Many of us think of ourselves as doers. As people who don’t need anyone. We take care of business. We handle our lives independently…or so we believe.
It is time to wake up. The “Lone Ranger”, the person “Who Can Do Anything” is a myth, and the faster we stop believing our own bullsh**t, the faster we can get on the road to success.
We are pack animals. We live in a herd and a lot of our success is determined by outside factors.
We are not helpless
Don’t mistake being dependent on our environment as being helpless. Actually, the opposite is true. The moment we realize that we are dependent on other factors as well, we can take actions to influence those factors.
Outside factors we can influence
Family
This is one of the most difficult things to influence in some ways. If our family is not supportive of our goals we have a really hard time making progress. If your partner keeps bringing unhealthy foods into the house because he/she doesn’t subscribe to your new fitness goals and you lack the willpower to withstand it then your fitness success can be in serious jeopardy.
The best way to approach family is the following: sit down with whomever is the culprit. Explain to them that it is really important to you to make this change in your life.
Tell them that you understand that they did not make the choice for themselves and that you need them on your side as support, as cheerleaders. See if you can come up with a way where they can keep their lifestyle without putting you in constant danger to compromise your goals. My wife has actually hidden some of the foods I crave before [sadly I found some of her stashes].
If someone has an eating addiction it can be just as problematic as being addicted to alcohol and living with a person that still drinks. We need our partner’s support and understanding.
Friends & Work
Friends are a little bit easier to handle. I tell my friends to not offer me foods that I am trying to avoid. If they keep trying to compromise my efforts I will simply not spend time with them. I can make new friends. A true friend or partner for that matter supports your health goals because they respect what is important to you, even if they cannot understand it.
Obviously we cannot simply get rid of our co-workers. Similar to our partner this might take a little bit of effort. Give them a job. Tell them that you need them to hold you accountable for a pre-determined period of time. Appeal to their compassion. Avoid the person that brings in the candy and donuts into the office 🙂
Stress
In my blog about stress I introduced various strategies of stress reduction. One big stressor in our life is procrastination. If you are guilty of it, try doing whatever you procrastinate first thing in the day. A great book to read in that context is “Eat that Frog” by Brian Tracy.
Time Restriction
Often our problem is not so much lack of time but rather it is poor time management. Write down everything you do for a couple of days. You will be surprised how much time you waste. Don’t get me wrong, relaxing is important, if we really do that, instead of mindlessly browsing the internet and feeling afterwards like we don’t know what happened to the time we had. See if you can streamline your schedule a little bit.
These are just a couple of simple examples. If you need more strategies to influence your environment to support your goals look us up at Charlotte Personal Trainers
Have a fit & healthy day,
Michael
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