"You just needed your brain re-tuning"

My final blog this week was always going to be on exercise but I wanted it to be topical rather than just restating what we all hear time and time again about exercise. Which explains why I'm here again so soon after my last blog because I've got my example and blogging it on Friday pretending it had just happened wouldn't have felt right ......

I woke this morning in one of those moods - negative, achy, dizzy and struggling to motivate myself. I'd even managed to convince myself that I might have a cold coming. I wondered about cancelling my personal trainer and taking to my bed. I realised, however, as he is often a better judge of my health than me, and since he's got me to the other side too many times in the past to ignore, that he might help again today.

He arrived and very quickly decided to do something different and cut short the warm up and proceeded to give me my most strenuous session for a long while. Boxing - kick boxing - running!! He repeatedly asked me to push through my resistance and keep going when every muscle (and my head) just wanted to give up. At the end he just pointed out that all I had been thinking before the session was in fact not true and I had just done better than I had for many months "your brain just needed retuning."

There was a lot going on not least the need to push through but please don't under estimate the power of exercise to shift how we're feeling. I know when we're in one of those moods it's hard to find the motivation and that's one reason I have a personal trainer - but there are other means of ensuring we keep on track e.g. I arrange to go to yoga with a friend to keep us both committed etc. For others it's simply finding a more convenient time.

My plea is just ensure you do something because it really can make a difference.

Improvement in my health and fitness means more Paddles found!

Is your means of inspiration restricting your success?

I had a conversation with my personal trainer about my health and fitness goals and realised the reason for their success or failure will be the same as any goal I set myself. That is:

• without clarity of direction - how do I know what action to take
• without inspiration and motivation - why bother
• without action - I'll never get anywhere

I think I'm clear about what I want (and if you're not see the Well Formed Outcome on the rhs of this blog). So if I can get the WHY right I'll be inspired to be motivated to take the necessary action and not sit here eating chocolates as I type this!!

Which has got me thinking about the different motivations we have for improving our health and fitness.

On my NLP trainer trainer we were introduced to 3 groups of motivators:

• Achievement
• Power
• Affiliation

We each have a preference for one of these which will mean we have different whys for health and fitness dependant on our preference:

• Achievement: to reduce weight by y, to run a marathon in under x hrs, to fit into a size z etc. Or not to fail at any of these.
• Power: to do what I choose rather than being limited by my health or fitness
• Affiliation: ......

And here's today's learning for me. I am motivated by affiliation but can see many reasons why this doesn't always work for me to achieve improvement in my health and fitness.

• I went to the gym every week with Di because I'd promised her and enjoyed her company. As soon as she was unavailable and subsequently moved I didn't go!!
• I went to a dance class and had fun with Lindsey. When her job changed and she couldn't make it the whooping in class wasn't the same and I found more reasons to not go.
• I now have a personal trainer and I enjoy the sessions and certainly don't want to let him down so attend sessions regularly. If he's on holiday I don't do anything!!!!
• When I had a lodger or have visitors I eat much more healthily. Living on my own doesn't provide the same motivation.

In the past I also realise my affiliative desire meant that health and fitness activities were undertaken to:

• Make myself more attractive
• Pacify family and friends who were nagging
• Be loved

But success was short lived. As my personal trainer said in a class the other week "If you don't love yourself first how can anyone else." Which is the crux of the problem. Affiliation naturally means we look outside ourselves for the reason why we do something. Our health and fitness is personal so how can we make that work?

Which still leaves me with a lack of sustained motivation for my health and fitness.

• If I had children I could use the motivation that I want to be able to play easily and tirelessly with them and even be here for my grandchildren. (I have to say I was very pleased I managed a handstand and cartwheel at Imogen's 3rd birthday party last year - so I can see that could inspire).
• I could try making health and fitness a means to an end and tie it into me being able to help more people transform their lives and get back on track. Every inch and every pound lost means another 1000 people transformed (based on increased longevity?). I can certainly feel the difference and will write that on a flip chart and put it on the wall in the kitchen.

But that still feels like a cop out.

• I wonder about connecting to my higher self and doing it for who I could be at my best? Which feels better and isn't about doing it for others.

I'll let you know how I get on - once I've finished the chocolates. Although as I've been typing the blog the words used have changed from health and fitness to MY health and fitness so something has shifted.

I'm not letting you get away with it either. What do you need to do to take charge of your lack of motivation and be inspired to take action?

What about criteria for success that requires others to not 'like' us?

In order for a personal training session to be effective and meet my health and fitness goals it requires me to be pushed outside my comfort zone. So in order for my personal trainer to do his job well it's likely that there will be times when I tell him I don't like him and certainly don't like what he's asking/telling me to do. He wouldn't be doing his job if he spent the whole session avoiding me having this reaction.

It's the same with my coaching. There are times when words said really hit home. People have different reactions to this and sometimes that might be words directed at me and certainly energy. Energy that isn't always very positive. If I wanted to avoid this happening I'd have to hold back from saying the very words that would help my client achieve their goals and release what's holding them back.

In both instances Gavin and I are not choosing to say what we do because of our ego but out of care for the other. Our intention is to resolve and improve the situation.

Today's call for action is for you to think of those situations where you're holding back for fear of upsetting someone and decide what action to take and take it.