Happy Wednesday!
“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.” -Mark Twain I want you to think of yourself as a member of the X-Men! You are a mutant. You are different from everybody else. You have this incredible superpower of iron will and steadfast dedication; for that reason, you will get weird looks from the people around you, especially if you are out at a party or in an unhealthy office. You will get mocked, laughed at, and questioned about why you’re eating the way you do, why you turn down offers for cake/cookies/ice cream. When you tell them that you are making changes to your life and you won’t be participating in their binge eating and drinking, they will do their darndest to drag you back down to their level. You see, it’s much easier to be unhealthy and make fun of people who ARE getting healthy than to actually have to get healthy instead! So, moving forward, you are going to be dealing with people that are unlike you, and aren’t thrilled with your decision to make healthy choices. You are a member of the X-Men, and you may be mocked by normal people who don’t understand you. Wear these jokes, insults, and quizzical looks like a badge of honor. Look around at the people who want you to be like them, and be thankful that you are not. So repel that peer pressure and negative behavior like a forcefield. Don’t be afraid to get weird. REAL weird. It pays off in the long run, I promise. I want to talk about two things today that you might be familiar with; two things that might have even derailed your progress in the past. Every day, you make decisions that will either take you closer to or further away from your goals: 1) Reward system. 2) “I earned this” For starters, I want to talk about the concepts of rewards. I love rewards – as a gamer, I’ve been trained over the past 25 years to aim for a higher score, a better sword, a higher level, a more advanced level of difficulty, and an awesome cutscene ending. You complete something difficult, and you should reward yourself for it. I feel the EXACT same way about fitness, diet, and exercise. When you follow through with your goals by completing a workout, following through with a diet for a full week, or turning down unhealthy options, you SHOULD be rewarded. However, what Level Uppers do compared to everybody else does with fitness and health is VASTLY different. This might require a change in your perspective, but we’ll get there. This is what most people do: This is the WRONG attitude to have. We all know that diet is 80-90% of the battle; when people exercise for an hour (burning an extra 200-300 calories over what they would have burned normally and then reward themselves with a Gatorade (300 calories) and donut (400 calories), not only have they negated all of their hard work, they come out worse than when they started…and they did all of this damage in three minutes! These people then are afraid to step on the scale for fear of what they’ve done, or they feel guilty and get down on themselves for rationalizing the bad behavior, and then eat to feel better…and BAM – back to square one (or negative one). Let’s compare this to level uppers. Level Uppers reward themselves with things that reward them back! When you think about it from a video game perspective, it makes total sense! When you reach a new level or defeat an epic boss, do you go BACK three levels, get slower, fatter, and less strong as a reward? No! You get a better sword (that can ONLY be wielded by somebody at your high level), you go buy your character a new shield, or you acquire a new spell. All of the rewards you get further improve your character and push him/her to higher levels and even greater rewards. So start thinking about YOUR life that same way! He dropped 130 pounds in 10 months, from XXXL shirts down to Mediums. Obviously, Joe had to buy himself some new clothes each time he hit a new milestone, as the old ones just didn’t fit anymore! Every time he went to buy new clothes, he would buy one shirt and one pair of pants that were too small as inspiration and motivation. When he knew he could fit into those clothes comfortably, it was time for him to repeat the process by rewarding himself with new clothes. Joe didn’t reward his good behavior with bad rewards…he rewarded his good behavior with even BETTER rewards. Build momentum and use it in your favor! YOUR MISSION: Identify goals or milestones that you’d like to reach (those habit goals we started at the beginning of the Level Up Club are a good starting point), and then create rewards that push you to even greater heights when you complete your goals. For example: If you follow through with a diet habit for 3 weeks straight, then you can buy yourself a new pair of pants or shirt that you look DAMN good in, but might be just slightly too small. You are now motivated to fit comfortably into those clothes, as you know you look damn good in them! Don’t miss a workout for three weeks? Then you get to buy those new pair of Vibrams you’ve wanted for so long… Maybe you’ve always wanted to try a kickboxing, salsa dancing, or cooking class – you can sign up for that class IF and ONLY if you hit all of your workout goals for three weeks straight. At this point, you are hopefully two weeks into your new habits, identify a reward for yourself for two weeks out if (and ONLY if) you follow through with those habit building goals for these next two weeks (yup, that includes the weekends too, my friend!). Build your reward system: Identify a reward to give yourself after three weeks of completing a successful habit. Remember, it should be a reward that rewards you back by helping you even more with succeeding. -Steve ### photo source: x-men legoMISSION ONE
MISSION TWO
