No journey is smooth, there will always be bumps in the road and that is ok.
We cannot expect to live on a constant 100% of the time, everyone faces challenges and it is not the challenge itself which causes problems it is how we deal with them that determines success or a lesson learned. Mistakes will be made, but again how we deal with the mistake afterward will impact our results.
For example – you are invited on a night out with friends and have made a commitment to yourself to avoid alcohol. You get carried away and end up having a fantastic night with immediate regret the next day. In this situation you have two choices:
Wallow in self pity and order a takeaway to make yourself feel better, write off the weekend and start again on Monday.
Accept the mistake and make a conscious decision to include an additional unplanned gym session to burn off some of the excess calories and make healthy food choices for the rest of the weekend.
Understanding your barriers before commencing on a journey allows us to make conscious decisions when faced with a challenge. If we have planned for the potential, we will be prepared and already have a plan of how we will overcome this.
I would like you to take some time to consider what your barriers are when it comes to our fitness and health. These are the things that will trip us up on our journey, the things that have made us fail in the past. Please write down three examples of your barriers.
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Take yourself out of your shoes and into the shoes of a judgemental opponent, what does this person say back to your barriers. Write their argument underneath.
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Now imagine you are halfway along your journey and your barrier has tripped you up, what are you going to do to put yourself back on track as quick as possible.
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So next time we are met with one of our barriers instead of allowing it to slow us down or stop our journey – I would like you to take a step back, consider your options, prepare yourself and take a running jump over that barrier. If you catch your foot on it and fall, pick yourself up again, brush yourself down, take a deep breath and go again.