I recently attended a seminar run by Dr Phil Jauncey, who is a sports performance psychologist, about 'The Power of Positive Doing', and what I learned from him in such a short time was incredible.
A lot of what I learned can be easily transferred across to my industry and what I teach to my clients and also put out to my community who enjoy reading what I write about (I know you're out there ;) )
The most important thing I took out of the seminar was differentiating between Positive Thinking and Positive Doing. Dr Phil has done a lot of work, and I mean A LOT of work with professional sports players, teams, coaches across a number of different sports, and has working with all different age groups, from children, to adults, to veterans. He has taken it across states and also international and worked with the biggest names in world sport over his long career.
His passion for getting the best out of people is contagious and you can't help but be drawn into his enthusiasm when he speaks.
The BIG lesson I learned was about the difference between positive thinking and positive doing. I have always been a firm believer in bringing in and harvesting positive thoughts to help with a positive outlook on life, yet when he explained it to us, it made a lot of sense that positive thinking is simply BS. Positive thinking doesn't help you control any actions at all. Positive thinking will not take you where you want to be, but positive actions will!
This can directly transfer to the health and fitness industry, where so many people have the best intentions, but never seem to achieve their goals. Why is that? Simply because thinking about losing weight, doesn't lose the weight. Thinking about going to the gym, doesn't get you to the gym. Thinking about picking up the weight, doesn't pick up the weight. Can you see how this all works now?
You can have the best intentions in the world, but intentions don't get the skinny jeans on, does it ladies? Intentions don't give you that 6 pack when you're rocking your boardies, do they lads? Intentions only get you so far, before actions have to take over eventually, or it simply remains a dream.
Our body has the ability to help us fail, but it also has the ability to help us succeed. So we can take one of two paths along our journey. We can take path A, and do all the wrong things that will support self sabotage, eg. sleep in and miss training, eat that piece of cake, have that extra glass of wine, or, we could take control and ownership of our actions and start to create something amazing that we are proud of. Something that we know the work that was put in, and the self respect that was shown, and love every part of ourselves. Which path sounds better to you?
We only fail for a few simple reasons.
- We don't know what to do.
- We don't know how to do it.
- We don't have the ability to do it.
- We choose not to.
Which one would you say best resembles you?
Being afraid of something is a good thing. It will give you 2 things. 1- It tells you that your goal is something worth fighting for; 2- It gives you the fuel you need to make it happen.
You can only change the future so stop wasting time and energy on trying to change the past. The past has come and gone, and the more you dwell on it, the more it will consume you. If something isn't working, do you follow the same path or do you stop, think, and react with a different action plan?
You have the choice. You will always have the choice to either pursue success, or throw in the towel, and this is when push comes to shove, your true desire will show. You can't control your thoughts, you can only control your reactions. So if there is pain present, do what it takes to fix it. Learn from your failings, and ensure they don't happen again.
If something is not working, you need to break it down to make it achieveable.
- What am I doing now?
- Is it working?
- Yes? Great, keep doing it.
- No? Change it.
To change it, you need to be specific, make a plan, and act on it.
This relates to your health & fitness goals. If you set out to achieve a goal, track it. If you are losing weight, great! If not, then change something. Have you lost weight in the past? Remember back to that time and repeat what you did then.
Same goes for lifestyle and wellbeing. If you are waking up tired and have no energy, think about why. Are you going to bed too late? Are you snoozing your alarm? Is your diet fine tuned to ensure enough of the right nutrients and minerals is coming in to support this? Asking yourself questions like these are paramount to success, because without these, you will lack direction. Working without direction makes achieving anything almost impossible as you don't have any performance markers.
Start with your AIM: Did I do all I could?
Your GOAL: Did I achieve what I set out to achieve?
Your OBJECTIVE: Did I follow the steps required to make it all happen?
If you follow these steps, you can be critical of all your hard work and see where you let yourself down and didn't follow the process to success.
If this article has helped you, I would love for you to share it. Thanks for reading.
I would also like to reference the great man Dr. Phil Jauncey for all his knowledge during the seminar that inspired this blog post.
Stay healthy,
Liam Crivelli