emotions or internal chatter gets the best of me thinking about what I do have can be a great tool to calm and ease any frustration.
What do I have right now I can be grateful for? What is right in front of me that sometimes I forget to see? I have a roof over my head, my health, my friends, my family, a career that deeply inspires me.
The quality of the questions you ask yourself and the time you take to think about them takes practice. But I believe by changing our perception of ourselves, our environment and the lens we see-through, we can do more than simply exist through this.
Step Three: Seek Progress Not Perfection.
Know that perfection is an expectation none of us can live up to and when you slip up, you never fail, you learn, and then you go again and again and again.
Is that not the circle of life? To grow and to learn. To fall on and off the path.
Tomorrow what can you do to start creating momentum for yourself? Where can you take a small percentage win in your favour that will positively impact you and your life?
Like the other steps, write down a list of things you could do tomorrow to create momentum for you.
Would getting to bed 30 minutes earlier serve you better? Taking a break from alcohol? Starting the day with a walk and arranging a call with a friend?
Consistency is key. If you show up consistently time and time again doing things that serve you, the life you live will move in the direction you want.
And don’t worry if you take a detour off that path just no, you’ll always end up back where you need to me.
When you face a challenge, it is never in the way, it’s on the way.
Shift your mindset.
Step Four: Your Values.
If the pandemic has taught me one thing, it’s what I truly value in life.
Coaching and training, my career and growing my business, my family, my friends, and travelling and seeing the world.
When I live my life congruent to my values, I have a purpose and feel fulfilled.
And as we move through life, our values change. My early 20s were all about rugby, drinking and socialising, and having a job that allowed me to afford to do both.
And I absolutely loved that, that at the time was what I valued.
What do you value? What do you spend most of your time thinking and talking about?
Unsure what you value. Try this https://drdemartini.com/values/
Shift your mindset.
Step Five: Vision Planning.
Vision planning, something I have never really taken the time to do until recently.
How do I want my life to look in the next 3, 5 and 10 years and even further? What shoes do I want to step into?
Why vision plan? Because spending time visualising how you want your life to look can be really fulfilling.
Not only that, but it allows us to understand better what action needs to be put in place today.
Don’t just consider the professional aspect of your life either, think about how your path looks.
Your professional life will always rise to the level of the aspirations and dreams you have for you and your life. And not the other way around.
Do you know what, once this is all over I believe life will be a better, more heartfelt experience?
I do hope this article has been of value even if it’s a super small take home.
Let’s keep doing what we can do help the NHS and help save as many people as we can as the vaccine is rolled up.
Stay positive, spring always follows winter and with it not just longer lighter days but also more positivity and opportunity.
If you liked this, please let me know as it inspires me to keep writing and any questions reach out.
All the best,
Luke
Look & Feel Great.
Move & Be Strong.
Why Making Your Goals Important To You Will Increase Success.
When we start out on a journey to a more confident us do we stop to take time to figure out why we are doing it in the first place?
It's a step so many of us miss or don't give enough thought.
Especially given how difficult dieting or changing our body can be. Let's give ourselves every opportunity we can of success.
Most people are like 'yeah I want to lose weight' or 'I want to look and feel more confident about myself'.
If this is the case why are so many of us not where we want to be or really struggling getting there?
So if you find yourself giving up, or get a couple of weeks in and can't be bothered don't worry.
We just need to get more out of what your goals mean to you and how much different your life might be if you achieve them.
Make it really worth it.
So I want to share with you a process I use when I first speak to someone that enables me to establish where someones mindset is initially at.
People come to me for a variety of reasons. It'll often be to lose weight which essentially means drop body-fat, 'tone' up which means add muscle, get healthier, stronger, and so on.
There is usually an outcome of some description in mind.
All of these 'goals' are good and have their merit.
Don't we all want a little bit of that in our life?
Personally, I think wanting to 'lose weight' is very uninspiring and if anything a little boring.
These all fall into the 'I should' category.
They're generic and probably driven by other external factors.
Let's see if we can do better and find a goal that is personal and meaningful to you.
Grab a pen and paper. Trust me on this.
First, ask yourself this and go deep. Let's use 'weight-loss or Fat-Loss' as an example.
Right now, why is losing weight important to you? How do you currently feel about yourself? If you lost x amount of weight how would life be different for you? How will losing weight impact you socially and professionally?
Now write down at least 20 answers to these questions.
If your goal right now isn't weight-loss it's the same process.
It's all about the quality if the questions we ask ourselves.
I believe the quality of the questions we ask ourselves can really influence the probability of success we experience.
The whole point of this process is to dial down a little deeper and get something meaningful behind our actions and getting it all down on paper allows to get inspired.
Why is this important? Because motivation changes and the motivation you have at the start wont be the same in 3/4 weeks time and certainly not 3/4 months time.
Il share mine and hopefully they’ll help you get started.
Why is my training important to me?
I love feeling fit and running around playing sport.
I know when I feel confident I can really be me.
I want my girlfriend to find me attractive, and it feels great receiving compliments from her and others.
I feel a little more manly. Yes, dam straight. I went there. Having muscle on my body makes me feel good about myself.
Feeling good helps with my mindset. I feel healthier, happier, my energy and productivity improve, I sleep and rest better.
I feel empowered. I feel fit. I feel young.
I want my body to inspire the people I train. I want to show them that you can enjoy life, exercise, work hard and excel professionally and personally.
I want to live a long healthy life and know that training will help support this.
And of course, I still live with insecurities with my body, confidence, and meeting new people still scares the shit out of me sometimes.
But can you see how important training is for me?
Thinking about how important it is to me helps when putting my trainers is more effort than it should be or I am doing my absolute best to look for an excuse to not get off the sofa.
It doesn't work all of the time and it doesn't need to.
It just needs to work more often than not.
And don't confuse this with validation, narcissism or being egotistical.
Give yourself permission to want to feel good.
We have one life to live and so many of us deserve to feel better.
Give it a go and see if it conjures up some fire deep within you.
If you struggle, take more time to think and get it all down on paper.
It's all about the quality of the questions you ask yourself.
I hope today has given you a slightly different perspective on goal setting and why this part of the journey is so important.
Thanks for reading, Luke.