A Quick Shift for my All or Nothing Thinkers
I want to introduce a new visual for you when it comes to all or nothing thinking versus letting the routines flow with you through different seasons of your life. I actually heard another personal trainer use this example the other day and it hit home. It was the perfect visual to use and so I want to give her credit before I continue in this post.
Her name is Lydia Bogurt and her instagram handle is @lyd_vb.
As a quick little recap: all or nothing thinking is having the mindset of complete absolute. There isn’t a lot of wriggle room. When it comes to workouts for example if you have all or nothing mindset you might feel like if you can’t get all of your workouts in during the week— then theres no point you’ll try again next week., or if you can’t get the full workout in or you are going to have to pivot in some way— then it’s not worth doing that day. If you can’t complete all of the program exactly how it is laid out then you won’t do it all. If you can’t go hard into your workouts in this season of life— then it’s not worth trying.
You might often see showing up in your fitness your nutrition as an “on-off” switch. You are either “all in” and the switch is on. OR the switch is off.
Hopefully you can kind of picture that “on-off” switch in your head.
Having that kind of mindset can make it hard to be consistent with goals— even more so when life throws us curve balls or changes (like it does all the time).
However, let’s switch the picture! If you can picture your fitness routine/consistency and intensity as a dial instead of a switch then that might help you with the idea doing what you set out to do even with the circumstances aren’t perfect. In some seasons of life your intensity can be increased and in some seasons you might have to turn that dial down. Turning that dial doesn’t mean quitting or starting over— it just means you adjust to what you need and you keep going.
To me that’s what it means to have a life long outlook on your fitness journey.
I hope this visual helps and its something that you can use and picture when you need to!
~RK