Mindset

I truly believe that 80% of you getting to where you want to be is down to mindset.

And I’m not talking about “cultivating a warrior’s mindset” or anything equally as cheesy.

I mean the stories you’re telling yourself (normally brought on by diet culture) that are limiting you.

AKA limiting beliefs.

If you have tried and failed before, it’s not because you didn’t have the right macro split or the perfect exercise routine, it’s because there was some sort of belief that was holding you back.

Below are a few of the key mindset changes that I think are absolute game changers!

self-fulfilling prophecies

A self-fulfilling prophecy is the psychological phenomenon of someone “predicting” or expecting something, and this “prediction” or expectation coming true simply because the person believes or anticipates it will and the person’s resulting behaviours align to fulfil the belief.

Basically, if you expect to behave in a certain way, then you will behave in a certain way and self-sabotage your progress.

This normally rears its head in the following ways:

“I’m just someone who can’t lose weight”

“I have no self control”

“I’m lazy

Are all examples of beliefs that we can acquire at some point.

And what happens is that instead of questioning them, we take them on as a part of our identity.

They are particularly insidious because the more you tell yourself that’s who you are, the more you behave in ways that align with those beliefs and gather more evidence for your theory.

The more evidence you gather, the more you tell yourself it’s true.

It’s a vicious cycle.

If you expect to fail, you will.

As this process goes on, I would like you to keep an eye out for these. When they crop up, question them.

Write them down and ask:

• How are these beliefs serving me?
• Are they actually true?
• Is there any evidence of the opposite being true?
• What is the real reason behind me having this belief?

We will work through these as this process continues, but for now I would just like you to be aware of them.

The principle of imperfect action

If there is one thing I would like you to practice it is the idea of imperfect action.

What this means is getting rid of the idea that you need to be perfect to see results.

Too much pressure on yourself to be perfect can cause feelings of failure or guilt, which can then in turn cause people to give up, which is not what we want!

It’s also the idea that when you can’t do something perfectly, it is still worth doing.

For example, say if your step target for the day is 10,000 but you’re busy and know you can’t go out for a long walk. Instead of thinking “I know I can’t hit that target so I may as well not bother”, realise that getting 7,000 is still great! You may not have been able to do 100%, but doing something is still taking you closer to your goal, and you are still getting so much benefit from doing it.

What will my future self thank me for?

It’s easy to believe that giving ourselves what we want right now in this moment is going to make us happy.

But often the things that give us long-lasting happiness require some sort of delayed gratification.

If you ever find yourself having to make a difficult choice about what to do, think “what would my future self thank me for”?