eal change is slow and hard. It takes effort, and although it’s incredibly rewarding and edifying, it can be painful and frustrating at times. It can also feel very uncertain: “am I doing the right thing here? Am I headed in the right d
Plateaus are often understood as problems. As stagnation, as if there is something wrong. Plateaus are a fundamental part of the process. Understand this, and you will be able to surpass them.
Exercise has a purpose in your life. It can give you so much. It can provide your daily moment of zen. And yet, it is still a stressor. Stress is not bad. It is just our body's response to stimuli. This realization can guide your exercise routine for the better.
If you want to get better at your sport/discipline/exercise-routine, approach your training as a time to learn not a time to perform. This mindset shift is one of the most powerful tools in your arsenal. The moment you go to learn and not to perform is the moment you free yourself from chasing immediate results...
Paying attention might be the best thing you do for yourself. Observe yourself before you try to change yourself.
Don’t get me wrong, you can still buy pre-made food, order food, whatever you like, just be intentional about it and don’t let convenience and value be your first priorities. Put nutritional value first and then pick the most convenient cheapest option you can find. Don’t let advertisement victimize you and save you at the same time. Gain control of your shit! Set your priorities right and find yourself a high-quality lover for lunch time.
What you practice in your training, should have more transfer to life than good looks and bragging rights.
When I start working with a new client , I ask them, how do you think I can help you? The answer is never what a coach would like to hear. I would like to hear some romantic, grandiose version of how awesome coaching can be and how it can change your life for good in ALL the aspects. But of course it’s never this. The standard answer is structure and accountability. Which usually translates to: tell me what to do and make me do it. My very first task is to reframe that idea for my athlete, more than providing structure and accountability what I do is create contexts in which they can find what works best for them, and what they want. I create contexts in which they thrive.
No matter what skill you choose, you can visualize mastery. You can see it. Now imagine what it would take to get there... I bet that in your visualization that mastery does not happen in 6 months. In my mind’s eye I can see myself creating awful noises for quite some time before actually playing a tune. I imagine that if your thing was to master German, in your vision you can see yourself stumbling through words before you can actually write amazingly good emails. By the same token, I bet that if you imagine your teachers for that journey, you don’t see slicky guys selling you fast results or trying to trap you with hard sells and gimicky marketing. In that vision, mastery is a continuous, long, and difficult process of learning. It’s slow and tedious. This is why it’s so rare. (In other words, mastery is what Hollywood movies show in a super fast montage with the subscript “five years later”.)
I bet you are thinking I mean you should go out workout more and workout harder. Memories of all those times you said you would wake up and work out and you didn’t will run through your head. You might remember those workouts during which you were tired and you did not push as hard as you feel you should have, But nope, that is not what I mean. That is just your guilt. Your consistency on a given program is often not a laziness problem as much as an organizational problem. How hard you can push on a given workout is very seldom a willpower problem, as it is a self-regulation problem. I am not here to guilt trip you. Let me tell you what I DO mean.