I am a great fan of the gym. Genuinely. I realised some years back that I was much more likely to ‘do the stuff’ if I worked with a personal trainer motivating and guiding me, than trying to do it on my own.
I can’t speak for anyone else but for me it simply works. The accountability makes a BIG difference for sure. And I can’t keep pushing back my start time to later and later in the day (often to the point where today becomes tomorrow! … sound familiar?). It’s more fun too.
I learned a VERY valuable business lesson from my personal trainer yesterday and I’d like to share it with you.
In January Jon – my PT – and I agreed some New Year goals for me. In addition to my 100kg deadlift goal – more of that in another article! – I would definitely like to shed a few pounds to feel more like the ‘me’ I’d like to be. I don’t believe in dieting and we agreed that some renewed commitment to healthy eating principles definitely wouldn’t go amiss. And it was with much enthusiasm that I set about the food diary that Jon requested, so we could see what was going on.
So yesterday, after we’d discovered that I seem to have put ON weight since Christmas, we had a ‘discussion’ about what I’d written. Of course, it makes interesting reading and I could easily justify all the choices I’d made … I was tired; we’d had people round for supper; it was the weekend; I was using stuff up after Christmas; it was ‘just the once’. Believe me, I’m no slouch when it comes to a good excuse!
But, quite rightly, Jon ignored all my excuses and focused on the fact that, looking across the whole, my approach didn’t add up to ‘healthy eating’ .There were too many compromises and, if my behaviour didn’t change, then I was very unlikely to achieve my goal.
His point, quite rightly, was that my behaviour is simply incongruent with my goal.
And I see this a lot with business owners and their goals.
People have goals – a bigger house; a better car; more time with the kids; holidays abroad. But what they actually DO is incongruent with their goals. They continue to do much the same as before – and talk about how they’d like things to change.
So, duly chastened, it has made me properly stop and reflect on how I need to change some behaviours – or change my goal. If what I want is important enough to me, then I should be prepared to step out of my comfort zone and try some new strategies.
One of the main reasons I use a personal trainer is because I love being out of my comfort zone, trying stuff I’d never do on my own. So I do know I CAN do this … I’ve just got to get started.