As a personal fitness trainer in the Western Chicago Suburbs and Fox Valley area, I strive to educate my readers and clients on all aspects of achieving higher level wellness. So today’s topic is on developing behaviors that maximize your ability to reach your fitness goals.
There are 8 key components for behavior change. This applies to every aspect of life, but in this case please relate these behaviors to the Three Pillars of Higher Level Wellness: Complexity Conditioning, Premium Nutritional Fuel, and The Mental Edge.
As you read through those components stay open minded and think critically:
1. You must believe that the advantages (benefits, positive outcomes) of the behavior outweigh the disadvantages (cost, negative outcome). Stated differently, you need to have a positive attitude toward your new behavior (exercise on a regular basis, or nutrition).
Action: Write down all the benefits you’ll be getting from your fitness program. For example: better mental clarity, muscle tone, fat loss, gain strength, being able to play and keep up with family members without getting tired, better self-image, lose weight etc.
2. The emotion you feel about your behavior must be more positive than negative.
Action: If you’re a beginner, you may need to work a little harder at first to program yourself to display more positive emotions than negative. This is why I want you to physically write down all the benefits on a sheet of paper. This will help solidify your belief that the positive benefits outweigh the negatives.
3. Performing the behavior must be consistent with your self-image.
Action: Whether you’re working with a personal trainer, or you’ve designed your own workout program, the exercise fitness training you are doing needs to match your self-image or how you see yourself. Look at yourself as a person who loves exercise, really values his/her body and is careful about foods. Think of yourself as an exercise enthusiast who already has the body of their dreams, and performs at the highest level.
4. You must display a strong commitment to your new behavior, and form a strong positive intention to continue doing it.
Action: Add fitness to your calendar and start living by it. Mark the days and times you will dedicate to exercise and don’t deviate from it. Commit in public what you’re planning to do, and tell your family and friends about it. Promise them, and yourself, you will do it and follow up on it.
5. You must develop the correct skills needed to perform the behavior…
Action: To be fit and healthy you need to be efficient and effective when you exercise. This means learning the proper form for each movement, and practicing for perfection. Perfect form will prevent injuries and speeds up the process of achieving your goals.
…..Are you relating the behavior with exercise and nutrition? Good, lets keep going..
6. Your self-efficacy (confidence) to perform the desired behavior must be very high. You have to believe you can perform well under different situations.
Action: Having confidence and believing in yourself as you exercise gives you more drive to do it. The more you do it, the better you become. If you struggle initially, act the confident part. Pretend you’re already there, and involve positive emotions. Soon you’ll start seeing success, and your confidence will be real.
7. You must perceive more social pressure to perform the behavior than not to perform it.
Action: Get surrounded by people that support you. People who won’t put you down, and are enthusiastic when you share with them what you’re committing to.
8. Your environment must be free and clear of obstacles that would make it impossible for the behavior to occur. Your environment should provide opportunities to perform the behavior.
Action: Again, choose wisely the people you spend time with as you commit yourself to a fitness program. Also, your physical environment should be as convenient as possible. It’s easy and inexpensive to set up couple of dumbbells, exercise ball and a band at home. On the nutritional front, plan and prepare food ahead of time for easy access to your premium fueling.
If you work on and improve all of those steps you’ll be virtually guaranteed to achieve any goal you have in your health and fitness journey.
Now: Print this page and put it on your refrigerator or bedroom wall, and read it often. Not to put pressure on you, but if you don’t do this, you’re not serious about your fitness goals. I am 100% confident you’ll forget these 8 keys very soon. You’re very busy, so do it NOW and your journey will be underway.