RESPECT – 7 Steps To Your Long Term Success
Some of you may have heard me previously talk about my dog, Zeus.
When I rehomed Zeus he was unsure who I was and whether he could trust me or not.
Given he’s a 40kg German Shepherd, that’s a mixture that spells trouble to the uninitiated.
Thankfully, I’ve had a Shepherd before, and so knew that patience and consistency would be Zeus’s best friend over the following weeks and months.
You’re no different.
As adults, it’s rare that we go somewhere new to meet someone we’ve never talked to before with the aim of telling them things we probably wouldn’t talk about with our friends or loved ones.
That means we experience the same emotions that Zeus did when I first met him.
– We fear the unknown
– We fear being vulnerable
– We fear having to build trust
Your health and fitness goals are some of the most personal things you’ll ever consider sharing with someone.
And rightly so.
These goals are often driven by emotions, feelings, past experiences and strongly held fears.
Thankfully, it doesn’t have to be a scary process.
RESPECT – 7 Steps to Your Long Term Success
In our last post, we discussed what’s coaching really all about.
If you’re going to be successful in the long term, you need more than dumbbells and a treadmill.
You need a framework personalised to you as an individual
Our 7 step R.E.S.P.E.C.T. framework is how we achieve this with our clients.
We’re going to share how we apply this so you can build your long term success starting today.
All you need is a blank piece of paper (or two maybe!) and 20-30 minutes of quiet time.
1 – Reason
Before we get started building your training or nutrition programme, we need to identify and understand the reasons that drive you.
For example, our reason for existing as a business is to help people secure long term physical independence.
Define your reason so you can identify the building blocks for your future success.
2 – Expectation
Most of us overestimate here. We think we’re going to fix years of poor diet, poor quality sleep, poor hydration and poor stress coping strategies by flogging ourselves silly in the gym and starving ourselves in the kitchen.
Sadly, our industry is largely to blame here.
Too many snake oil salesmen pushing meal replacement shakes, radical calorie-cutting diets and excessively difficult high-intensity training programmes have made the health and fitness landscape a minefield for you to navigate.
To fix this, we look objectively at reviewing our expectations.
If you want to look better in the mirror naked, you’re probably going to want to lose some body fat. This means gently reducing the amount of fats and carbs you consume while eating the correct amount of protein for your current body weight. Healthy long term maintainable weight loss occurs when losing between 250-500g body fat per week, not 2-3kgs by cutting out anything remotely calorific or using meal replacement shakes with ingredients you can’t pronounce.
If you want to have enough energy to play with the grandchildren, you’re going to need to start increasing your weekly movement patterns. This means starting by adding in a couple of 20-40 minute walks a week for a month or two, gradually increasing the gradient or pace. Not pounding yourself into the physio’s office by running every day.
With this in mind, what are your expectations for your health and fitness?
3 – Specificity
Contrary to popular belief, the average person doesn’t need constantly varied high-intensity workouts every day of the week to achieve their goals.
The vast majority of the people we work with need specificity before variance.
They need to learn to squat, to deadlift, to push and to pull before they perform 1000 burpees for time (p.s. we’ll never make you do 1000 burpees for time!).
Our average client comes to us with problems like:
– sore lower back
– tight hamstrings
– rounded shoulders and poor posture
We address these issues and build a plan to correct them prior to climbing Mt Cook or swimming the Foveaux Strait
What aches and pains, niggles or injuries do you have that you need to address on the way to success?
4 – Patience
Now we start wading into the trickier parts of our psyche.
Patience is not something that we generally apply to our health and fitness goals.
As we discussed in expectation, when we first get started we want success yesterday!
This goes for coaches too.
The most glaring mistakes I’ve made as a coach were because I lacked confidence in the application of patience. I let clients get ahead of their skill, strength, flexibility etc levels. I let them move on to movements they weren’t fully prepared for in the hope of keeping them happy and engaged.
Your biggest challenge is going to be applying patience.
Not grabbing the heaviest kettlebell to squat with or ramping the treadmill up to a speed you can barely control the second time you go to the gym.
If you were looking to take a professional qualification or to return to study, which option would you choose?
The one that lets you get a degree in two weeks online or the 4 year course at Vic Uni?
You know it makes sense here, your health and fitness is no different.
5 – Endurance
Most of history’s great endeavours required endurance
Norgay and Hillary summiting Everest
Bannister running the 4 minute mile
Shackleton’s story of survival in the Antarctic
For you to be successful in the long term, we’re looking for you to channel some of the endurance exhibited in these achievements.
This means building a plan that can be implemented for months rather than weeks.
It means:
Sticking to your nutrition plan
Creating a regular sleeping schedule
Finding time to relax
It means ignoring the noise around you to speed up the process, to take short cuts and to cut corners.
How can you build your endurance to stick to your goals?
6 – Confidence
Confidence is a fickle beast.
When we first meet prospective clients, it’s generally the thing they’re most lacking.
They’re fearful of feeling stupid, physically inferior, of making a fool of themselves and of getting injured.
Give it a couple of weeks in our personalised training programmes and we’re dragging the very same people off of the climbing ropes!
For you to be successful in the long term, you’re going to perform best in an environment you find safe and trusting.
That’s why every new client we work with starts with a free one on one no sweat consultation with one of our coaches.
How can you build your confidence to achieve your goals in the long term?
7 – Temptation
Last of all, temptation is the one element of your makeup that has the most potential to derail your R.E.S.P.E.C.T. framework.
Effectively, this is the evil element of our human nature, and we need to make sure we don’t allow ourselves to fall victim to temptation.
Running closely with patience, you’re going to need to resist temptation.
The temptation to move forward too quickly, the temptation to give in to the dopamine hit you get when you see your movement patterns improve, the amount of weight you lift, the speed you perform your workouts.
As coaches, we work hard to help our clients navigate this temptation.
We know that if we can control the temptation to move forward too quickly, we’re going to help our clients achieve success in the long term.
How can you help yourself survive the temptation to move forward too quickly?
So there you have it, our 7 Steps To Your Long Term Success.
Let us know how this framework helps you be successful with your health and fitness goals.
If you’d like us to help you define, personalise and apply this framework to your specific long term goals, hit this link to arrange a time with one of our coaches today.