Are you giving yourself grace?

If you have ever trained with me or taken any of my classes I am sure you have heard me say something like “give yourself some grace!” and this may be confusing to so many but I am finally taking the time to tell you in a few lines why I say this.

Here’s what I mean…

When I first started this “gym life” I was 32 years old and feeling like a 98 year old woman. I took the first step in faith and walked into a gym looking for a membership which led me to a trainer.

When discussing my goals with him, I knew I had to work out 3-4 times a week if I wanted to accomplish my goal and I needed to keep track of my food intake. And I had to be consistent. Disciplined.

Like most of you, I did exactly what you are thinking; I scheduled myself! Every day after work I was going to go to the gym. Then I would make dinner and fix and pack my lunch for the next day and have everything ready for breakfast.

That was it. I had completely figured out exactly what I needed to do to achieve my goal…or so I thought!

I didn’t take into account that I had an almost 2 year old, a full-time job, 2 aging parents at home… I still thought I could accomplish my goal. I was “determined”.

Just curious, how many times have you heard that line? How many times have you heard someone say (or tell you) “it takes discipline”? I dare to bet quite a few times, right?

Even a “Perfect” plan isn’t perfect

Listen, it was not long until life came to burst my “goal bubble”… my planned path.

My big, amazing and almost “perfect” plan collapsed during the first week. I had failed to plan for life!

If you are like me, you like planning things. The busier we are the more we plan because we don’t want to waste a single minute of our day with unexpected surprises…but there I was, running around, figuring out life and failing to keep my plan as I had told myself I would.

The True Hack

When starting a fitness journey, if you are serious about it, you probably understand that you don’t just work your body but you must work your mind so personal development and growth has to happen as well.

There are endless books that talk about building healthy habits while kicking out the old ones. How to be disciplined. How to prioritize your time. How to get rid of emotions and feelings, etc.

So here you are, 75 days into your new “habit” and still struggling every single day to convince yourself and push yourself to go to the gym… what is the first thing that comes to mind if you are still struggling to build the habit? Failure.

And this, my friend, is why you can’t take habits too seriously. You can’t take yourself too seriously.

A better alternative to form a solid habit

It took me a while to realize and accept that life is going to come and push you around when you least expect it. And what happens when life comes and pushes you around?

Simple. You fall.

And most of the time you can’t help but feel like you failed.

What happens when we fail? WE QUIT!

It’s hard to pick yourself up and to feel like you are moving forward if you keep “failing” every time life happens. So what’s a better option?

Flexibility.

When we make a decision that involves changing our lives for the better, we tend to start new habits with the intention of sticking with it but we forget to keep life as part of the plan.

Now, I am not here saying go live freely without making improvements in your life or growing as a human! I didn’t say that. All I am saying is, that as you make that list of things you want to change, goals you want to accomplish, things you want to do, give yourself the option to have consistent and powerful choices.

For example, if you decided you want to work out 3 times a week and you chose Monday, Wednesday and Friday and something happens one week and you can’t make Wednesday happen and you just don’t have time to make up that session then simply keep your Friday and move on.

One week of 2 active days will always be better than quitting and having no days of activity.

Closing it out

Going back to the beginning of this blog, give yourself some grace.

Remember that through it all, you have the power to change the narrative. You can see life happening as a failure or as an opportunity to be creative!

Reorganize your schedule, implement outside-the-box thinking and make choices that better fit your lifestyle at that moment.

Regain your decision making power and embrace the choice you make. As long as you don’t quit, you are still winning.

One more thing to remember:

Something will always be better than nothing.

All my love as always,

Coach Fatima

P.S.  If you are having a hard time adjusting to this new mentality, I strongly suggest you read the book “The Joy Choice: How to achieve lasting changes in eating and exercise” by Dr. Michelle Segar. It has amazing information, tips and tricks on learning how to live with the power of choices to be successful in goal setting.