How To Defeat That Little Voice That Is Trying To Sabotage Your Exercise Program.
Everyone has positive intentions when it comes to their health and wellness.
You set some great exciting goals and on an exercise program. You buy some new workout gear or new membership. You block the time on your calendar. You have great expectations.
And then… That little voice pops up. Usually not in the first day or two, usually after something a little bit more emotional or one of those longer days that just makes you a bit more tired. And it whispers tiny snippets of negativity. “You don’t really need to do that today you can do it tomorrow.” Or “One little bite won’t hurt.” Or “Go ahead and sleep in you can get to your workout later today.”
You all know what I’m talking about.
It’s that devilish little voice that encourages you to stray from your goals. It sets up excuses and rationalizations. In fact, she’s the queen of rationalization. She’s the one that helps you talk yourself out of doing everything that you totally intended to do.
How do you quiet her when she does pop up? Or how do you keep her from popping up at all?
I think there’s a series of things you can do to prevent that little voice from talking you out of your exercise program routine.
The first is to get super crystal clear on not only your goals, but why they are important to you. Why do you deserve this? Why is it important now? What will that mean to achieve this goal? With a Big WHY, it’s a lot easier to talk that little negative voice down.
Also, you have to be realistic that she’s still going to pick up her little head after you had a long day or challenging circumstance. So the other best way I know to shut her up, is to start each morning with some kind of an affirmation about how you want your day to go.
What will you do that day to move towards your goals? Keep reminding yourself of your big WHY the whole time. That way you’ve already started a dialogue of success, and if she does pop up you’re in a stronger position to remind her and yourself of what it was you were going to do.
I also recommend a little journal at the end of the day to recap all the positive things you did do, and possibly even lay out the plan for the next day.
I think the best way to keep that little voice quiet is to take things one day at a time. It’s great to see the big picture goal but if you know that small daily actions are what it will take to achieve it, you’re much more likely to hold yourself to those small daily actions.
So don’t lose sight of the little things, even though that little voice will try to talk you out of doing what you planned. She’ll try to tell you they don’t affect the big picture, but you know better. You know that true change is the result of taking small consistent actions.
Sometimes we’ll have slip ups and let ourselves listen to what that troublesome voice says, but if we can focus daily on the little actions, the little steps, the little moves that push us closer towards our goals then we can counteract that negative voice. And once she sees that you’re actually serious about reaching your goals, she’s going to stop popping up quite so often.
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