We’ve teamed up with Fitness First to show y’all that, when it comes to fitness, your mentality and mindset is half the battle. Together, we wanna retrain your brains to understand that it’s all about #HowFitFeels rather than how fit looks, because, really, we all know what’s most important. Find out more on their website HERE and Facey HERE.
As anyone who’s had the same New Year’s Resolution for the last decade would know, conquering fitness goals is no easy feat.
You might pack a duffel bag full of exercise gear every day with the best of intentions, but not follow through. Maybe things were off to a rockin’ start, but you threw the towel in after week one or two. It’s OK – it happens to the best of us.
But fear not, fine readers. PEDESTRIAN.TV has called upon Australian marathon runner and medal winner Lisa Weightman to get y’all mentally fit, because who better than someone who runs 2-5 hours continuously to school us on persistence, endurance and all-round motivation?
You’re not going anywhere if your head’s not in the game, so let’s do this.
FIND YO’SELF SOME SUPPORT
Like all things in life, it helps to have someone who’ll back you in your endeavours.
“When I ran with my dad as a junior he recognised I had the ability to run and run,” Lisa tells P.TV, recalling what it was that got her in the game early on.
Now, though, it’s her other half that keeps her motivated. “We train together every day and enjoy our training time together,” she explains. “I’d find it difficult to get the training done without him after work in the dark, cold winter nights and I am always at my best when he is fit and healthy.”
We’re not asking you to find a lover for the sake of fitness (even though they can help you shed calories in more ways than one), but you can find moral support in all kinds of places.
Whether you join a team sport, find a running buddy (go HERE if your friends are the horizontal Netflix kind) or hit up a PT who is putting their belief and faith in you, it’ll help motivate you to exercise and kick goals. It’s hard to let yourself down, but it’s even harder to let someone else down in the process too (assuming that you’re a decent person). It’s a mental thing, and, well, I think you know where we’re going with this.
DON’T EXPECT MIRACLES
It’s easy to feel defeated on the exercise circuit. You’ve got chicks on Insta smashing burpees like they’ve been doing ’em since the womb, and you can’t even walk home from work without losing your breath. But rather than getting down on your fine self, focus on how good you’re doing. At least you didn’t get an Uber home like your colleague, you know? Maybe tomorrow you’ll power walk the last five minutes of your trek.
“Set realistic and achievable goals so you can celebrate your wins,” Lisa says. “We tend to focus on why we can’t do something as opposed to working on how we can. Switch the mindset to celebrate everything you achieve and build off that.”
PROVE THAT Y’CAN COMMIT TO SOMETHING
The only difference between you and someone else, a lot of the time, is commitment. It’s so easy to throw in the sweaty towel if things get tough and your body / state of mind is somewhere unfamiliar, but it’s about pushing through both mentally and physically.
“The first four weeks of any training program is hard,” Lisa says. “Your muscles and tendons are adapting to the increase in exertion and naturally you get a little more tired.
But if you increase exercise gradually, keep your goals realistic and stick at it for four weeks you’ll come out the other side addicted. Just get through four weeks of gradual exercises and you won’t know yourself.”
“Even when I am super tired I can force myself to train and I can force myself to push harder with mini strategies and mind games.
When you find out you can give more it can become addictive.”
DON’T LET THE HATERS (IE. YOU) STOP YOU FROM DOING YOUR THANG
Putting too much pressure on yourself can hurt both physically and mentally, and ain’t nobody got time for that. Lisa trains as an elite marathon runner, works part time and is a mum – but she doesn’t let the fact that she can’t always fit it all in get her down. If she does, it will greatly impact her progress.
“When I train with worries on my shoulders I feel tense throughout the session and doing that often leads to injury and illness. Finding balance is about setting realistic goals and celebrating what you have achieved not what you haven’t.”
FIND SOMETHING YOU’RE DECENT AT
Before you roll your eyes, listen to us here. Finding an exercise that suits you is about more than enjoying yourself enough to get it done – it’s about finding something that you can progress and better yourself in so that you can mentally pat yourself on the back.
“As a junior I ran 1500m and 3000m, but I’d never win. I’d always take home the bronze,” Lisa explains, noting that when she took up long-distance running she was able to excel. You might like playing tennis, for example, but at some point hanging around a stagnant luv point score isn’t going to do anything for your ego. You need that stench of sweet success to keep yourself at it.
If you hadn’t gathered by now, the visualisation / motivation of an epic rig isn’t going to be enough to get your runners on.
You need to mentally be in the game before you can physically be in it too. Then, once fitness is ingrained in your life, there’s pretty much no turning back. “I don’t think I’ll ever stop training,” Lisa tells us. “When I’m not training I don’t feel as alive.”
Aussie gym Fitness First are even conducting an experiment over the next month which shows how lives (not just bodies) and impacted when fitness is implemented or taken away. Rather than bore you with a written rundown, watch for yourself below:
Just remember, you guys: behind every fitness fiend is a mindset that made them that way.
Photo: Silver Linings Playbook.
