How to GUARANTEE that you actually follow through with your muscle building goals this year.
As I sit here writing this it’s exactly three days prior to the 2010 New Years holiday and just like most other westerners I’m starting to kick around ideas for New Years resolutions.
The problem with resolutions though, just like most other human endeavors is that we get all spiked up on emotion for about a week and then suddenly like a red light that just came out of no where we stomp the brakes, hit reverse and go back to the same old routine.
So what’s going on here? We know we should go to the gym. We know that if we do we will look and feel great. But some invisible something stops us. Well I think it has to do with a lot of different things but to stop myself from going off into some sort of crazy holiday rant I’ll limit it to 5 points and at the end I’ll show you how to overcome some of your biggest roadblocks.
1. The food industry is trying to kill you-
Yep. Okay maybe not on purpose but they are certainly more interested in their profits than your health. The most basic rule of business is that the more you can get your existing customers to consume the more money you make. So they load up their product with fat and sugar and salt and everything else that tastes good but is bad for you so that we will eat more of it. Did you know that they engineer foods to actually re-train our taste buds to eat more of their crap? Crazy!
What’s worse though, is all the advertising they do to train you to go eat a hamburger instead of something that might actually be good for you. We get addicted to these foods because of how they’re engineered and the fast food industry places cues all over the place in the form of radio, TV and billboard advertising to “remind” us that they’re there. Imagine for a second that you’re addicted to heroin and you’ve decided to give it up, but everywhere you go you see billboards of people enjoying heroin and hear radio commercials urging you to come on in and try out our brand new better than ever smack. Do you think it would be harder to quit? You bet it would!
So how do you overcome this? Well knowing is half the battle. Now that your conscious about it they won’t be able to manipulate you anymore and you can make smarter choices. Okay, let’s move on to number two.
2. You are NOT wired to follow through.
In their book Following Through, Steve Levinston and Pete Greider talk about what they call the “Follow Through Fairytale”. In short, it means that we unconsciously believe that if we have a good intention that we will automatically follow through with it and if we don’t, it means that we think that we just don’t have enough will power. The reason for this, they say is that we have two very different parts of our brain that they call the primitive guidance system and the intelligent guidance system.
Without going too deep into it, basically the primitive part of us is concerned with our safety and survival and only cares about what is happening RIGHT NOW. The intelligent part of us is making plans for the future based on the past. This is the part that creates the intention to workout and eat right.
So here is how these two parts of us create a MAJOR problem. Say that this this New Years you have decided that this is your year to pack on muscle and stop eating crap. Now a couple of days later you’re at work and you walk into the break room and sitting on the table is a box of delicious custard filled chocolate glazed doughnuts.. Your favorite!!….. Son of a Bitch.
Now what happens inside your brain next is very interesting. Even though you have Decided that this is your year, your primitive guidance system says who cares about this YEAR all I care about is RIGHT NOW and over there is a box of your favorite doughnuts and who knows, it might be days before we even see food again (remember that we are dealing with the part of you that evolved when food was scarce). It then hijacks your brain and you start hearing yourself say things like I can just have one. “You know one won’t kill me” and the next thing you know you have a chocolate rim around your lips and a you further reinforce your belief that says “Oh well.. I guess I just don’t have any willpower”.
So how do you get around this problem. Hold tight, I’ll show you how a little later.
3. Your friends DON’T want you to succeed -
Let me just start out by saying that your friends and family don’t do this on a conscious level and a part of them would love to see you succeed. With that said though, a still bigger part in them doesn’t want to see ANYONE do better than them and your attempts to do so **does not amuse them**.
When your body starts to change you’ll start to hear all kinds of shit like “Are you on steroids?” or “Steve only eats rabbit food. We’ll just have to go eat a burger without him.” If your not conscious of this stuff it can really derail you. So pay attention and don’t let the bastards get you down.
4. Routine is King -
The hardest time that you’re ever going to have sticking to a diet and exercise plan is without a doubt the first three weeks. It’s what Eben Pagan of WakeUpProductive.com calls “Habit Gravity and Change Velocity”. He relates it to a rocket ship traveling into outer space. Did you know that most of the fuel used by these rocket ships is burned up just to get it off the launching pad. You can think of any new habit that you want to create in your life in the same way. You are going to have to use most of your energy to get yourself off your own personal launching pad. After that it becomes easier and easier.
One of the gotchas as you go along though is the fact that some things are going to come up in your life that pull you off of your routine. Vacations, family emergencies and working late are just a few events that can through a monkey wrench in your plans.
So what to do? Well I very rarely miss a day of exercise. How? Easy… Even if it’s just a few sets of push-ups or sit-ups before bed I can still say that I worked out that day and the routine stays intact. And in the event of an emergency or the occasional slip up I just don’t beat myself up over it. The problem comes in when tell yourself how much you suck because some part of you actually starts to believe it and next thing you know there goes all your hard work. So be nice to yourself.
Okay, now were going to get into a practical exercise that will help you follow through with your New Years resolution.
5. The one tip that got me over the hump -
So to make this work you have to get absolutely clear about WHY you want to get fit. All the things I thought were important to me like being healthy etc were not at all why I wanted to pack on muscle. If you do a little reflection I think you’ll see what I’m talking about. There are very deep personal reasons for wanting to change your physique and only you can answer what it is for you.
After you figure out what your reason is come up with a short punchy statement that really gets gets your attention. If you want to be a positive role model for your kids you can say “father of the year” or “my kid just got a football scholarship to USC”. Then you need to think about your reason as much as you can all day. To do this you need a visual cue. You can put a rubber band on your wrist and every time you look at it you can remember your statement. This is how you can override your primitive guidance system and program yourself for success. As your doing this you might also want to reflect on what will happen if you DON’T follow through and keep that in the back of your mind as well.
I go into this in greater detail and give you some additional tips in my report on the 5 biggest muscle building mistakes and how you can avoid them. You can get that here. Muscle Building Report
Okay, there you have it. If you need some specific info on gaining weight go check out How to Get Big. If you need info on loosing fat go check out Fat Loss Forever from this site.
Take Care,
Steve Reeves
