Have you spent any time on the internet reading about fitness? If you have, you’d likely think that everyone who starts a fitness program quickly develops amazing muscle tone and six-pack abs pretty easily. After all, look at all those before-after pictures and success stories, amazing claims to massive weight loss or muscle gain in an astoundingly short amount of time.
Do we have IMpowered Fitness success stories? Sure we do. But, when we interview our clients about their fitness journey, we don’t just talk about the successes. In reality of every fitness success story, there were a thousand missteps, mistakes, and — dare I say — failures along the way. It’s true for me, too. Some of my greatest successes wouldn’t have been possible without failing first.
So what’s the secret to succeeding in your fitness journey and achieving the body and health of your dreams?
Failure.
You have to fail first. Think about a child learning how to walk. Without continuous falling, they wouldn’t learn to get strong stand. Same with riding a bike. wobble a lot, fall some, learn, and then zoom you are off and riding.
You have to make mistakes and learn from them. You see, it’s easy to keep pushing forward with your workouts and nutrition plan when everything is going great. But in my experience, the people who are the most successful in the long run are the ones who aren’t deterred by their mistakes.
When they fall off track, they learn from it and get right back on. When they overindulge in the wrong kinds of foods (maybe Super Bowl?), they don’t beat themselves up or let it spiral into a weekend binge-fest. When they miss a workout — or get stuck late at work and can’t make it to the gym – Instead of quitting or giving up, they come home and do a few squats, lunges and push-ups or one of our quick 4-minute band workouts before dinner (4-minute jumpstart workout). Some exercise is better than none!
There’s an expression I like to share, “fail forward.”
If you consistently take action, trust yourself and the process, and understand that every mistake is preparing you for greater success down the road in the way of a learning opportunity, I’d bet you’ll be a lot happier and healthier in the long run.
What is one recent hurdle you experienced lately that you overcame, learned from, or challenged you? One where you persevered and kept on going?
