“Change yourself if you want to change your outcome.” You have more than likely heard this in many different ways throughout your life, and it is entirely accurate. You can’t expect to accomplish the more significant tasks in your life if you are not willing to change your outlook and habits. If you are trying to get a different outcome from your exercise program, shouldn’t you be ready to choose different exercises to get you there?
Yup.
This leads to another phrase everybody has heard from our lovely popular genus Einstein “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” Now, these are not words to take in and agreeably node and say “yes” and then go about your day. Think about it and see how it applies.
Sallys losing exercise program
I’ll give you a typical example. Sally Sucker has been working out for the majority of her life and never quite reaching her goals. So she goes on with her routine of gym/classes, yoga, hiking, and biking occasionally. She will “get serious” twice a year and work out a little harder, but the outcome is the same and she is getting frustrated.
She is frustrated because she is not getting any closer, and in retrospect, she is getting worse. She doesn’t move as well, she is in more pain, and worse, she thinks it is because she isn’t working hard enough and is losing confidence and motivation. This little story just turned a bit depressing because the health and fitness industry suckered Sally.
She was suckered because she was told that if she just moved and did these activities that claimed to give the results, she was looking for that she would succeed. Sorry, Sally, it doesn’t work that way. You get the results when you tell your body EXACTLY what you want it to do with a PRECISE health and fitness exercise program. Sally needs to take a hard look at how she’s tried to reach her goals and make changes that will actually help her reach her goals.
Use an exercise program like a science experiment.
A health and fitness program is like a scientific formula: a little bit of too much or little here and there, and it blows up in your face, but without all the burning of skin and fires. Each exercise is an ingredient put in there because it was designed to produce an exact outcome. And, to go back too thinking about exercises, the exercises you find that will give you these results will be a little foreign to you and will definitely be challenging. And not just sweaty breathing hard challenging, but challenging mentally, emotionally, and physically.
Let’s give Sally a nice ending because she has been through so much. So Sally saw the light and was brave and took the road less taken ( way too many analogies), and now Sally is seeing and embodying her accomplishments, and she is no longer a sucker but a superstar. Aww.