Mind + Motivation= Success

There are many aspects of being healthy. There's how well you eat and how often you exercise, but there's also how you think. Many people face mental roadblocks when trying to reach their fitness goals. It's common and I'm sure it has happened to everyone at least once. Breaking past those barriers is what's going to help. It helped me when I was just starting to learn how to work out for myself.

When I was in high school, I was a varsity athlete. I trained with my team and I did the workouts that I was told to do. My competitive drive is what pushed me to keep going. Going into college, I was no longer on a sports team, and if I wanted to exercise I would have to go to the recreation center and do it myself. I started out feeling pretty motivated. I made a plan for myself. I was going to do some cardio, some arms, and some abs. I walked myself down to the recreation center, I jumped on an elliptical machine, and I did the full round of cardio, I got off and I went home. This soon became a trend. I would get off the elliptical, feel tired, and leave. There was no one telling me what to do or making sure I was doing everything I needed to. I soon realized this would be a problem.

I had to come up with a way to get past my newly developed fixed mindset about working out. I had to find my motivation. For many people, finding their motivation can be difficult, and giving up always seems like an easy way out. I tried to watch fitness videos and sports videos to try and spark something within myself. After months of giving up on myself, I realized I wasn't happy with the results. I had to make a change. Any change would be good. Exercising wasn't the only problem I was having. I was also having problems with eating healthy, as many college students do.

Getting myself in the right mindset was the first step. I did three main things to help get myself on track:

Reflect—In order to make changes to my mindset, I needed to reflect on what wasn't working out in the first place. I saw that going from one workout regimen to a different one was a hard change for me. I also saw I had problems with pushing my limits. Instead of pushing myself to try my hardest, I would easily give up when faced with the smallest amount of tiredness.

Set Goals—I had no goal but to get in better shape. I needed to be specific with my goals in order to have a clear path of where I was headed. It wasn't enough just to think up goals. I wrote them out and stuck them in places where I would see them so that they were always in my face. When your goals are staring you down, it's hard to ignore them.

Take Action—The biggest part of making changes in your life is to actually get out and try your hardest to make the changes you want. I started small. I went to the gym, did some cardio, then went down to do some arms. Then I added abs. Some days I would lay off and take recovery days. I made workouts that suited me. Just being able to tell myself I'm going to do something than actually doing it was a good esteem booster.

I would say after doing those things, I have a more positive outlook on myself, and I have found that I am more capable than what once thought.