This subject is something that I have thought about writing about for a while now as it gets to our core beliefs of whether we can really do it, with it being our goals or not. I always wonder how I can stop people from failing, heck even stop myself from failing.
What do we need to succeed and what can cause us to fail?
I was watching a show that I really like last night, Survivorman. Survivorman is a show where the host Les Stroud goes out somewhere on the middle of nowhere and lives for a week with no food, shelter or equipment, just him and a few video cameras.
What does this have to do with fitness, besides maybe how starvation affects people? Well Les Stroud talks about how he feels in these places, last night for instance Les was in the desert.
People are afraid in the desert about animal attacks, water, food, spiders, loneliness, and other stuff and he made a point of saying what helps and why.
Really, I am getting to a point here.
So Les starts a fire. The fire to him is a way to keep himself safe from animals and warm at night. He finds a river. The river water keeps him hydrated and being full of water makes him less concerned about the lack of food.
So when dieting or going through a big change in your health or your fitness what do you rely on to make yourself feel “safe”?
Rely on Family
I know that in times of trouble people rely on their families and friends. Often with family and friends though if we are trying to make a big change they are going to be worried for us if we fail.
Instead of supporting you they are trying to help you down from being unrealistic, so maybe family and friends are not always the best. Rely on them if you can though!!
Rely on Food
Next thing is food. We rely on food to help us as energy but sometimes also through our emotional trouble, emotional eating is one of the toughest parts of changing our diet because lets face it a broiled chicken breast is not as nice as a bowl of ice cream if we are feeling down.
But food is of course our fuel source and we need to rely on that.
Rely on Exercise
Next of course is exercise, Exercise is the one thing that we can push and feel comfortable with. Exercise of course proves our worth to us in our fitness.
There is no way that we can cheat ourselves into running 5 miles or doing 30 minutes on the bike except for the fact that some days we are dogging it and some days we are pushing our limits, still though at the end of the workout you KNOW how hard you pushed it.
Rely on Community
The last thing is community. We can feel safe in community and the people around us. This is why it is great to have a fitness partner, a diet buddy, a message board that we can talk of our successes and failures with like minded people.
The people around us within our fitness and health circle are the ones that we rely on and at the same time the more we support them the better they can support us.
So where do we go from here?
The fact really is that there is always some kind of give and take. We give an give and never want to take back, at other times we take and take and never have the ability to give. These are just the constant changes in life.
Years ago I read the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and even though there was a lot of stuff in there I remember the book only because Stephen Covey talked about this bank account of giving and receiving.
As you give to people in help, comments, being nice, any kind of giving then you are building a positive bank account that at some point they will want to give back to you for.
The first time you hear the idea it seems terrible like you are giving to take away from others but that is not really the way it works, giving begets receiving is more like it.
Anyway this is really all about getting some constants, some pillars to lean on in your life so that those variables that are tough, like food for instance, are easier to deal with.
Watch the people in your life, offer support to them, let them understand you and make it clear that you may need to lean on them when things are tough, your fitness friends will all understand this already but family and friends may not so make sure you explain your goals and fears to them.
If people understand why you are going through this uncharted territory then they will help you to feel safe (knew I would get back to those Survivorman references eventually) and then the tougher stuff like food and exercise are the only variables that you need to worry about.