What really matters…(thinking about framing)
Framing - That is what you’re paying attention to, what you believe about it, and how you frame yourself in relation to it sets up how your thoughts will flow.
Many people come to the gym with a lens for improving themselves.
Sometimes it’s an outlet,
Sometimes we want to lose weight and look better,
Sometimes we’re here to gain muscle,
To feel healthier,
To have more energy.
We are trying to take positive steps into change, into becoming who we want to be or who we feel we are.
We also come to this experience with our personal history, our baggage, the thoughts and feelings that we’ve internalised about ourselves or our experiences.
Sometimes the desire to change is hampered by the feelings that we’ve been carrying, our baggage, so to speak.
Framing is a skill like all skills takes practice. What do we pay attention to? How do we interpret meaning? What matters really?
Lots of the time, people’s self-talk gets in the way of the process of appreciating what you’ve already accomplished. You’re looking at the end of the road instead of the path traveled from where you were.
It’s important to see the path that you’ve already traveled, and where you’ve come from and to harness the power of positive thought. You get a choice of what you think about, and how you feel about it.
Why would you choose to beat yourself up?
Here’s a quick list of achievements that you should be proud of that you probably didn’t pay attention to.
You signed up for the gym (Fuck yeah, it’s a first step)
You attended the gym (Everytime you make it, its a step towards your goal)
You failed or you struggled at something in the gym (Failure is a rep towards learning, Go you!)
You at a meal towards your goal (1 step closer baby!)
You identified that you ate a meal not closer to your goal (Awareness is the first key to change)
You made progress towards your goal (Fuck yeah, another step)
You didn’t make progress, but you can see why, or you asked what your coach what you might need to work on (Awareness, ohhhhhh yeahhhhhh)
You fell out of your routine and you noticed that you feel different when training (awareness)
You felt too sore to train and took a rest day (Fuck yeah, rest is important, you cant beat yourself into fitness. train, recover, repeat)
You learned something new about training, your body, diet (mastery of the machine, gives you mastery of your life)
You realised something you didn’t know that was hampering progress (one client realised he was eating 800 calories of cookies in break time, hey, now you know)
You realised that health and fitness is a journey and not a destination (the balance is always moving in life, the game is the sum of the behaviours each week, month, year - it’s not about any 1 single moment)
Ultimately health and fitness has many little complexities, but it’s hard to achieve good outcomes without finding simple enjoyment in the process. You’re going to need learn how to feel good about failures, the processes that go well and find the learning opportunities in what didn’t.
We’re all just monkeys in flesh suits, doing our best.
