Making Changes Requires More Than Just Knowledge – Getting in shape or changing your body is not about the things you know. Success in health, fitness or body transformations come from your skills & abilities. A skill is an applied, practiced and rehearsed behaviour that you do in the real world. Almost everything around being successful around improving your health or fitness is based on your skill levels and not what information you store in your brain. Yet people keep telling themselves they do not know what to do to get in shape.
You know you should go and exercise this evening (knowledge) but it takes something else to go out and actually do it (the skill to get yourself to exercise). You know you should stop eating that packet of biscuits (knowledge) but it takes a clever approach to actually put them away (skills around eating). It is easy to say go for a walk and meditate when stressed (knowledge) but takes a different way of thinking to actually do it when emotions are running high (skills under a certain emotional state).
If you did think of developing skills over knowledge you would immediately take a very different approach to your transformations. Everyone understands learning a skill, no one would pick up a guitar and expect to be able to play like a rock star within an hour. I could tell you how to drive a car in about 3 minutes but it takes many hours of practice to do it at a basic level and many more hours to be able to do it on the roads or under the pressure of a driving test.
Transformations Are About Not Just About Effort – All anyone mentions when it comes to getting in shape is how they wish they had more motivation, more willpower or could try a little bit harder. On the surface it appears that this is what is separating you from achieving results but it is a lie.
Motivation does not vary as much as you would think between those who are successful with their goals and those who are not. What separates people are their automatic behaviours (how they respond without thinking) and their skill levels (how many times they have practiced a specific behaviour). These elements are developed from consistency over time rather than effort or motivation. You need to stop telling yourself you do not have enough motivation.
Do you need motivation to develop persistence? Yes and no, the traditional approach of motivation as promoted in the weight loss industry is not needed. This is when you get motivated and put all that energy into actions to get results today. You do a hard exercise session, cut out all bad foods, try to lose weight quickly etc. This does not work for most people.
A more effective approach is to use any surge in motivation to direct it into actions that would significantly enhance your chances of longer term changes. Instead of doing some really hard exercise sessions you could commit to trying five new types of exercise. This increases your chances of finding an activity you may enjoy. A better avenue than cutting out all bad foods would be learning to become a better chef. A seven day challenge to cooking a new healthy recipe every day would be more successful than going on a salad only diet.
Transformations Vary Between People – The difficulty of any transformation varies greatly between people as do the steps and actions you need to take. To achieve your goal, you will need to do certain behaviours, if those behaviours are easy ad natural to you then you do not need to think about them at all. If they are new or alien to you then you will need to develop them.
You see this example all the time when people try to copy the exercise plans of those in great shape, if you exercise once a week if lucky and the person whose plan you copy has trained every day for years then you are not the same person. You need a plan to improve your exercise consistency before you can follow an exercise addicts plan.
Individuality stems not just from changing your current habits to the necessary ones for success but also encompasses your prior history. How you used to act still has an influence upon the changes you make today. The more natural behaviours you need to develop the longer it will take. The bigger your goals, the longer and more focus it will take. It is simply more difficult for some people to get results over others due to biochemistry and a host of other factors.
What Does This Mean For You
If you struggle with your health & fitness then stop beating yourself up for not doing something you ‘should’ be doing. It simply means you have not done enough actions to make this an automatic behaviour yet. You have not developed the skills needed for success.
There is nothing to be dramatic about here, there are all sorts of skills you probably cannot do, I can’t play any instruments nor ice skate. If I really wanted to do these then I should start doing a bit each day or take a course in them. The exact same applies to you and your health and fitness.
Stop telling yourself you cannot get results, that change is hard, you are not a certain type of person or that you could never develop a certain ability. You can achieve pretty much anything, from breaking addictions to transforming your body into something totally wild or becoming elite with your fitness. It won’t happen overnight but it CAN happen. You only need to do enough repetitions of the right actions. The key is to not get misled into doing the wrong actions for results today vs the right actions to create the YOU of tomorrow.
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