3 Mindsets For Better Workouts
Since I started my sobriety journey in 2007 I’ve been a big proponent of getting people in the recovery movement to start getting after it and workout more. Strong body’s equal strong minds. The two are not separate by any means. The discipline, the trackable physical improvements in strength, conditioning and body comp, the activity itself, the endorphins and dopamine that comes from a great workout, replacing a destructive addiction/habit with a constructive addiction/habit … It all works in your favor.
There are countless reasons why challenging your physical limits will pay massive dividends to your recovery and sobriety journey. I can say from personal experience and full certainty that Turkish Get Ups and Kettlebell Swings played a major role in my detoxing and getting through those first fragile months.
The reason I’m talking about the sobriety journey to open up the mindsets for better workouts talk is because while you may not be struggling with addiction, you may be struggling with the motivation to workout in general and you may be having a challenge with just getting your mind right so let’s look at 3 things the highly successful do that I got from my boss, Grant Cardone and see how we can apply them to getting after it even better.
3 Mindsets For Better Workouts
- Practice awareness
- Persistence
- Curiosity and a desire to learn
Let’s break these down and go a little deeper on each one. These 3 tips are about you being able to first, find and then second develop within yourself a more successful mindset that you can use to be more successful in your workouts.
Success as I’ve learned from Grant is no different than any other skill. If you can duplicate the successful actions of successful people, then you too can have success. Really no need to try to reinvent the wheel here or use the classic excuse, “well, my situation is different.”
Look at those who have succeeded, identify their traits and view their results. In other words, to map out your own path, make sure the information you’re getting is credible, effective and can be duplicated.
[HINT: Make sure you vet the successful people you’re studying. There’s a crap ton of fakers out there. Make sure you’re syphoning credible data. For example don’t go thinking you can get yoked by just suntanning your twigs and berries and eating organ meats without significant help from a pharmacist.]
Be open to the idea that there’s something you don’t know… Take advice from people who have already succeeded and be open and humble enough to look for that knowledge. Don’t set yourself up for failure by thinking you don’t need help or that you can do it alone.
You want the results, you have to put the work. This applies to the the body, the mind and the spirit. The most successful people I know never stop learning, achieving and cultivating the traits required to see results.
ONE: Practice awareness
Be aware. Let’s start with some extremely fundamental things. Take a deep breath right now. In through nose, out through mouth. Did you do it? Now, look around. Where are you? What IS around you? What time is it?
My good friend Dan Millman will tell us that you are HERE and the time is NOW!
Now let me ask you this, WHY are you training? What’s your why? When you’re working out, what are you doing it for? Once you know that, what do you need to be successful? Where are you coming up short? What’s missing here? Are you dropping the ball somewhere? Look here’s the hard truth, you and I, we, need to be aware of our weaknesses, otherwise, we can’t fix them.
Can we pay better attention to what’s going on in our body, during our workouts, to the what’s going on in our head and heart, to our actual nutrition not just what we think we’re doing, to the choices we make that might lead us astray?
Being unaware will cause us to miss opportunities. We must strengthen our ability to see things all the way through and keep our focus on our goals and targets, while maintaining consistency in our efforts.
In a email once, Grant wrote,
Shoulder responsibilities and be accountable. Make the hard decisions and stand by them. Think for yourself and know yourself. “
TWO: Persistence
Persistence: firm or obstinate continuance in a course of action in spite of difficulty or opposition.
Do you have this trait? Look, there will be speed bumps, obstacles and all sorts of challenges that you didn’t expect popping up along the road to success. Guaranteed it will take more than you expected. And the unexpected will pop up.
Doesn’t mean you quit, doesn’t mean that it wasn’t meant to be. Doesn’t mean anything except WE underestimated the amount of effort it was going to take. So let’s take full responsibility for that part, dial back in to our purpose and realign with our higher self.
Sure, totally acceptable to have moments of failure, weakness, frustration and all that. But how long do you want those moments to last? That’s a choice. Have your moment and then move on and move forward from a place of commitment and resolve.
THREE: Curiosity and a desire to learn
Remember, we’re talking about mindsets for better workouts here but keep in mind we got some life lessons in here as well. Anything you want to be successful in will require you to have a desire to learn and grow. The beauty of great workout is that you’re not only strengthening your body. The mind and spirit is along for the ride. No matter how you slice it, that’s how it rolls. So what do you need to know about timing, form, sets, reps, programming, pre and post nutrition to be better? Do you debrief your workouts? What worked? What didn’t? Did you let yourself off the hook early when you knew you had more in you?
Who and what do you study? Do you have role models that are and have paved the road to success? High levels of interest and curiosity lead to openness and willingness to learn. If you think you know if all and that you don’t need help, it’s an indication that your ego is in charge and not your higher self.
Last point here. The people and things you surround yourself with; are they anchors or propellors?
WRAP UP
You’re magnificent. You are, as Wayne Dyer puts it, an infinite being having a temporary human experience. There is nothing average or mediocre about you so stop settling for it. Take a hard look at what or who is keeping you anchored and holding you back from your physical, mental and spiritual goals and have the willingness to let go of what’s holding you back and embrace the things that will propel you forward.
Before you start a workout decide how it’s going to end and what you need to get from it today in order for it to be a successful training session. That’s you being present. Do not quit on a workout. If you ordered it up (David Goggins reference) then you do it. Finish what you start. That’s you having persistence. What did this workout teach you about you? What could you have done better? That’s you being curious with a desire to learn. These are the mindsets for better workouts.
