How to Prevent Your Disappointment In Fitness

Disappointment and stress
23 Apr

Last Updated on June 4, 2018 by Michael Brockbank

One of the biggest problems many people face when trying to lose weight is disappointment. Whether it’s the lack of immediate results or a lack of conviction, it can be difficult to stay on track. I am one of those people. There are often times when I get in the “to hell with it” frame of mind. Once you convince yourself of failing, it can be incredibly difficult to change your views. The best course of action is prevent disappointment from controlling your life in the first place.

Preventing Disappointment is a Key to Success

Your mentality will greatly influence any activity or goal. If you go into something with a negative attitude, chances are you will have a bad experience. It’s kind of like a self-fulfilling prophecy. I’ve been down this road. I know how it feels to spin your wheels when trying to gain momentum. So, what do I do to combat disappointment in myself? Actually, there are quite a few things both you and I can do to keep on track to live a healthier lifestyle.

Know How to Set Healthy Goals

Goals can be a good thing, as long as you’re not setting yourself up for failure. Too many people will set unrealistic objectives and become disappointed in themselves when they don’t achieve them. The trick is to know how to set healthy goals that can influence your mindset for the better.

Break Them Up
I’ve mentioned this in previous posts. It’s much easier to accomplish smaller goals than it is to achieve the end result. For example, I want to lose more than 100 pounds. That’s quite a bit in the grand scheme of things. It can be upsetting when I don’t come close to achieving that objective. Instead of focusing on the whole 100 pounds, I separate the loss into smaller units. My goals now are to lose between two and three pounds per week on average. This is much easier to obtain than the whole 100 pounds from the very beginning.

Being Realistic With Yourself
A lot of people fail at setting goals because they are not realistic with their own abilities. It’s not bad to set your goals high. Just make sure they are something that you can realistically accomplish. For example, it’s quite easy for most humans to lose a minimum of two pounds per week. Losing 20 inside seven days while still being physically and mentally healthy is very unrealistic.

Influencing Your Confidence
Disappointment in yourself can quickly sap your confidence. By breaking up goals into easier to achieve portions, you can influence your confidence by making you feel good about what you’re doing. With each week that shows a loss in weight, you’ll feel better about yourself and show confidence in future attempts. Essentially, this fills you with the “can do” attitude.

What Kind of Goals Should You Set?
Everyone is different when it comes to their end game. While some people just want to slim down, others may want to bulk up. The goals you set will be tailored to what you want to achieve. Just make sure you set goals that you can accomplish with a bit of effort. You don’t want everything to be too easy. Ideas include:

  • Keeping under a certain number of calories all week
  • Total distance you can walk
  • Total number of pounds lifted
  • Number of repetitions in a particular workout
  • Number of calories burnt during exercises inside of seven days

Taking One Day at a Time

While setting a weekly goal can make fitness much easier to accomplish, you can take this even further by breaking it down by day. Don’t focus on what you need to accomplish as a total. Take a look at how you can achieve the goal today. For instance: Let’s say that I want to end the week with at least 3000 points according to Exercise.com. This is the website I use for workouts, and each has a point value to pit your abilities against other people on the site. In order to reach this goal, I would need to do at least 429 points per day in exercises. As long as I achieve this daily goal, I’ll meet the larger one.

Don’t Let One Day Affect the Next
One of the reasons why I am a proponent for taking it one day at a time is because it can be easier to stay the course overall. If you fail at your daily goals, don’t let it influence the rest of the week. View the day and how you failed, learn from the mistakes and take the next day at full force. There have been plenty of times where I would pig out on Taco Bell one day, pizza the next and would still lose weight that week. It’s all about keeping focused on each individual day if you want to avoid getting too disappointed in yourself.

Finding Personal Support

A strong support structure is ideal in virtually any situation. When it comes to fitness, you want people who can help keep your morale up. In my case, the wife and kids play a prominent role in keeping my momentum. It can be difficult to change your life in such a profound way without someone there to support you.

The Online Buddy System
There are many websites tailored to helping you find others who are also in need of support. Technically, this is one of them. I always try to encourage others to contact me whether it’s a comment on this blog or through social media such as Twitter. However, groups on Facebook and MyFitnessPal are also very good when it comes to the buddy system. In fact, I follow Runkeeper and have met a lot of great people who are focused on helping others get fit.

Involving Friends and Family
Why not form your own club for fitness? Friends and family can be very helpful when it comes to preventing disappointment in yourself. Usually, this is because most of your group may be within city limits. Don’t get me wrong, online buddies are great. But there is something to be said about someone who will go jogging with you.

Avoid Instant Gratification

It would be nice if we could wave a magic wand and suddenly be 100 pounds lighter. In reality, it doesn’t happen like that. Most humans have the sense of needing instant gratification in almost every part of their life. It’s this mentality that you need to change in order to avoid becoming disappointed in fitness. Losing weight and becoming more healthy is going to be a life-changing process – for the better.

Realize the Work Involved
You need to understand that physical fitness will require a great deal of work. It doesn’t necessarily have to be difficult, but you will sweat through it. Even though there is a lot of work involved in losing weight, it’s actually quite easy. Even some of the smallest of changes can make a great impact when it comes to boosting your health. In fact, it could seem more like a game than actual work. Personally, I love racking points and setting personal records on Exercise.com.

Disappointment can be devastating in terms of achieving dreams and goals. You just can’t let it control how you face the next day. There will be days when you’ll be upset with yourself because you know you can do better. As long as you can learn from what caused the failure in the first place, you can prepare yourself for the future. Move past your self-esteem problems and know that you can be as healthy as you want to be.

What do you do in your day to boost your morale? Are there fitness groups you belong to that can keep you motivated for success?

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