|
9/19/2015 The 7 Highly Effective Habits of Fit People: Methods Adapted from the Best Selling Book to Attain Health and Wellness SuccessRead Now Personal development. Self-improvement. Self-help. These are topics that aren’t typically associated when someone thinks of bodybuilding, powerlifting, or even something as simple as getting off the couch and getting some activity in the gym for a few hours each week. But in actually, the root of everything related to bodybuilding and fitness is rooted in the principle concept of personal development and self-improvement. Think about the hours of deadlifting one might spend moving tons of weight, literally. Hands worn and callused, every muscle tense and retching with the pulse of adrenaline. The instant that person attempts to move the weight off the ground is the moment when that person tests their own individual grit. There’s no in between. No middle ground. No maybe. They either pull the weight or they don’t. I can’t think of any better exercise in personal development than that. But self-improvement and personal development is much more than how you can push yourself and strive for progress. A lot of an individual’s success, both inside and outside the weight room boils down to how effective they can be at any given task they may encounter. Let’s examine some of the prominent bodybuilders, fitness athletes, and Youtube Fitness stars for example To reach the level of success that almost every one of these individuals in their respective fields have reached, they all understand one fundamental principle of personal development; and that is how to be effective. So what exactly is being effective and how can you this effectiveness principle? I can’t think of any better way to express effectiveness without bringing up a classic book in the personal development genre titled “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”, by Stephen Covey. Some of you may not be familiar with this book, while some of you might have heard of it in passing or maybe even have read it. But one thing is for certain, I can guarantee you that the accomplished names in the realm of health and fitness have read this book and applied every bit of information of it to their work. This article is not about getting you out of your seat and rushing to the closest bookstore to pick up a copy of “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” and spend the next 5 days straight reading it cover to cover. Who has the time for that, right? We’re bodybuilders and strength athletes who spend our morning and evenings in iron-laden gyms, not libraries and coffee houses. Instead, this article will apply all 7 of the book’s effective principles as stated by the author and be adapted for the strength training enthusiast and physique-oriented crowd. So without further delay, let’s get into it.  Habit #1: Be Proactive The old adage goes, “be proactive, not reactive.” This translates to focusing on what you can control and don’t worry about what is out of your control. There’s power in knowing how to proactively respond to any situation. It’s easy to be reactive to anything that happens, for example; if you’re someone who has been seriously dieting for weeks and you make the small mistake of eating a few donuts that aren’t part of your regular diet. You now have 2 options: say “screw it” and spend the rest of the diet binge eating and blowing your diet, or proactively deciding that having the donuts was not the best thing to do and move on. You can even look at it as a positive incident. The donut was delicious and satisfied your nagging sweet tooth and it provided some relief from your strict diet. Accept that it was a mistake and that it won’t happen again. It’s as simple as that. Habit #2: Begin With The End In Mind This principle may be the most important one of the list. It is important to remind yourself why you’re attempting to take control of your own health, body composition, and strength accomplishments. Understand that it is not a short term commitment and that it will take some time to achieve your goals, but it is imperative to know what the end goal is. The feeling of failure will inevitably loom over you at some point or another and it will be extremely easy to opt for comfortable mediocrity and go back to the ways of sitting on the couch watching Netflix all night while polishing off a pint of Ben ‘n Jerry’s ice cream. But you must ask yourself, “is this helping me get to my final destination?” There will be hardship. There will be struggle. It can get hard. But that’s what will make it worthwhile. So before you even begin any kind of strength program or transformation journey, set an end goal with an end date and stay committed to it. Habit #3: Put First Things First  This one should be a no brainer, but sometimes we forget which tasks and aspects of fitness are most important. Always remember this hierarchy: -Nutrition –Weight Lifting –Cardio. Your overall body composition (whether you’re looking to build muscle or lose fat, or both) is a direct function of your nutrition. If your nutrition isn’t dialed in, you will not get the most out of your training. On top of this, cardio will serve very little purpose if you’re not on a dedicated fat loss program that first focuses on nutrition and training. A more global application of putting first things first is to also remember what is really important in life. If you’re someone who has really attacked the fitness lifestyle with great zeal and have committed a large portion of your life to the gym, it’s often good to take a step back and look at the other areas of your life. You never want to neglect family, friends, your career, or anything of great value in your life in order just to look better. If you can find a way to happily balance all aspects of your life then that is the most optimal way to live. But always remember to put first things first, which means your most precious priorities come first. Habit #4: Think Win-Win Thinking win-win boils down to creating relationships that benefit not only you, but others around you. The best way to use this is seeking a training partner or a community of likeminded people who share your passion and enthusiasm for lifting and nutrition. If you walk into the gym with your workout buddy and you strive to push them to move more weight, hit more sets, and have an overall improved outlook of the journey, you’ll benefit from the training sessions as much as him. When he’s winning, you’re winning. It’s as simple as that. Habit #5: Seek first to Understand, Then to Be Understood You can never know enough about lifting, training, and nutrition. There is always something to be learned and applied, especially for those who are new to weight lifting. Heck, even those of us who have been lifting for years can still take a few lessons from the latest research and developments in the field of exercise science. And with the age of technology allowing for essentially limitless information at our fingertips, there’s no excuse for not seeking information. With that being said, the internet is not the only place to seek knowledge and wisdom. Don’t forget about the older, bigger, experienced guys at the gym. They built their bodies the old way: trying new things and keeping the things that worked. Before the internet, if you wanted to learn something, you asked the people around you. This is a concept that is quickly dying out in gyms across the country. Be old school. Develop relationships with the experienced guys. And once you do cultivate a good base of information and build the body you can be proud of, don’t be afraid to share the information with those who are in the stages of seeking it. Habit #6: Synergize The principle of synergy can be applied in so many ways. Synergy is combining separate ideas or parts to create a whole that is greater than the individual parts. Synergy is used all around us, whether we’re aware of it or not. The best way this can be applied in this context is understanding the value you get from the self improvement weight lifting and training provides while also understanding the value and contributations you make to the world outside of the gym; whether it’s at work, school, or towards the people you love. Those 2 separate parts of life can be combined to allow for a wholesome, fulfilled life that would not be attainable without the gym life and your non-gym life coming together. If you don’t believe me, try focusing on only one of those parts of your life. See how long you can go without feeling empty and unfulfilled. It takes the power of multiple facets of life to really optimize your entire life as a whole. Habit #7: Sharpen The Saw After habit 2, this may be the next most important principle. Sharpening the saw means to build production capacity by renewing aspects of life such as your training and nutrition, and non-fitness aspects like emotional health, knowledge, and spiritual dimensions. If you try to attain a 600 lb deadlift from a 400 lb deadlift in less than a year by working out as hard as you can as often as you can, chances are you’ll likely be burned out by the first month’s end. It’s imperative to always train hard, but it’s also important to know when to hold back or take a break from the intensities of training for a few days or a week. Once you’ve been able to recover not just physically, you’ll find yourself continually making steady progress for longer periods of time.  Wrapping It Up Learning how to be an effective person in and out of the gym won’t happen overnight. It’s a processes of personal development that takes time and should be exercised as often as possible. But since pretty much everyone who reads this knows a thing or two about the power of exercising, then the concept of exercising effectiveness should not be difficult whatsoever. Another important note to add, which can maybe be an impromptu 8th effective happen, is not confusing activity for accomplishment. This principle stems from effectiveness and it ensure that just because you did something, doesn’t mean you did it well. Walking into a gym and doing an activity like hitting the treadmill for an hour and feeling accomplished is nowhere near as effective as and activity like spending half an hour doing 5 sets of squats with heavy weights. Now that’s some accomplishment. At the end of the day, the principle of effectiveness can be thought of as this- if you’re going to do things, do them well in a timely fashion while making the most of your resources and always being mindful of the ones around you. Now that you’ve read it, go live it.
  
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
