Four Levels of Fitness Mindset
by Chris McNeil
Fitness requires the right mindset and you can set goals for it just like for your body. How do you think when you are as fit as you want to be? How is that different from how you think now? Just defining the difference can move you towards what you want, so let’s do this now.
Let’s look at four different levels: Your expectation of success, your body image, your health priority level, and your emotional motivation.
1. Expect Success
The first level is your expectations. What do you believe about yourself and your ability to create the body you want? How is that different from the way you need to believe to have it and always have it? One way to discover what your current beliefs are is to simply ask, “What is true about me that has created the body that I have?” To discover the beliefs you need, ask, “What would have to be true about me to have the body I want?” When you think about the difference in these beliefs, it will naturally move you towards ones that empower you to have what you want. Simply defining those with more clarity will help you to change them to better support the fitness you want.
2. Create a healthy body image
The second level is your body image. What is your body image now versus what would you like it to be? If you see yourself as overweight and out of shape it may feel like you have to force yourself to exercise and eat healthy. Conversely, it you create and maintain a healthy body image, then it feels natural to do so. If you see yourself as the healthy person you want to be, fitness is who you are instead of something that you make yourself do. Elite athletes use visualization by creating and rehearsing mental movies of themselves achieving the desired results. You can do the same thing by clearly imagining yourself already having the body you want in crystal clear detail. Make an inventory of all the changes you’ll see and feel. Where would you see changes in your body? How, specifically, would they look different? What would you be doing in which you would feel more energy and well being?
3. Move it up in priority level
The third level of thinking is how you prioritize your health. When you have the body you want, where’s health on your scale of priorities versus where is it now? What would have to happen to move up that scale to where it belongs? What use to seem like obstacles that kept you from getting fit were perhaps simply reflections of a lack of prioritization and time management. Fitness more than pays back the time you put into it if it’s done right. So, it’s not a matter of “taking” time and energy, since exercise is a time and energy generator when done right. Once you know this and you decide to believe this and act on it, no obstacles get in the way. It’s just a matter of you deciding to move it up your priority scale so it gets done no matter what. So do that. How can you affirm to yourself that you have made living at your desired fitness level a high enough priority to ensure it gets done?
4. Increase Your Emotional Motivation
What is your current motivation to exercise versus the level of motivation would you need to have and maintain the body you want? Imagine what it would be like to have this motivation level. Think of something you’re already extremely motivated to do. As you think about that, feel how the motivation feels in your body, what direction it moves in and imagine what it would be like to have that same feeling applied to exercise and living healthy. What if you could generate that motivated feeling, amplify it to whatever you want, and focus it on each step in your fitness program? How would that make your life different?
Olympic gold winning Bruce Jenner said “I always felt that my greatest asset was not my physical ability, it was my mental ability.” Tune up your mental approach to fitness with this four-step approach and your body is sure to follow with faster progress and better and more permanent fitness results.
Chris McNeil
Chris McNeil’s Pensarc Software was recognized as an “Innovator 2008” by the Charleston Regional Business Journal for developing www.fitmenu.net . Chris has also won two national awards for innovation for web-based fitness software. Follow fitmenu on twitter at www.twitter.com/fitmenu You can reach Chris at chris@pensarc.com.
