Geschatte leestijd: 5 minutenThis article covers the top 10 successful strategies to transform your body. These are the strategies you need to apply to give yourself the opportunity to change your body and your life in record time. Read these words carefully!
1. Make a conscious choice to change!
Why do so many people, while claiming they want to change, remain the same year after year? This is because they overlook the important first step – the step that begins bridging the gap between wanting and doing. That step is… making a conscious decision to change.
It’s not about vague statements like ‘Yes… this year I’ll get in shape.’ It’s one thing to talk about change and a completely different thing to decide to actually do it. When you make a conscious decision to make a change, your mind ‘wakes up’ and starts looking for a way.
2. Set specific times to work on your goals
You’ve probably heard that fitness is a lifestyle. This can be daunting. Changing your entire life overnight is no easy task. So, shall we start with an hour a week, maybe two? A “good plan” that is achievable is much more effective than a “perfect plan” that is not achievable.
So start with a realistic task for yourself. It’s a bit like stir-frying. People who immediately fill their plate often find themselves halfway through that first plate already full and then struggle to eat the now cold rice and fries. Start with a little meat and vegetables so that you actually crave more.
If you start immediately training five days a week and depriving yourself of all kinds of food, you will be burned out after two or three weeks. You will think “this fitness thing is ridiculous” because you only have that one performance in mind. Start slowly and build it up. Make sure you are increasingly eager to train by building up well.
3. ‘Honestly’ evaluate yourself!
Since we see ourselves every day, we often don’t realize that we are ‘shooting ourselves in the foot’. If we are not careful, it won’t be long before the self-image we have in our minds no longer matches reality. What you can do is take a photo of yourself, dressed in shorts or swimwear.
Now take a photo every month and put these photos next to each other in your bedroom or on your refrigerator… somewhere you will see them regularly. This is to help you see yourself honestly.
4. Set specific goals!
Setting goals is vital to your success. Goals are specific things that you have decided you will achieve within a clearly defined period. For example, the statement ‘One day I’ll get in shape…’ is a dream or wish. But if you say ‘I will lose ten kilos of fat and gain five kilos of muscle within twelve weeks,’ then you are setting a goal. So, think SMART (Specific, Measurable, Acceptable, Realistic, Time-bound).
A simple but very powerful way is to write down your goals. This really works! The evidence: in 1953, a Harvard University study showed that only 3% of the students graduating that year actually wrote down their specific career goals.
Twenty years later, a team of researchers surveyed the class of 1953 and found that the 3% who had written down their goals were worth more financially than the other 97% combined (so don’t be mistaken, writing down your goals pays off, and well too!).
5. Keep your promises to yourself!
When you set goals, you are essentially making promises: not to your family or your friends, but to yourself. The promises we make to ourselves, even though they are the ‘easiest’ to break, are by far the most important to keep. You know, the foundation of self-confidence is being able to trust yourself.
6. Focus on your future image!
Unfortunately, most people will never develop a strong future image for their lives. They will never admit to themselves, or to anyone else, what their dreams really are and they will not attach a deadline to those dreams and turn them into goals. That’s why most people won’t even start to tap into their real potential. What they don’t realize is that, if they don’t focus on their future – if they are not consciously engaged in developing their lives – they are living more by chance, not by choice. They are just reacting to life.
If you have confidence in your future image, it gives you resilience: if things don’t go as you wished, you are able to pick yourself up again because your future image is stronger than your setbacks. Doing the things you need to do to move towards your future vision becomes automatic, a habit.
7. Confront your fears!
Most people are afraid of change. They are afraid to face the uncertainty that we all feel when we leave our ‘comfortable situation’. Some are afraid to fail and others – believe it or not – are afraid to succeed. What is unfortunate is that most people do not realize that they are paralyzed by their own fears. Millions of people with great potential have perished and wasted their entire lives because they were afraid to confront their fears.
Remember this: if you avoid your fears, they will eventually dominate your life. But if you confront your fears, they become smaller and smaller.
8. Make mistakes quickly!
One thing that stands out is that people trying to get in shape or make another change do not often measure their progress frequently enough. This is not good. Think of it as ‘failing in slow motion’. Some people often don’t realize that something isn’t working until months or even years have been wasted. Only then do they look back and see their mistake… they didn’t see their mistakes earlier!
If you want to succeed quickly, you must be willing to make mistakes quickly. And you must learn from your mistakes.
Don’t be one of those people who will do exactly the same thing in the coming months as they did in the past and then expect different results.
If you haven’t achieved the level of success you wanted, don’t be naive enough to think that if you make the same mistakes in the future as you did in the past, you will get different results. If you want different results, then you must give yourself the opportunity to learn quickly and choose a different approach.
So, evaluate your progress at least on a monthly basis by measuring your body fat percentage and taking a photo. Don’t forget to celebrate your progress and look for opportunities to do even better in the future.
9. Take action!
Please don’t be afraid of change! Don’t do what so many good people do, ‘accidentally’ blocking their real potential by holding on to what seems comfortable. Success comes from action. People who achieve results persevere, even if they are a little scared! They don’t give up. Of course, there are always forms of discomfort and tension in your life that seem like obstacles holding you back from taking action. Your challenge is to succeed despite everything!
Don’t wait until you feel ‘ready’ to take on a new challenge. Don’t fool yourself into believing that now is just ‘too early’. If you wait until everything is ‘perfect’ in your life before taking action, you will wait forever! The time is now.
The longer you wait to take action, the longer you postpone the rewards you deserve. ‘Waiting’ to change is not enough.
10. Don’t give up!
There are times when it seems that your goals are unattainable, no matter how hard you try. That’s normal: we all feel that way sometimes. With every challenge comes a moment when it’s difficult to continue! You have to break through those moments! If you do, you will discover that those moments were actually blessings. You know, we become stronger because of them!
Remember that as long as you keep trying, you haven’t failed! If it feels like you’ve done your best and the time has come to give up, keep going. Keep going as if your life depends on it – maybe it does.
Prove to yourself and others that you are a winner (winners finish what they start)! Keep your promise to yourself! Focus on your reason for making the change and please don’t give up. Anyway, you deserve to succeed.
And if you succeed, you will experience a strong, soothing feeling of pride and joy that no one can take away from you!
