How do you start changing yourself?

What are you willing to achieve success?
Because you don’t get it for free.

Self knowledge

You should know your strengths and weaknesses. Especially men over 40 when a mistake can have consequence.

Even Socrates, the philosopher in Ancient Greece summarized the philosophical commandments as “Know yourself”.

When you know your strengths and weaknesses : which strengths will help you achieve your goals and which weaknesses might pull you back?

Visualization

Visualization is a powerful technique. It is a kind of mental rehearsal, which can help you achieve your goals.

If you repeat visualizing the same image over and over, your subconscious mind will believe it and it will support you from the “background”.
For example imaging yourself how you would like to 3 month later!

Would you like to be more muscular? Would you like to lower your body percentage? Get healthier?

As a coach I always tell my clients (men over 40) to visualize before acting.
Imagine yourself in detail but not just a picture, but a short “film” of your future yourself.

“For example you are next to the pool; you jump in the water, start swimming. You enjoy how easily and powerfully you can swim thanks to you lean, muscular body. When you get out of the water, a woman asks you what your secret is that you are in such a good shape. “

Involve your senses to maximize the effect: see, hear, smell, taste, touch and feel.

You can imagine anything but it should be believable for you. For example if in your visualization you are more muscular than now and you are 15 pound lighter that is totally believable … but if you imagine yourself with a body like Arnold Schwarzenegger when he was 20, that would be unbelievable for your subconscious mind and it will sabotage you.

Of course if you achieve your goal then you can aim higher and higher new goals.

Ok, so :

• you know your strengths and weaknesses
• you know how you are now
• you know what you want to be and you have a vision of yourself

… then you should also know what steps you must take to achieve your goal.

For instance maybe you’re quite muscular but you are overweight. In this case you should put emphasis on your diet and not on your workouts.

If you don’t have enough muscle mass then of course you should emphasize your workouts but you should also pay attention to your diet because if you want to build muscle it is important what you eat. If you have your goal, try to think of it with enthusiasm each day, so as you would be eager to start the morning to achieve it!

Men over 40 : choose the long term

Always plan for long term.
Don’t choose a goal to lose 8 pounds and build big muscles in two weeks, but try to develop such a lifestyle which lasts until the end of your life.

Each week you need to do something to maintain your healthy lifestyle.

Don’t do workout only when you have time for it or you are in the mood to do it.
You must plan in advance on which days you will train and you should stick to your plan.

It should be a weekly plan which you do consistently and later gradually you can increase the reps and do harder and harder exercises.

• Don’t set too many goals at once. What is most important to you? You need to define exactly what to do, when and how you want to achieve it.
• You need to learn to concentrate better.
• It is worth combining a new habit with an existing habit. For example you do a short workout before each breakfast or shower. It has to be associated with a habit that you keep doing.
• A minimum should be defined e.g. I’ll do at least 10 push-ups before breakfast.
• Reward yourself when you reach your goal! For example you can say : “When I’ll be able to do 40 pushups I will buy for myself …”

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How much did you change in the last few years? I would like to read your comments below 🙂