A Fitness Plan Means Nothing Without Effort and Positivity

I’ve been trying to lose the last 30 pounds to reach my goal weight for about three or four years. I know, overachiever, right? And tomorrow I’m trying my 12-week fitness challenge yet again. But a plan for fitness means very little if I’m not putting in the effort.

Or, even if I don’t keep a positive mindset about the experience.

That’s perhaps the most important element to succeed in anything, really. Your frame of mind about anything is going to influence whether or not you’re successful.

Don’t believe a certain diet will work before you try it? Think a particular exercise or workout routine is dumb? That mentality will vastly decrease the likelihood of success because you’re already approaching it as a failure.

In fact, this is one of the things that health and fitness companies tap in order to sell you their products. Ads are meant to convince you that success isn’t possible unless you buy those weight loss pills or pieces of exercise equipment.

Keeping a Positive Mindset Is Difficult for Many

Every New Year’s Day, a lot of people will convince themselves that this is the year for health and fitness. And many people who jump on the weight loss resolutions will come out of the gate strong.

For about a month or two.

Then they start viewing the process as more of a mundane chore and begin developing a negative frame of mind. At which point, some of those people will simply give up.

This is one of the biggest reasons why I am a major fan of gamifying fitness. It’s a way to make the entire process fun, which keeps you in a positive mindset.

Now, being positive isn’t going to guarantee success. But it will improve your chances if you’re still working for results. Once you start looking for the failures, you’ll experience them more often.

It’s one of the many ways people self-sabotage when approaching any task or objective.

5 Ways to Keep Myself Positive Everyday

This time around, I’m going to try a few old and new things to keep myself going for the long haul. But the most prominent is finding the passion to succeed.

Take my challenge from last year about writing 90 blog posts in 30 days. I was able to accomplish it even though I was nearing burnout by the end. What can I do to get that kind of willpower again for health and fitness?

So, what am I going to do to keep myself in a positive mindset this time around? First of all, I’m getting myself psyched up for the experience.

Using the Blog More Often

Initially, I created CrossingColorado.com as a way to document my weight loss journey and keep me motivated. And for a long time, it worked fairly well. I would like to get back into writing more posts not centered around keyphrase research and SEO.

More like journal entries about what I’m doing.

Not to mention that I notice I focus on health and fitness more often when I’m regularly writing blog posts. I am a writer, after all, and what I write about on any given day gets me in a certain mindset centering around the topic.

In any case, some of the best-performing articles on the blog were those I wrote while experiencing certain equipment or foods. Besides, it’ll help me get the website back where it was prior to the YMYL update from Google.

It’s a long story, but I lost 90% of my traffic within six hours of the update.

Using Data for Future Content

The data I plan to collect using my 12-week fitness challenge spreadsheet should host quite a few blog posts and videos. That is as long as I can maintain the data on a daily basis.

That’s been one of my biggest hangups when trying to follow this fitness plan. I get into the wrong mindset after dinner and just binge without caring to record the food intake.

If I want the data to use for future articles, which may wind up performing fairly well, I need to remain focused on what I’m doing every day.

Regular Updates On the YouTube Channel

I have a few people who watch every video my friend and I publish on the health and fitness channel. If I want it to take off and bring in a bit of extra cash, I need to start creating more content.

Not to mention the fact that those viewers often say how I inspire them to do better. What kind of an inspiration am I when I can’t even follow through with my own fitness plans?

This time around, I am doing weekly update videos and daily Shorts on YouTube. That is as long as I can remember to do so. The idea is to use my audience to hold myself accountable.

Using Social Media More for Accountability

Speaking of accountability, I also want to try to remember to do more on social media, such as regular posts to Instagram. Just like using the YouTube channel, social media can help keep me motivated as I don’t want to fail in front of my audience.

When you’re trying to lose weight or live healthier, the only one you’re truly accountable to is yourself. This makes it more difficult to stay motivated to follow through with your efforts.

By finding ways to hold yourself accountable, it can reinforce the positive mindset of needing to do better.

Will I lose my job if I don’t lose weight over the next 12 weeks? No. But I will lose some of the respect from my fans and followers. And I rather like being a beacon of inspiration for those who consume my content.

Sigh…now I’m starting to sound like an influencer.

Beating Personal Records

I love surpassing my personal bests. It’s one of the things that keeps me going as a writer. I’m always looking for ways to push myself and become more than I am.

With this next fitness challenge, I’m going to try to tap that same mindset.

What kind of personal records do I want to beat? Things like push-ups in a single set, average steps in a day, weight lifted at the gym…that kind of stuff.

For example, I think my record for push-ups is 22 in a single set. I know, it’s not that many compared to a lot of people. But for me, it was an accomplishment considering I could only do eight before I lost the first 80 pounds.

What Can I Accomplish in 12 Weeks?

The above fitness plan looks and sounds good when I write it out. The trick, though, is to continue with the follow-through. I hope implementing those five things will help keep me focused and in a positive frame of mind.

I’m feeling pretty good about this year overall. Who knows, perhaps 2022 is the year I hit my weight goals?

Seriously, I’ve never seen myself as a fit adult. I’ve always been north of chunky, even at my smallest. This is going to be interesting.