Getting in Shape Series - Step 2 - The First Few Steps

By Paul Piotrowski on Dec 21, 2006 in Health and Fitness

Well, it has been three days since I started the “Getting in Shape, No Holds Barred” challenge. My first order of business was to address the mental aspects of getting in shape. This is very often a neglected or even skipped step of getting into shape for most people. Most people begin by going to the nearest gym and signing up or by going to the store and purchasing a new piece of exercise equipment, hoping that this will be the piece of equipment that finally works, unlike all the other ones which must have been defective since you only used them a few times.
Taking action is important in life, but ignoring the source of your actions is a big mistake. Actions are a result of thoughts, and habitual actions are a result of habitual thoughts. Failing to attack the problem at the root cause will leave you frustrated. Let me share with you my first tip:
A long term shift away from obesity and an unhealthy lifestyle MUST start at the Mental and Spiritual levels of thought, not at the Action level driven by willpower. If your plan to regain your health is relying on willpower alone, your success will be short lived.
Over the last three days I have been working on a lot of the mental aspects of getting in shape. I will now detail them in order:
1) Clarity of Thought and Vision Breeds Power
The first step is to get absolutely clear in your thinking and to identify exactly what it is that you want to accomplish with your health plan. This is the time to set aside the pessimistic critic in your head and to activate the optimistic spirit inside you to clearly define the type of body you are seeking to create. A set of empowering questions to ask your self when defining this might be:

- If I had perfect discipline and really stuck to this, what kind of body would I want to have?
- What would I look like?
- What kinds of things would I be able to do or feel with this body?
- What kinds of addictions would I be free of?
- What am I really looking to change?

It might help to first list the types of qualities you are seeking in point form to start, such as:

I want a body that…
- is strong and flexible
- has a maximum of 12.5% body fat
- is healthy and full of energy
- is free of negative addictions
- etc.

Once you define what you’re looking for in point form, try to write it out in a paragraph which will define the exact outcome you are seeking to achieve.
2) Knowing Why Multiplies Your Power
Once you have a clear, written down outcome, a tiny seed is planted in your brain that begins to grow. In order for that seed to grow, you must water it with a powerful enough purpose statement. Clearly defining what you want is very important but it is WHY you want it that will really begin to multiply your power.
Why do you want to get in shape?
Why do you want to lose the excess fat you’ve been carrying around for years or decades?
Why now?
Why is it important to you?
Once again, it might help to first state your purpose by writing out possible “why’s” in point form such as:

I want to do this because…
- I don’t want to feel tired anymore
- I want to be able to look in the mirror and feel proud
- I want to be a role-model for my kids
- I want to attract the mate of my dreams
- etc.
Once you’ve got the “why” defined in point form, try writing it out more precisely in a paragraph form combining your outcome from step one together with the purpose defined in this step.
3) Before You Achieve, You Must Believe
Once you are clear what you want and why you want it, you must assemble your inner army of positive beliefs to help you with your cause. Beliefs are like little armies that fight with you, in the case of positive beliefs, or fight against you, in the case of negative beliefs. The reason a lot of us fail to achieve long term success is because our army of positive beliefs is greatly outnumbered by the army of negative beliefs, and so an endless battle rages on inside of us. Our thoughts fight an endless battle in our heads that might sound a little like this:
“Holy crap, I just gained another 5lbs since I last weighed myself, I think it’s time to start exercising.”
“But why bother starting? We can’t keep it up anyways, so why even try?”
“Well, I know, but I just don’t want to keep gaining weight like this!”
“Yeah, I understand, but to get in shape you need to go running, and it’s cold outside right now, lets wait until summer and see what happens.”
“No, I better get started soon, so that I can be in better shape for the summer.”
“Buy why? Who cares, you’re going to be working anyways, so it’s not like you’ll be hitting the beach.”
“Right, but I still want to feel better.”
“Yeah, hey, speaking of feeling better, don’t forget there’s an ice-cream sandwich in the freezer!”
Sound familiar?
The reality is that all of us have positive and negative beliefs. Positive beliefs help us achieve success and negative beliefs destroy our hope by instilling doubts. Getting in shape will take physical effort at some point, which most people mistake for “the hard work” of a plan to get in shape. In reality, “the hard work” of a plan like this comes from within, from become aware of our internal beliefs. Let me share with you my next tip:
Once you are absolutely clear as to what you want to accomplish, and why you want to accomplish it, it is firstly your BELIEFS that must be analyzed and corrected before you can expect to change the ACTION steps required. Trying to change your action steps attacks the problem in reverse, failing to address the cause of the problem and leads to frustration.
Your beliefs define and control your habitual actions. You must firstly identify the negative beliefs you have which come to the surface when you read your outcome and purpose statements. Try this now. Read the outcome you seek to achieve and the purpose behind it and think about any negative beliefs you might have regarding this area of your life. Some examples of negative beliefs might be:
- I can’t lose weight, I’ve already tried everything.
- My weight problem is genetic so I can’t do anything about it.
- Eating healthy is way too time intensive.
- Etc.
Every negative belief you have is like a soldier in an army attacking your goals to achieve health at every opportunity. However you also might have some positive beliefs that might be like these:
- Whatever I have set my heart to in the past I have achieved, so this shouldn’t be any different
- I used to be healthy when I was younger, so I’m sure I can be healthy again
- I’ve never had the tools and resources at my disposal when I tried other diets/plans, so now I know I will succeed
- Etc.
The secret is to make a list of all the positive beliefs you can think of and add to it from time to time as you think of new ones. This will be your positive army. Then, what you want to do is to take your negative beliefs and erase them. The most effective way to do this is to firstly give yourself permission to change some of your beliefs and to let them go as they don’t serve you anymore. You might have formed them at some point in your life when the circumstances were right, but now that you are making a lasting change, these negative beliefs will just slow you down so there is no use having them anymore. Begin by asking yourself probing questions about your negative beliefs. Let’s take the first one as an example:
“ I can’t lose weight, I’ve already tried everything.”
- Everything? Am I sure I tried absolutely everything?
- Even if I tried everything available at the time, couldn’t something new and more effective been created?
- Isn’t this thing I’m trying right now with these beliefs slightly different?
- What if this one little thing was the missing piece of the puzzle?
- Etc.
Once you question a negative belief enough, you will realize that there usually isn’t very much basis for that belief. It is most often a very exaggerated assumption which was created temporarily for a purpose, but now doesn’t serve you anymore so it is ok to change it.
To change your negative beliefs, simply re-word them in the opposite way as a positive belief. For example “I can’t lose weight, I’ve already tried everything.” Becomes “The more things I try the closer I get to creating the body I desire.” as an example. Now, some of the beliefs you have on the negative side weren’t created overnight. Some of them have been brewing in your mind for years or even decades. The scope of this article doesn’t allow me to dive into great detail about changing your beliefs, but I have outlined the basics for you. The last step in building your army of positive beliefs would be to convert all of your negative beliefs into positive beliefs and to reinforce them with proof from your everyday life.
Say to yourself “The more things I try the closer I get to creating the body I desire.” and see if you can find any reinforcing thoughts that can help you solidify your belief further. Have you ever tried something and failed, and then tried again and succeeded? That would reinforce this belief. How many times did it take for Edison to make the light bulb work? Thousands. Eventually he got it to work. Every failure led him closer to success.
4) With Enough Leverage, You Can Achieve Anything
Leverage is such a powerful tool that it can drastically increase your chances of success on any program. There are many forms of leverage. How does it work?
Well, let me ask you this. If I came over to your house and put a gun to the head of the person you care about the most and told you that if you don’t get on a treadmill within the next 24 hours and exercise for 30 minutes I will kill them, would you do it? How long would you wait? Would you wait until the 20th hour? Or would you jump on a treadmill immediately? What if you didn’t have a treadmill? Would you give up? Or would you find a gym with a treadmill and do a 30 minute run?
Another way to look at it is I told you that if you lose 10lbs within the next 30 days I will give you ten million dollars, would you do it? Even if your schedule is busy? Even if you tried and failed before?
See, leverage is kind of like an accountability system. In a lot of areas of our lives, leverage is applied to us on a daily basis, we’re just not really aware of it. By taking leverage as a tool and using it to help you, the power to succeed increases significantly.
Take the time to think about what kinds of leverage you can apply to your exercise program or your new diet. Could you tell your friends and tell them to hold you accountable to your goal? Maybe you can agree to pay them $500 each if you don’t meet your 30 day goal. Maybe you want to apply a reward system for leverage, such as going on a trip in 6 months provided you meet your goals.
Don’t skip this step. Challenge yourself to apply a minimum of 6 major forms of leverage and a few more minor ones. Since most people will do much more to avoid pain than to gain pleasure, 80% of your leverage should focus on the type of pain you will experience if you give up on your goals. The type of pain you chose is up to you. Perhaps it’s embarrassment, public humiliation, loss of respect amongst your colleagues etc. Put your butt on the line. Here’s my next tip:
If you are having any doubts or trouble committing to at least 6 forms of leverage, it is a sure sign that you have not yet fully conditioned your mind through the first three steps.
You might not be clear enough with what you want to accomplish. You might not know why exactly you’re doing this. You might be doing it for someone else, when in fact you should be doing it for yourself. You might know what you want and why but your negative beliefs are stopping you. This means more time is needed working on these three areas. Once they are all in alignment, you should have no problems putting your butt on the line because you will feel ready. You will feel that you are committed. You will feel that there is no way you will give up now. You will have no doubt that somehow you will make this work. You may not know how yet, but you’ll feel it’s a done deal and it’s just a matter of time now.
It is time to put your butt on the line. If you are clear on what you want, you are clear on why you want it and you’ve applied at least six forms of leverage to your plan, you are ready for the next step.
5) You are the Creator, So Create FUN
If you are serious about making a lifelong change in life such as this one to get in shape and create the body and health you desire, there will obviously be a requirement to change what you are doing now to align with a new strategy for eating healthy, nourishing your body and exercising your body. Such changes will unfold for you and there is no perfect system for this. Your personal preferences, your geographical location, your resources etc. will largely determine the type or types of exercises you will choose to perform and the types o f changes you decide to make to your diet.
Since you will be making plans and organizing things for your new lifestyle, you are responsible for adding the FUN element into your program. Nobody will do it for you, but nobody will stop you either. Too many of us have been conditioned that exercising has to be painful. Ever heard of the belief “No Pain, No Gain.”? Is it actually true? Does it help us? I don’t believe it is a useful belief because it is way too general and so we use it as an excuse whenever we don’t want to do something. Yes, exercising will take effort, but you have complete control over making your exercise regimen FUN! While designing your plan, ask yourself “Is there anything else I can do to make this more FUN?” Maybe instead of running on a treadmill, you choose to join an aerobics class. Maybe you can install a TV in front of your treadmill to make it more fun. Maybe you can get an MP3 player so you can listen to music.
For me, the best part of getting a plan like this setup is getting geared up. I love diving into things and learning what other people are using to help them get results. For example, because I have already committed myself completely, I have wasted no time and gone out and purchased some gear to make this more FUN for myself. I went out and bought a pair of good running shoes, an iPod Nano MP3 player, a Nike + iPod integration kit to track my runs, etc.
This is the fun part of the program where you decide what you’re going to do to make this FUN for yourself. There are so many things that you can do here. Don’t be afraid to apply your resources either. For example, I spent approximately $500 already on the shoes and iPod gear. Most people would say “Woa, you’ve only been on this program for 3 days and you’re already spending that kind of money? Why don’t you wait a few months before getting into gear like that?”
See, to me, because I *know* I’m committed; I don’t need to wait a few months. The only reason people wait is because they know they will most likely quit and then they don’t want to have spent money for nothing. If you have the money, and you want to wait a few months before spending money on gear, what does that tell you about your commitment level? Why not use this as yet another form of leverage? Ie. “I can’t quit now, I’ve spent $500 on gear already!”
I’m not saying you need to buy anything. You can exercise without spending the kind of money I decided to spend on some of the gear, but for me it was one way to make it FUN. I am a techie type personality and I love my gadgets. These gadgets are what makes this FUN for me, so why not use them?
Here is my final tip for today:
Your ability and willingness to put in the effort to make your exercise and nutrition plans FUN will most likely be the final determining factor in whether or not you are able to stick to your plan long term. If you can make it FUN, and continue to make it FUN, you will never go back to your old ways. If you are too lazy to figure out how to make exercising and eating correctly FUN, your plan will probably start to fall apart from boredom.
Having FUN while getting in shape is not automatic, but it is absolutely positively possible. It simply takes a little bit of getting to know yourself to know what makes things FUN for you and then setting your strategy up so that it includes FUN. Perhaps replacing the belief “No Pain, No Gain” with “No FUN, No Plan”, meaning if your plan doesn’t include a FUN factor, well then you have no plan.

Well, I hope this has helped you understand some of the basics of getting the mental aspects of your plan in alignment. As you can see there is a lot of inner work that needs to be done before a long term plan can be put into action, but I assure you it is well worth it. In fact, it’s not only worth it; it is really the only way to successfully achieve long term results.
As a side note, I decided to do 30 minutes of light cardio work on the treadmill for the last three days just to get my body moving again as I work through the mental aspects of the plan, which prevents the problem some people (including myself) sometimes run into with “analysis paralysis” where they spend so much time in the thinking and strategizing phase of their plan that they never get started. At least this way, until I get all the mental aspects of my plan figured out, I’m running 30 minutes a day.
Click here for part 3…