Posted on April 16, 2017 by Jenny Cromack
As a personal trainer, it is essential that we educate our clients so they are empowered to make their own nutrition, exercise and lifestyle choices in order to achieve their goals. For me, the biggest compliment I could receive, as a personal trainer, is that a client feels confident enough to stop training with me and ‘do it on their own’. This would mean I have given them a sufficient ‘tool box’ to keep them on track and so they can make their own choices.
Now, speaking from lots of experience, I know it’s not as simple as this. Some clients need that weekly session in their diary to keep them on track with their regular workout schedule, to discuss their weekly nutrition or simply because they actually enjoy being put through their paces by someone else and may be working a bit harder than they would on their own. I have my own triathlon coach, which for someone who works in the fitness industry seems ridiculous, but I actually look forward my weekly catch up with him to discuss and training concerns, how my training has been going, etc.
After over 15 years in the fitness industry, I thought I’d share some of my top tips to staying on track with your goals. We’ve already blogged this week about setting process goals and prepping in advance, so this blog is more about your mindset to your goals. Here are some of my tops tips to achieving your goals.
Don’t Beat Yourself Up
Most of my personal training clients now me as a bit of a hard-nosed you know what, but I’m serious about this point. If you have a bad day, bad meal or even a bad week the worse thing you could do is beat yourself up. Beating yourself up creates negative thoughts which could lead to a downward spiral of poor eating habits, not exercising, etc. The quicker you can accept you have had a ‘blip’ (and this happens to the best of us) the quicker you will get back into your healthy routine and taking those positive steps towards smashing your goals.
Laugh In The Face of Hard Workouts
For those Lion King fans out there you will know I nicked this quote from when Simba says ‘I laugh in the face of danger’! But it’s true! Speaking from experience, there was a time when I’d look at my training plan and dread doing my tough interval sessions (1k intervals were high up there as my least favourite session) , or want to crawl and hide in the changing rooms at the thought of going a tempo run. But after a while, I realised I could accept what I had to do. The workout wasn’t going anywhere, I had to do it so I may as well look forward to it and get on with it whilst giving the workout everything I had. And guess what, I normally enjoyed it more and I normally ran/swam/cycled etc faster.
So, don’t dread your workouts, instead embrace them and I can guarantee not only will you enjoy them more you’ll probably see better results!
Escape The ‘I’ve Exercised So I Can Have……’ Trap
The number of people I speak to….friends, clients, family, etc….who often say I do loads of exercise so I can have eat what I want, or I’ve been for a run today so it doesn’t matter if I have ‘x’, is still quite surprising. If you wear an activity tracker whilst you train, you will see how hard you have to work to burn those calories, why would you then undo this by eating rubbish or over eating?
I can also guarantee that the number of calories you consume will most likely by higher than what you have burned so counterbalancing all of the hard work.
I know it’s not just about calories in vs calories out, but this is definitely something to bear in mind.
10 Minute Rule
On those days when you are not feeling the love for exercise, the 10 minute rule is golden. I blogged about this a few months ago, take a read, and then apply it the next time you’d rather do a year’s worth of ironing before you do a training session!
Do It For You
I’ve mentioned this in my blogs before, but in all my years as a personal trainer, those clients whose goals are because they want to achieve them, always have more success than those who might be trying to achieve something because their partner wants them to, they feel they ‘should’ do it because that’s what’s expected of them from society, their friend, their family, etc.
Find your goal, and do it because you want to.
Understand WHY Your Goal Is Important
This links a little bit to the point above. Not only should you be the motivation behind your goals, you also need to understand why they are important to you. If they’re not important then it’s likely you’ll be less motivated to achieve them. Why do you want to do that 10k faster than before? Why do you want to feel more energetic and eat better? Why do you want to look and feel better in your clothes?
There’s really only you who can answer this. If you don’t know why you are working towards your goals, then I’d suggest this. Leave your phone at home, grab your coat and go out for a walk, grab a coffee, do whatever it takes to get some space and have a good think about this. Once you have recognised why your goals are important, then spend some time planning how you will achieve them.
I hope these top tips to achieving your goals have helped, however, if you do need any more help then please do get in touch.