Every day we either reaffirm or retrain our behavior.
If you have a habit of ordering Grubhub for takeout, then you reaffirm this behavior every time you order in. When you cook yourself dinner instead, you’re retraining yourself to cook at home.
Every action reaffirms an old habit or retrains you toward a new one.
Reaffirming good habits is great. Reaffirming poor habits is disastrous.
Retraining toward good habits is productive. Retraining toward poor habits is not.
Every day, whether you realize it or not, you are moving the needle one way or the other.
Wishful thinking is a terrible plan.
What is it that you want to accomplish? Do you want to be in less pain? Change your eating habits? Have more energy to play with your kids?
Maybe you’re stuck in a job you hate with people you despise.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of sitting by waiting, hoping, for things to change for the better. Unless you actively work to change something, things will progress exactly as they are.
Wishful thinking only satisfies our imagination.
Action is the currency of change.
Perfect is a losing proposition.
If you wait to be perfect it’ll never happen.
If you only accept perfect, you’ll fail and throw in the towel every time. Instead, aim for “better.”
Better than last time, better than yesterday, better today.
No matter how small, and definitely not perfect.
Just better.
You don’t learn anything when you’re right.
You only reaffirm something you already knew.
Being wrong and failing is an essential part of the learning process.
Avoiding failure doesn’t make you successful. It robs you of the opportunity to grow.
And growth is necessary for success. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes.
Mindset is like a pair of sunglasses.
Positive or negative, whichever pair you put on will alter what you see in your day-to-day life.
If you put on yellow-tinted glasses, everything looks yellow. If you put on blue-tinted glasses, everything looks blue.
Walking around with a negative mindset gives everything a tint of negativity. The challenges you face become burdens.
Put on your positive mindset lenses and those same burdens become opportunities.
The opposite of pleasure is not pain, it’s comfort.
Comfort robs you of an invigorating life.
Comfort imprisons you, holds you captive, and prevents you from a life at your true potential.
Comfort is an insidious beast, asking only small concessions until you become dependent on it. Then it makes you believe you’ve chosen that cage because it’s better than what’s outside.
The way out requires a commitment to bravery. Each uncomfortable step bringing you closer to your higher potential.
Your comfort zone might be holding you prisoner, but you have the power to change the locks.
My role as your coach is not to take away your favorite foods.
It’s not to judge or belittle you any time you decide to have them, either.
My role is to help make sure the decision to enjoy your favorite treats is one made on purpose. A decision made with full understanding of the consequences and the trade-offs.
That you aren’t driven by environment, peer pressure, or from an emotionally-driven place.
That you make a decision and have no problem taking full responsibility for it, with no guilt or shame.
Exercise is uncomfortable, but it minimizes discomfort to maximize pleasure.
Food pleasures, like snacking late at night, do the opposite. It minimizes pleasure and maximizes discomfort.
What do I mean?
When you snack on junk food, it’s only pleasurable until the food is gone. Then, you either feel sick or guilty until the next snacking occurrence.
Small pleasure, giant discomfort.
Exercise is unpleasant for the short time spent doing it, but then you have all day to feel the benefits. You have more energy, a positive mood, and less aches and pains.
Small discomfort, giant pleasure.
Which payoff do you want?
It’s OK to want more: better health, better friends, a better job, a better life.
To be happy with what, and who, you see looking back at you in the mirror, on the inside and out.
You aren’t ungrateful for wanting more.
In today’s society, it is unlikely that you will be healthy without some level of mindfulness to what you put in your mouth.
Having some basic understanding of calories, macros, and nutrition labels is a necessity.
Learning how to setup and manage your food environment is a non-negotiable.
You can’t ignore regular physical activity anymore.
And at the end of the day, adopting these changes is not going to be the hard part…
The hardest part is going to be accepting that the old you can’t come back.
~ Coach Alex
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