A good 95% of your success (or lack of) with an exercise and diet routine is down to mental game.
I made that number up, because most of the important things about life cannot be measured. But people are addicts for the false certainties of a precise numerical value, so fake numbers you shall have.
This was on my mind as I dragged my sorry self out of bed this morning, not wanting to get up, much less go do a workout.
Fast forward a couple hours later, workout done, and I feel great.
If I’d made the call based on how I felt at 6 am, I’d have skipped the gym. I didn’t, I’m glad I didn’t, and years of experience have taught me that I (almost) never regret hitting a workout.
Unless I’m sick with the plague, an hour in the gym can make any bad feels turn better.
That’s a mental technique, by the way, behind the gushing about endorphin rushes from challenging exercise.
Remembering that a) how I feel when I first get up is not accurate and b) getting my session in will make me feel great makes it a lot easier to get on with the plan.
A lot of things get easier when you set mental reminders that the discomfort is temporary and there is light outside the cave.
Folks fall off their plans, or never even get started, because they let their current feelings drive their thoughts and decisions about what they’re going to do in the future.
Your present feelings tell you almost nothing about what it will be like to do the thing you’re fearing.
Remove yourself as a source of obstacles, and a lot of impossible things become possible for you.
That’s all I got for you on this cloudy New Zealand Sunday morning. Get more gems of wisdom right in your inbox:
Matt Perryman