DISCOVER YOUR ZEN
Staying on Track
Let Go of Before/After Thinking
Some people are unable to reach and maintain their goals because their approach to making changes is very limited. They think in terms of “before and after,” which is short-term thinking. An example might be, “To lose the weight, I’ll exercise 6 hours every day, until I lose the weight. After I lose the weight, I can stop exercising.” The problem is that there isn’t a built-in strategy to keep the weight off. As the saying goes, “Nothing changes, if nothing really changes.”
If you want long-term success, you must think and plan far beyond meeting your immediate goals. In short, you need to change everything you do in your life that contributes to your unhealthy state. That’s why it’s called changing your lifestyle. You have to replace old, unhealthy ideas and habits with healthy strategies and actions that you can continue to use successfully for a lifetime.
Change Your Perspective
When you started your healthy eating and exercising programs, you probably looked forward to reaching your ultimate end goal. That’s great because you need it in order to set your milestone goals, which lead you to your ultimate goal. It’s also important to focus on the process, as well as how you’ll reach each goal. When you stop associating overall success with a particular number or end goal and focus on the process, you’ve found the key to permanent success.
When you focus on the process, you concentrate on healthy behaviors, such as eating a good breakfast and working out when scheduled. Instead of only doing it for the reward or the excitement, you start following the plan because it has become a habit. When the habits become a way of life or a lifestyle, you experience long-term or permanent success.
You can stay on the healthy track by creating healthy habits. Habits are the cornerstone of everyone’s life. Forming healthy habits takes a lot of practice on your part. Set your intentions, check yourself often, and you will be successful.
Support Others
Up to this point, you have experienced things from a personal or participant’s point of view. Along the way, you may have helped others by sharing what you were going through. Sharing with and learning from others is a terrific way to stay on track with your own goals, regardless of where you are on the journey.
However, mastering the skills of maintaining a healthy life, gives you a unique opportunity to help others. Because of your advanced experiences, knowledge, and understanding of implementing healthy lifestyle changes, you see things from a slightly different perspective. You can see the big picture better than people who are just getting started. You have inside information that can truly help others change their lives for the better.
Even as you take steps to maintain your healthy lifestyle, consider helping others reach their goals. It’s been said that if you really want to understand or learn the nuances of a concept, you should teach what you know to others. Not only can you inspire others and be a good role model but in the process, you also reinforce the healthy habits and strategies that help you in your own life. In short, when you help others, you also help yourself.
TODAY’S ACTION STEPS:
1) If you have been following the workout plans I’ve been providing, we’re now on the Week 5 Workout Plan. Log in to the Fitness App on your COMPUTER – https://doctorvenus.com/app-login/ – to access the Week 5 Workout Plan.
2) You should be exercising according to your planned routine. (You can use the workout plan I provided, if it works for you.) If you’re not ready to go FULL OUT with the workout plan yet…that’s OK. If you’ve been trying out my suggestion of creating a habit, then you may want to add on another step if you haven’t done so yet. Read through the Week 4 – Day 2 module if you’re not sure how to create this “habit chain.”
3) If you’ve been receiving the meal plans, the Week 5 (and 6) Meal Plan has been uploaded to your Fitness App. The Week 6 Meal Plan is the same as Week 5; so you should be starting the Week 6 Meal plan today.
4) Continue to meditate for at least 5 minutes each day. As I suggested in Week 6-Module 6, you can now have a goal for your meditation; for example, you can aim to make this goal a better awareness of yourself (by using mindfulness) or you can aim to quiet your mind and learn to block out stressful thoughts (by using transcendental meditation).
5) If you missed our group coaching call yesterday, go to the Week 8-Day 6 module to view the replay/transcript.
6) As this is your last day of the Discover Your Zen program, be sure to join my free Facebook group for continued support and guidance – https://www.facebook.com/groups/committofitcrew/
7) Download this checklist to review this week’s concepts of staying on track – Checklist Staying on Track. It will help you “stay on the wagon” or “get back on the wagon” if you fall off.
Previous ACTION STEPS:
(Not a complete list, but some important highlights.)
1) Log in to the Fitness App on your COMPUTER – https://doctorvenus.com/app-login/ – and go to the FORMS tab. If you haven’t completed the Client Agreement form and the PAR-Q form from Day 1’s ACTION STEPS, do that today and sign them. Be sure to click SAVE when you’re done. (You can not receive the meal plan and workout plan when they are released until we have those completed forms on file.)
2) If you haven’t done so yet, send an email to team@DoctorVenus.com and state whether you want a vegetarian or non-vegetarian meal plan. It will be sent to your Fitness App by the next day.
3) If you haven’t done so yet, send an email to team@DoctorVenus.com and let me know whether you want an exercise plan for weight loss (focused on burning calories) or for building/maintaining your mass. So you just need to indicate whether you want a BURN or BUILD program. It will be sent to your Fitness App by the next day.
4) Download the Set Your Goals Checklist and complete it. CLICK HERE to download.
5) Download the Program Planner that you can start using, if you wish. CLICK HERE to download.
6) Download the Kitchen Clean Out handout and use it to guide the clean out of your kitchen BEFORE you start your meal plan. CLICK HERE to download.