Another page out of the You are a Badass calendar
I saw this message this past week and of course I couldn’t agree more. I wrote a book on this principle and my personal experiences with failure.
It is something I still see often. Sometimes it’s within the context of improving one’s nutrition. Other times, it can be within one’s exercise routine.
In relation to nutrition, it could be where a person has tried diet after diet and they throw their hands up in the air and come up with a reason why they can’t lose weight or improve their health. Or, their day starts off well, then it goes to crap in the afternoon, then they decide to throw in the towel on their whole day.
When it comes to fitness, someone might think that because they can’t get in their full exercise routine due to time limitations or whatever else might be going on that they may as well just do nothing. For some others, they might go a few times, feel out of place and unsure of what to do, and just write off going to the gym.
With any of these circumstances, it requires honest reflection regarding the “temporary failure” that occurred. It’s hard to know what to change if you don’t understand what went wrong in the first place. Many times, it boils down to failure in one of the three P’s: planning, preparation, and prioritization.
Planning: Did you have healthier choices readily available? Or, did you wing it and hope for the best throughout the day? Did you go into your workout with a plan or did you just show up at the gym, look at the weights, and waste time wondering what you felt like doing today?
Preparation: Did you make some healthier meals in advance? Did you take your lunch to work, or were you hopeful for some better options at the work cafeteria? Did you get your bag ready for the gym the night before or did you use sleeping in as an excuse to rush out the door without time to get that stuff together.
Prioritization: Did you focus on the important parts of your meal (protein, fruits, veggies) or did you have the dessert first? Do you schedule time for yourself for the gym or do you let other things in your schedule easily write that off for the day?
I am going to go ahead and add a fourth “P” that often holds people back and can lead to feelings of “permanent defeat:” perfection. Too many people strive for perfect from the start. They make it a day or two, maybe three, then they fall off, which then leads to the belief that they are not capable of change.
I can probably write a whole other message on perfection. I used to struggle with that too. I wrote about it in my book!
Because of my personal experience, and what tends to be the experience of many people, striving for perfection doesn’t work. There is a time and place for it, but that is less than 5% of the time for the vast majority of people. I believe in a gradual approach which is a key principle of mine when it comes to programming fitness or supporting people with nutritional changes. This helps people develop new habits over time versus trying to rip the band-aid off and change everything all at once.
In closing, I will reinforce the importance of reflection. It is a key data-gathering step. It can be hard to make changes if you don’t understand better what needs to be changed. Until you dive deeper into what is holding you back from progress, it will be like playing a game of darts and hoping you hit the mark on each next attempt at improving your health.
I will end with this friendly reminder and reinforce the calendar message…failure is not final. It only becomes final when you completely give up. My encouragement for you: please don’t give up. A healthy, fulfilling, vibrant life is worth the effort to improve your health.
Your friend in health and fitness,
Coach Candice
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