4 Steps to Grow Your Number 1 Muscle: Mindset Muscle

By Valerie Solomon, Busy Mom Gets Fit

"... a mindset is a set of assumptions, methods, or notations held by one or more people or groups of people. A mindset can also be seen as incident of a person's world view or philosophy of life." -- Wikipedia

Mindset is the number one thing deciding your success in…

A fitness program

A business venture

Relationships

Your level of happiness

Your level of peace

It’s one of the reasons I love working with women to develop confidence and a new mindset through fitness. A mindset shift affects every area of our lives. 

I know that if I can help you grow your mindset muscle, the actual muscles (or goals that you have) will come along.

We all have stories we tell ourselves.

“I’m not strong.”

“I can’t do that.”

“I am not athletic.”

“I am too old, too far gone, too whatever.”

“My body will never….”

“My genetics….”

“I never stick to anything.”

“I quit.”

“I don’t have time.”

All of these thoughts are just stories you are telling yourself that do not serve you. Someone with a busier life than you is doing it. Someone with the same genetics as you is doing it. Someone in your situation has figured it out, and you can too if you are willing to do the mindset work.

Are you willing to grow? Are you willing to take a hard look at your internal dialogue?

To grow your mindset, you have to start self coaching yourself. Consider this:

C - circumstance

T - thoughts

F - feelings

A - actions

R - results

A circumstance you cannot change happened and led you to -> these thoughts that are -> causing you certain feelings which lead to -> you taking or not taking actions -> leading to your current results.

How do we shift?

You cannot change the circumstance, but you can change your THOUGHTS about the circumstance -> which will cause a ripple effect.

Possible Example:  

Circumstance: Someone made fun of me as a kid about my athletic ability 

Thoughts: I think I am not athletic

Feelings: I feel embarrassed to try

Actions: I don’t exercise

Results: I am feeling unhealthy, sluggish, out of shape

Now shift the THOUGHT:

Circumstance: Someone made fun of me as a kid about my athletic ability 

Thoughts: Kids are silly. God gave me a capable body that can do whatever I train it to do

Feelings: I feel like trying

Actions: I exercise

Results: I reach my health and wellness goals

4 Steps to Growing Your Mindset Muscle

1. Recognize the stories you are telling yourself that are keeping you from your goal. 

2. What circumstance did these stories originate from? Did something happen along the way to make you think this way?

3. What thoughts -> results have developed because of that circumstance?

4. Reframe your thoughts about the circumstance.

Check out my free resources for more mindset work.

A Key to Long Term Success: Give Yourself Grace

By Valerie Solomon, Busy Mom Gets Fit

So you are in a funk.

You fell off track.

You can’t seem to stick to the plan.

You went on vacation and blew it.

You haven’t been taking the time to do it.

What’s the dialogue going on in your mind about this?

Are you beating yourself up for the decision you made? Are you mean to yourself because you haven’t taken the actions you wish you would take? Did you start then quit and now you label yourself a quitter? 

My best advice to help you truly move forward long term is:

Give yourself grace.

In other words, give yourself a pass.

Grace is defined biblically as a concept of “undeserved kindness”. It is showing compassion and love towards a person even if they might not appreciate it, return the favour, or even deserve it.

Grace is choosing to act positively towards someone who might even hate you, or have done wrong to you.

And when you give yourself grace, it is self compassion, self love, and the kindness you need from the person that matters most.

You are human.

You have a lot on your plate.

Life happens.

It’s absolutely NEVER going to be the case that you stick 100% to a plan you’ve set out for yourself. It’s unreasonable to think you could be perfect. 

Good stuff causes us to need to pause: vacations, birthdays, rest days

Tough stuff causes us to need to pause: injury, illness, taking care of someone, figuring life out for a bit

Just give yourself the space, acceptance and grace to be human.

Take a deep breath.

Reset your goals.

And start again.

You Don’t Need a “New You”: Just Take Good Care of the Current One

Body Shaming is always in season for some people, but January 1st often heralds a special time in the push to capitalize on women’s dissatisfaction with their bodies; headlines shout, “NEW YEAR, NEW YOU!”, the gyms fill up, and magazines and blogs everywhere explode with suggestions on taking off that “WINTER WEIGHT” and undoing the “damage” of all the holiday meals and indulgences.

Fitness industry professionals are in the business of getting people to pay for guidance on how to change their bodies. So it might seem contradictory for a blog post on a fitness website (intended to get you to buy workout plans) to say that you don’t need a “New You”.

But the message that strengthening your body, and eating in a way that supports that is a great goal does not automatically engender shame about the state of your body right now.

There’s the train of thought that fitness should only be about health and strength, and not aesthetics at all, and while that’s a strong body positive message, it’s not out of the realm of healthy mental attitudes to believe that you can love your body right now, and also take action to change the way it looks.

You can love your body and still think that it would be badass to have defined biceps, or bigger glutes. You can want fat loss for health reasons, and you can desire to have a different silhouette, and still appreciate what your body has done--carried you this far in life, housed children, etc.

Making changes that we like is a right we have, and sometimes changes that facilitate health also change our bodies in ways that we admire. That’s not wrong. Just remember that your body is worthy of love just the way it is. Desiring change doesn’t necessitate shame.

You can love your body at every stage, even if you’re enacting a plan to change it. Things change, people grow and evolve, and if you can love them every step of the way while they do, you can apply that same acceptance and love to yourself, as well.

Happy New Year, to the Current You.