Stop Quitting on Yourself
In my 30’s and 40’s, I thought that I would be able to exercise my way through aging without changing my intensity. I had used exercise to solve practically every physical and mental challenge in my life. It was my stress reliever, my career, my social outlet and my education. I actually peaked in my fitness in my mid-40’s thanks to an exercise development job that required an incredible amount of strength, power and endurance. I figured that I would just keep on keeping on. In other words, I planned to not quit anything. And then I started getting overuse injuries that wouldn’t heal, my personal life became very stressful, and my choreography job ended. I stopped.
It was an incredibly challenging time for me in every way. I wish I could say I came through unscathed, but I have some significant scars from that time in my life. And even though I did quit much of what I was doing to stay healthy, what was created from that time of life has now helped me learn to not quit on myself for the rest of my life. And I’d like to teach you how to stop quitting, too.
Not quitting starts in your mind
A growth mindset is the belief that your abilities and intelligence can be developed through dedication, learning and hard work over your lifetime. Embracing a growth mindset means understanding that progress takes time and effort. It's focusing on what you can do to improve rather than feeling defeated when things don't go as planned. When you understand that you don’t do everything right, you allow your expectations to center on action instead of results. And you also open up to the possibility that you need to learn something more than what you know at the moment. We ALL have habits, behaviors and beliefs that we are responsible and in control of. Therefore, we have choice. We may not always like our choices, but we are almost never stuck.
Choosing health instead of old habits, convenience, social norms or experience is a HARD place to live. But just like all hard (and often new) skills, living a life that goes against the flow becomes easier with practice. It is a consistent practice that will bring about growth and by consequence, change.
Reframe Your Thinking
When nothing seems to be working, especially with considerable effort, it's easy to fall into a negative, stuck mindset. Of course, instead of dwelling on what's not working, we can reframe our thinking (again, with practice). Lots of reframing can happen in our heads, but when we write them down, they solidify in our subconscious brain. Those new thoughts now become something bigger and more valuable than a conversation we have with ourselves.
Here’s how this can play out:
OLD THOUGHT: I’ll never be able to truly change; I always gain the weight I lose, I don’t consistently exercise, I don’t like healthy food and my family has always been this way, too.
NEW THOUGHT: I have changed in the past and if I don’t quit, I can change again; I will learn from my mistakes, I’ll schedule my workouts, I’ll learn more about cooking and invite my family to join me.
Notice the language in the old thoughts = never, always and don’t. In the new thought, there are words with choices like if, can, learn and will. Again, even though we’re talking about words here, they become beliefs and beliefs become actions. If you can change the way you talk to yourself about yourself, you can change.
Process vs Outcome
Many times, we focus solely on achieving an outcome such as losing a certain amount of weight or creating a specific body shape. While these goals can get us started thinking about change, they often lead to frustration if we don't see the exact results we dream about (especially physically!). Instead, we can focus the process of how to accomplish an outcome, or, what habits are practiced by someone who lives the way we want?
Imagine being the person you want to be. What do you think she does on a regular basis to own those outcomes? Is she gifted? Genetically predisposed? Special? Probably not. Imagine how you would feel when you exercise regularly, eat nourishing foods, fast between meals, fit comfortably in your clothes, sleep enough at night to be rested and recovered, to have strong relationships and grow old with energy and grace. Pretty good, huh?
That’s really what we all want, right? We don’t want to die young from a terrible disease or accident that we could have prevented. Well, these habits above can prevent over 80% of all chronic diseases that we see people die from all the time.
Embrace Challenges
Incorporating new challenges into your routine can be a powerful way to foster a growth mindset. Learning new skills and habits is one of the best ways to create new neural pathways in our brains.
For example, it’s not hard to find the latest and greatest workout that promises to burn belly fat fast or tighten up our glutes up like a 10 year old boy. All of us fall prey to those marketing schemes. But, you know there are some crucial elements that we all need to include in our workouts.
Across the board, we need movement. All of us! Here are some ideas to include when you’re looking for structure and some optional new challenges:
MANDATORY MOVEMENT FOR EVERYONE:
Increase intermittent moving throughout the day by setting an alarm to get up and move every hour for at least 5 minutes.
Strength train all major muscle groups (chest, back, hips, legs, core) at least twice per week.
Walk at least 30 minutes per day (and this can include step 1 as a measure!).
NEW CHALLENGES TO TRY:
Sprint training (run, bike, swim, row, climb stairs) as hard as you can for 15-30 seconds followed by enough rest to feel ready to go again but not cooling down (generally 30-90 seconds). Repeat 5-10x.
Pilates, yoga, mobility, mediation and journalling routines included in addition to or at the end or any workout, 2-3x/week.
Cardio training 2-3x/week, 20-30 minutes of low to moderate intensity.
You’re only as good as your gang
When I was working as a program developer, my coworkers were all more experienced and more fit than me. That gap challenged me as I began to learn new skills that translated into one of the most enjoyable jobs I ever held. In contrast, I have worked in clinics and gyms that were the completely opposite environment, and to no one’s surprise, it was very difficult to thrive there.
Recognizing that our environments are hurting our growth and by default, our future, can be very unsettling. Quitting our current job or changing locations may see completely impossible right now. But living in misery is an even worse existence. Challenge your beliefs about what is possible to change in your world and give yourself permission to dream about a future that’s bright.
Stay Patient and Persistent
There will ALWAY be something more to learn and change. Hopefully that truth encourages you that we will never stop growing and developing, if that’s what we choose. Embracing a no quit attitude is within our grasp, especially and critically, when we are faced with challenges we can’t easily solve. Remember the movie Meet the Robinsons? The underlying theme was to learn from failure and keep developing new solutions. The next time you’re feeling overwhelmed, remember this: “yeah! you failed!” Now you’re closer to success.💛
