Category: motivation

Using the right kind of self-talk 

Our thoughts can be a two way street. Listen too much to our doubts, negativity and we will always struggle.

What if we started a self-talk programme with ourselves, telling ourselves what we NEED to be doing to feel better.

Even if we sometimes don’t feel like it, we know if we hit the gym most days, get fresh air, we will elevate our mental health, feel better, elevate our physical health and get ourselves on a better trajectory in our life as a whole.

Accept the fact you will have negative thoughts daily, we ALL do, and it’s how you deal with them will make all the difference.

We know that alcohol can elevate our thoughts-but only for a short time, and then it will all coming crashing down quickly, as alcohol is a depressant and leave us in a mess not wanting to do much afterwards.

Same with sugary food, it will give us a warm fizzy feeling for around 30 mins, then we will have an energy crash, no energy and our stomach will often hurt from all that junk.

Mental health is often a daily battle for everyone and we need to employ strategies that.regularly will make us feel better, that lift us up emotionally, physically and help us build on good foundations we have already created with training well and eating right.

Expect to feel not so good sometimes, but when we have strong coping strategies and take action on it, we can immediately lift ourselves out of that into a much better and more productive place every time.

The power of belief is one thing, the power of giving up on yourself is another.

Lots of the great triumphs in history rested on belief and not giving up, even when the chances were slim or even non existent.

When you believe, when you have hope, then everything is ON and good things often start to happen. Also when you believe, you never stop taking action going towards what you want in life, even if everyone around says you “can’t”.

When belief has fizzled out completely, of course there is nothing to play for, you just “survive”, the excitement and desire to wake up every day and look forward to the challenge has gone.

There is two sides of every challenge and how we interpret it comes down to our beliefs. 

Whether we believe we can do something or not, we are RIGHT-Henry Ford.

I know which side I am on, life is full of difficulty and challenge but without them, we are left to think too much, dwell on our problems that only enlarges them to a level where anxiety only heightens seemingly by the day.

We need hard work to overcome our big tests in life, but without belief in ourselves, we would never really get going.

Keep yourself busy, always take on the challenge and back yourself to always overcome through the ability you know you really have within you.

The clocks going back sparks the start of the unknown, the darkness, the cold, the rain, the time when it’s easier to snuggle up on the settee-and let the fear win.

Yet letting the fear win goes against the beliefs we have in life.

We always talk about how it was back in “our day”, it was tougher? We must have faced the fear then? And we became better for it!

We always encourage our kids to go to school when they don’t want to,, we encourage them to take their PE kit even when they may not want to do it, because it will be “good for them”.

Yet most people’s goals as they get older is to make our lives more comfortable and move less, get a newer car to sit in, so we walk less, we have less fresh air, we want to have a new conservatory because it’s nice to SIT in there, get ready meals delivered because we can’t be bothered to go out, it seems worlds apart from our lives as a youth, when we walked everywhere, we got on our bikes and we caught buses too only when we were desperate.

We can’t encourage our youth to do more, move more though if we aren’t prepared to move more ourselves. 

The season and clocks change is only a mind test. Are we up to it or do we want to make our lives easier by taking the easy option every time?

I hear of many people who retire and longingly want to get up late in the day, as if its a badge of achievement. Getting up at 1130 and then calming its “lunch time before I know it!”, the irony of that is incredible without them realising it.

When we move less, we move much more quickly to our end of days, we move quickly towards more pain and stiffness in our bodies, and we move much quicker to surrendering to the unknown, the darkness and indeed the very challenge and excitement of life, that makes us thrive, live with purpose and fight much longer and with more pride against the dying of the light.

The clocks going back should be the starting gun to another great season to come, some will rise to it, some won’t, but nobody can complain about being miserable and lacking energy and excitement if they aren’t even prepared to keep having a go in life. 

Your best days are ahead. 

Training well and regular often motivates us to eat well too, because we don’t want to waste any of our efforts at the gym.

I believe NOT training causes a disconnect in our relationship with eating healthy and our motivation to keep doing so.

When we don’t train, we move into a different realm of belief system.

It becomes “okay” to eat like non-exercisers do, and we all become more influenced by the people we hang out with most, and when we don’t look after ourselves anymore, then its much easier to get swayed by others’ opinions and their justification for eating and drinking much worse than we usually do or used to do.

Discipline and routine are often unfashionable words these days, but what they do is keep us in good health, when it would be all too easy to go off the rails eating what we wanted, and justifying not exercising as something what “lots of people do”. 

We ALL need routine and discipline in our lives or we will sacrifice optimum health because we fell into the trap of lowering our standards, just because it’s “what some people do”, and it is much easier initially, but long term will lead to a much lower quality of life which comes from having poor health.

Exercising regularly works super well with eating healthy, never forget this magic formula and how it impacts your life for the better.

Imagine how well you would do if you spoke more positively to yourself. You backed yourself instead of backing AWAY from life’s challenges (which are really opportunities).

We all have these voices in our heads, and most of them are negative. We can’t do it, we shouldn’t even try, what would so and so say, we aren’t good enough, we don’t deserve any success or deserve to be happy etc etc.

Imagine if we ignored all of that and just had a go? 

Just threw ourselves into it and don’t worry if we win or lose.

Commit finally to showing up all the time, and letting our bodies guide us.

We won’t be having fantastic personal bests all the time but NOBODY does, but we will have some throughout the year, and that will be a sign we are improving greatly and we will attain results we will be very proud of, plus feel amazing along the way.

LIfe never goes in a straight line, there will be many zig zags, many ups and downs but if we keep showing up, then the sky will always be limit for us!!!