Creating your best life now often requires a change in mindset. Sometimes even when you have the intention of doing the right thing, if you have the wrong attitude, you can easily slip up. Some of the pitfalls in maintaining a long term health and fitness program include:
All or Nothing
Too often we adopt an “all or nothing” attitude. One example is you are scheduled to do a 45 minute workout but something comes up and you can’t fit in the allocated exercise time. You therefore don’t bother doing anything and say to yourself that you will make it up tomorrow. Another example is you have decided to eat more healthfully but one day slip up and have a piece of cake. You then give up on that day and eat poorly for the remainder of the day and promise yourself to do better tomorrow.
In the above examples, a 10 minute workout would have been far better than no exercise at all and getting your eating back on track immediately after the slip up would have been a better option.
Slip up and Give up
It is important to accept that there are going to be obstacles that cause slip ups along the way to creating your best life. If it is worth working for, there are likely to be challenges. Often it is the universe testing you to confirm that you really want the outcome that you say you want. Those who succeed are those that learn from the challenge and get quickly back on track.
Immediate Gratification
Too often we fall prey to the lure of immediate gratification. The slice of our favourite cake staring us in the face is too great a temptation compared to weight loss sometime in the future. It is easy to justify a lack of discipline with thoughts of getting back on track tomorrow or exercising more to make up for our lack of discipline today. Your body needs to be treated well in order to live optimally. You deserve to lead your best life. Find a reason strong enough to keep you on track and disciplined to resist the temptations that are placed in front of you.
Consider whether your actions are giving yourself what it needs or taking away from optimum health and function.