5 Essential Skills to MAKE TRAINING A SUCCESSFUL HABIT
Are you struggling with making training a routine part of your life? 15 min read
If you are one of those that tends to procrastinate your training, think of yourself as someone who just dosen’t enjoy training at all or not the gym type. I invite you to this 15 min read, to help you change perspective on this habit or skill you are trying to develop.
I always look at it as a separate SKILL to learn how to train efficiently, once you have practiced these 5 steps Im about to share with your. You will have become better at training consistently and THEN you can start aiming for specific results with your training. Take a deep breath, and get ready for some imperfect actions.
Skill number 1 Visualisation!
How to finding Motivation, And Keep It going
THIS is a true game changer when it comes to changing your habits. And my secret sauce when working with ANY client.
Ask yourself WHY should be working out, and WHAT results you going to get from your effort, Before you as HOW you are going to do it.
Your brain can’t tell difference between memories of previous unsuccessful experiences and visualisations of you being successful at this new habit, so lets make sure your brain is filled with the later.
5 min Practice: EVERY DAY
See yourself already having achieved what you are setting out to do.
Imagining what it looks like and how you feel when you are on your way there.
Skill number 2: Planning Training Into Your Schedule.
Failing to plan is planning to fail.
This one is hard, and where a lot of people struggle but without a plan
How are you going to keep yourself accountable?
How will you know if you did what you set yourself out to do or achieved it?
How can you make sure that 2-5x during the week you have some work that’s going to bring your closer to your visualisation.
5 min Practice EVERY WEEK: Sit down beginning of the week with your calendar, digital one or a printed one and make training appointments with yourself, make sure to include what, where, how and a specific time.
Skill number 3: Executing Your Plan
Action, kills anxiety and overthinking
After all the brain exercise its time to get to the gym. When your training appointment you planed is coming up: Countdown, outloud 5-4-3-2-1 GO - Launch yourself like a rocket into the new habit.
All change is hard. Even for the most routine fitness people training at different time time, doing something new or in a new way feels scary and uncomfortable and your brain tries to stop you. You will find yourself coming up with the most silly things to stop you and excuses you have all heard before.
And sorry to say it but you will never actually feel like doing the uncomfortable things. so…… my advice to you in the first 21 days is to do it anyways.
5 min Practice Every (Damn) Day: (several of times pr day) Accept the feeling that you don’t want to do IT (kind of like when your 3 year old tells you they don’t want to go to bed at 8 pm or that they want candy for dinner) listen to whatever excuses your brain comes up with, it’s too cold, it’s too late, I'm too tired, this is shit…. maybe even write these things down. And then, count back from 5-4-3-2-1 and do it anyways.
I 100% guarantee you, you will feel like you unlocked the universe once you start moving!
Skill number. 4: Reflection: Adjusting your Training load.
Are you getting all the value from your efforts?
Now that you are showing up for the gym, and doing your workouts, most clients get lost and frustrated thinking if they are getting all the benefits from it?
Usual questions at this stage are what weights should i use, how fast should my runs be, how sore should I be after my workout?
And I want to introduce RPE scale to help you with this. Here we rate our intensity on the scale of 1-10, where 1 is not intense at all, lying down and relaxing, 10 is the hardest push, effort you could possibly imagine. This works for both strength and conditioning training.
5 min Practice End of Each Session: Ask yourself
How intense your workout was on the scale of 1-10
How could you have made it more intense?
How could you have made it less intense?
Skill number 5: Review
Fitness is a journey, with a growth mindset and a good amount of self reflection you can get further, faster. Your training doesn’t always have to look and be the same, you can variate between different group classes, home training and outside activities - whatever makes you happy, healthy and active.
Weekly reviews is one of the things that will speed up your journey, use the following questions to highlight what you are doing well, and learn from the things that are not going so well.
Make sure to include mindset, sleep, nutrition and other health related topics, not just training. Goal here is to promote your overall health and wellbeing.
5 min Practice, Weekly or Minimum Once Every Month.
1. One thing that positively surprised you last week/month:
2. One thing you found challenging in the last week/month:
3. One thing you would like to change and do better for next week/month:
BONUS BONUS INFO: TROUBLESHOOTING - Repeat these 5 steps over and over and over again FOREVER
When you lose motivation and direction on where you are heading, start with Step 1, the visualisation again - re focus and maybe pivot your attention of fitness, if you are no longer heading where you want to be don’t be afraid to change it slightly include more of the things that push you forward (notice I didn’t say “that you like”….. because change is hard and you will feel resistance)
Every week, Plan throughout your week activities that bring your closer to where you want to be, that future self you envisioned in Step 2.
Every Time you start to procrastinate and cancel your trainings, remind yourself how you execute 5-4-3-2-1 and Do It Anyways :)
When you feel uninspired and blehhh, check in with yourself, reviewing and be honest, are you working out with enough intensity and deliberately enough to be getting better from your efforts?
Hope you find this helpful
Any questions, comments or concerns feel free to get in touch
Whatever you do, just don’t do nothing!
