I thought procrastination would be a great topic for the first blog post of the year.
For our current Nemesis Clients who have had some well-deserved days off between Christmas and New Year from tracking, procrastination is likely to be occurring right now – the struggle to re-ignite motivation levels and get back into a routine. Whereas for those of you who have set New Year resolutions to get fitter and leaner in 2019 its likely you won’t experience procrastination until the end of January, possibly February. Whichever situation you are currently in hopefully this blog post will help you identify the warning signs, triggers and help you overcome the urge to procrastinate. Let’s picture the scene, its 6.30pm you have already worked an hours overtime, your day has involved endless meetings, firefighting, an impossible workload and not enough hours in the day. You make your way towards your car and spot the gym bag in the passenger seat and a sense of dread washes over you. The last thing you can face right now is a gym session. Your mind begins to start racing with reasons why to avoid the gym….
That’s it, your mind is now made up and you have decided to skip the gym and head home…. But it doesn’t just stop there, as you drive home you have decided you are far too tired to cook a meal, the thought of all those dishes, the mess, the tidying up, the time it will take before you actually get to eat…. Nope instead you’re going to leave all that hassle to Pizza Hut and your already phoning in the order to ensure its delivered just in time for you arriving home. There you have it, you have failed on the 2 most important elements of achieving your goal to be leaner and healthier in 2019 and this isn’t likely to be a one off either, it’s a repetitive scenario which is constantly standing between you and your goals. I am sure most people can relate to or have fallen victim to this scenario - blaming fatigue and tiredness as an excuse to skip workouts and cheat on their diet it’s an easy way to pin blame for your own failures caused simply by a lack of self-control. Having coached 100’s of clients over the past 5 years, I am fully aware that every client’s motivation levels are at the highest in the morning and decrease as the day goes on and that stress and lack of self-control (often working hand in hand with one another) are the two main reasons why certain clients do not get the results they desire at the end of their plan – nothing to do with my coaching or the plan I built – purely down to the clients lack of self-control and will power - as a coach this is very frustrating as we put so much effort into building a client’s plan to ensure they achieve their goal and end the plan healthier, confident and proud of their achievements. Unfortunately life will always challenge your will power, but it’s how you approach and handle those unexpected events which will result in you achieving or not achieving your goal. Implementing self-control is all down to the individual, I can give you all the tools, support and advice but the hard work is down to you. A good way to build up self-control is taking baby steps and viewing it as a challenge (we all receive great satisfaction from achieving challenges). Identify your weaknesses first, what food items are a trigger for over food consumption? I once read an article in a university paper that said self-control should be trained like a muscle in the gym. Your muscle only has so much strength to begin with but through perseverance, consistent and ongoing training your muscle will become stronger each time you flex it and challenge it. The same can be said for implementing and building self-control. Before I started my weight loss journey 6 years ago, Jaffa Cakes were my favourite go to my mid evening snack with a cup of tea! We all know how more-ish they can be, you eat one and before you know it you have consumed the entire packet. I often found myself demolishing a whole packet of Jaffa cakes 2 to 3 times per week! I knew that removing Jaffa cakes completely from my diet was the worst thing I could do – it was just setting me up for failure and the chances of binging on them were high. Instead I decided to implement self-control, using the above metaphor and applying it to Jaffa cakes. I lowered the quantity and frequency of eating them instead of removing them completely from my diet. A box contained 20 Jaffa cakes, so my first self-control challenge was be to make the box last 10 days – 2 Jaffa Cakes per day. When this was overcome I moved the goal posts further, 2 Jaffa cakes every 2nd day, eventually I got to 2 Jaffa cakes per week and now I don’t even have Jaffa cakes in my diet at all nor the desire for mid evening treats! Self-control doesn’t happen overnight, you implement self-control in small measures. Interestingly implementing self-control measures is the same approach that psychologists use with patients who struggle with situations they are in and how they respond to it. They call it the ‘the pause and plan approach’, this is where they encourage clients to pause before doing an act, notice and understand their actions and the outcome it may have and then choose a different option to ensure a better outcome. ‘No Pain, No Gain’ it’s as simple as that. Everything you do in life is motivated by two things the desire to achieve something good and to avoid pain at all costs. ‘No Pain, No Gain’ is used all the time in the fitness industry but this statement is applicable to everything in life…. From pain endured in labour to delivering your baby, from sitting school exams to ensure you get a placement on your desired university course, the hardship of university to accomplish your career ambitions, from saving your wages each month and sacrificing social events so you have money to put towards the deposit of your first home. Like these life events, you have to put in a lot of work to receive the benefits and pleasure from it - in regards to training and nutrition if you want to change your lifestyle and achieve the desired physique. Those who do not embrace the ‘no pain no gain’ process will never achieve their goal, and the worst thing about not embracing the pain to achieve your goal, is the further pain you endure knowing you have failed because of your OWN actions. All you have to remember is that by feeling pain it is not something bad, if you endure the pain, survive the pain, you will succeed - leading to pleasure and fulfilment from achieving those goals – pain is a necessity to feel pleasure. The stress factor which causes people to lack self-control in my experience consists of work and/or family life. From a work perspective, unexpected calls and meetings, impossible deadlines and people who don’t work as a team to share the workload or unable to delegate because they think they would be quicker doing it themselves are likely to fall victim to procrastination when changing their lifestyle. When it comes to family perhaps your kids are constantly asking questions or seeking attention, dropping kids off at clubs or having to look after elderly family members eats into the time you have left for yourself, that 2 hours free time you allocated to the gym is now only 1 hour – making you question is it worth heading to the gym? Questioning the value of not going to the gym due to time constraints is the start of procrastination and you will find yourself using this excuse time and time again to justify your reasons. Every bit of effort you put in will lead to you achieving your goal at some point. Maybe you do only have an hour left to go to the gym after hitting that impossible deadline, or perhaps 30 minutes to squeeze in a home workout because Jack needs to go to his Karate class, but by undertaking that workout it’s one step closer than you were if you had skipped it. Let’s return to the scenario at the start of this blog and implement self-control through the pause and plan approach. Your now sitting in your car after that stressful day at the office and you see that gym bag in the passenger seat, instead you pause to think about the situation: if you don’t go to the gym your goal is pushed further away, the guilt of not going will set in and morale and motivation levels will be on a downward spiral – you achieve nothing by not going, only setbacks including potentially making wrong food choices too. If you go to the gym there is the health benefits, improved fitness, mood and stress buster, a step closer towards your goal. Finishing your workout will leave you energised and re motivated and your far less likely to hit the pizza post workout! Even if you only managed 45 minutes and not the intended 90 minutes. So the next time you find yourself questioning if food prep or training is worth it, look at the bigger picture. Why did you choose to work with Nemesis in the first place and invest in yourself? Why did you make that New Year’s Resolution to get leaner and healthier in 2019? If you don’t food prep or hit the gym what is the outcome from this? You are responsible for your own actions and what goes in your mouth, nobody else.
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AuthorsSharon & Lainey are Online PT & Nutrition Advisors with a combined 18 years experience in the Health & Fitness Industry. Archives
August 2018
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