There are surprisingly very few articles about fitness and
perseverance. I mean, there ARE, but they don’t go into any detail about HOW to
develop perseverance. They all pinpoint that it is necessary to succeeding in
life (and in fitness goals, obvs). But all of those articles severely lack any
explanation as to how we are supposed to stop making excuses for ourselves and
start putting in the work even on our worst days. There are crazy amazing
personal testimonies out there about people who persevered and were successful and
therefore insanely inspiring…but again, they go into no detail about how to
find that perseverance within yourself.
I have been dwelling on this and I have come up with a
theory about this word, perseverance. It has its own definition, of course, but in the
terms of our lives...what if it’s just an accumulation of other words? A
scientific formula of characteristics and circumstances we must create in order
to persevere? Patience + self-control + drive + diligence +passion + joy =
perseverance? What do you think? Hear me out, if you think you will reach ANY goal
overnight, your willingness to persevere has died before it got through the
doorway. The changes I made to my lifestyle were changes I plan on making for
life, patience is necessary. Self-control, I have to get myself out of bed in
the mornings to work out or commit after working, I have to choose clean foods
over indulging every day. Drive, you have to WANT it. Diligence, you have to
work hard at it consistently. Passion, you have to MEAN it or you don’t really
want it. JOY, if you are angry that you are no longer sitting on the couch or
you are unhappy giving up certain foods your goals will not manifest. You have
to be HAPPY about your new journey.
In pinpointing this little formula, I think I have found
where, previously, I would fail time and again when it came to persevering in
the long term. I either let my self-control fizzle because I thought self-love
was letting myself have whatever I wanted whenever I wanted it. I have now
learned that self-love is taking care of myself with clean foods and making my
fitness a priority every day because I deserve to be healthy and happy with my
body. If that wasn’t what was failing, it was certainly my patience. I used to
see fitness with an end in sight. For example, I would hit my ‘goal weight’ and
then slack off working out and gradually start eating poorly. Because, to me, I
had met my goal right? But when I think like that, it completely throws off my
perseverance and I find myself right back where I started.
This time it is different, I understand my own formula
(maybe your perseverance formula is different from mine?! Please share, I would
love to hear!) and I have what it takes to persevere. If I find myself wanting
to slack off, time to do a self-check and see what I am missing and what I need
to do to balance out my equation.
XOX
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