Why Quick Fixes Don't Work And What To Do Instead

We live in a quick fix world, something’s wrong so pop a pill and it will all be made better. Go on a crash diet and next week we will have lost 10 kilos. Go to gym for a week and expect to see toned arms. We want the easiest solution, the one that will take the pain away quickly. 

As a fitness professional, most of my clients initially come to me because something has “broken” for them. Sore shoulders, sore knees, sore hips. Overweight, tired, embarrassing and annoying menopausal symptoms.

Most of the time these physical issues can be fixed with nutrition and exercise. But it takes time...

In a nutshell, you need to stay physically active to enjoy life as you get older. You need to build strength, flexibility, and endurance. You need to follow a balanced diet with good nutritious food.

But where to start?

​Well, you first need a goal. Who is it you want to be 3, 6, 12 months, 5 years from now. Picture what it is you want to be doing, what do you look like? Write down a description of your life as you want it to be. Is it to be pain free? Is it to be able to do 10 full push ups? Is it to go on a 2 week backpacking hike? Is it to be there for your children as they grow up? Is it to rough and tumble with your grandkids? Who are you in the future?

Then you need to plan towards these goals and there are two types of goals:

• Outcome goals – These are goals you can’t control. For example “I want to lose 30 kilos”. You can want it but without a process you can’t control it.
• Process or Behavioural goals – what can you do on a daily basis continually to get the outcome you are after. These are the goals you should focus on. They need to be the tiniest of steps because a lot of us are victims of “all-or-nothing” thinking. I know I can fall into that trap. There are two reasons for this type of thinking and they are
  • Fear of failure
  • Self worth – “I can’t be successful”

So taking tiny steps works:

             “If you improve by 1/10th of 1% every day, 10 years from now you’ll be doing 1000% better”

Isn’t that great?

Now write down the steps you need to take in order to reach the outcome you desire. Be specific, write down every little thing you can think of that will help you achieve it. As you write picture yourself doing the steps. And then set yourself a do-able timeline. Tiny steps.

The final piece of this exercise is you have to decide to accept who you are today and move forward from there. You are not perfect, I am not perfect, no-one is perfect and none of us ever will be. But you can be the best version of YOU and you owe it to yourself to do this. But without accepting yourself TODAY, you can’t move forward to the new you.

Properly guided professional coaching can help you achieve this. And it can also help you prevent this happening to yourself in the first instance.

Whether you do it yourself, or get coaching, here’s the take home message:

Find your compelling and inspiring goal, take progressive action, don’t quit and finish strong!
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I look forward to hearing your stories so comment below or send me a message.

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