Be Easy on Yourself

Achieve Fitness Goals by Being Easy on Yourself (A Story of a Cheetah)

Sometimes we get down on ourselves.

Maybe we didn’t perform the way we wanted to at a presentation for work, didn’t do all the studying we could for an exam or review, needed more time and put out a product that was only good--not the best.

When this happens, most people (myself included!)tend to get a bit down on ourselves. We feel like we have failed our expectations and didn’t live up to our standards. And maybe this is true, maybe we could have taken some more time to prepare that PowerPoint for a presentation, studied a little bit harder or spent more quality time developing a killer product--all these, we could have done and the end result would have been better.

These are our lessons, the reason we have them is to grow. So let’s look at it that way... as growing experiences... and STOP BEING HARD ON YOURSELF!

Being hard on yourself will only bring you into a dark place where the only thing around is question marks about your potential success. What is going to happen to me? Who noticed that I messed up? Will I ever do what I want to do? Get out of the negative and your life will ease up, I promise.

This is no different with your fitness and health goals. If you become your own worst drill sergeant--screaming and shouting at your last mess up--you will not build the positive support within yourself to sustain an enlightened and lasting fitness and health program. I promise you this as well.

You can see how this affects professional athletes all the time. Watch tennis and take careful notice of how the players react to their own missed shots. If a player hits the ball into the net and reacts poorly, chances are the next three or four rallies will have more errors on his or her part. What is happening is this...

His conscience is being a drill sergeant. He is screaming his head off at the player telling him to stop screwing up! While he’s still screaming, he’s still playing tennis and so now he’s listening to his drill sergeant and trying to hit a first serve that’s over 100 mph! Talk about some serious multitasking! These conversations are negative and counter-productive.

Instead, to avoid this berating, he should acknowledge his mistake and calmly peacefully let it go. How? Take a breath. Concentrate more. Don’t correct his swing or positioning, just concentrate on what his doing--in this case hitting a tennis ball. I guarantee he will not flub his next few shots.

Same with baseball pitchers. You’ve seen the guys who miss a few strikes then start getting into their heads and swearing and cursing on the mound. What happens is the same, the drill sergeant gets talking and the concentration is out the window. This is when they give up homeruns and unintentional walks.

Master pitchers have learned to shrug off bad pitches and concentrate on the task they are there to complete. I’ve seen many games where a great pitcher has missed on one pitch and given up a homerun, then come back and shut the other team out for the remaining innings. Pitchers like these are masters not only at throwing the ball hard--but of concentration.

You cannot do everything perfectly.

If you get off track, take a day to breathe, look over your goals and then refocus your concentration. For many of us, fitness and health require a lifestyle change that creates LASTING habits! You’re bound to slip up once and a while, so don’t kill yourself.

Here’s a great story my coach, Nick, told me when I was struggling with being too hard on myself.

There was a young boy named Michael, about 10 years old, that Nick had been counseling for a short period of time. Michael was overweight and was having a tremendously difficult time in school. He had trouble with his math and was a level or two behind in reading. He just didn’t feel good about himself and the other kids were starting to pick on him because of his reading deficiencies and, of course, his weight.

Nick had met with Michael a few times and now the issue they were discussing was his performance at school. After pulling some teeth to get Michael to talk about his problems in school and with the other kids, Nick was unsure of how to proceed with the session. So he asked Michael a very blunt and straightforward question. "How do you felt about yourself?"

Michael responded with this, "I feel like a big fat failure."

"Whoa, whoa, hold on a second," Nick said, "What makes you feel like that?"

"I don’t know, I just am."

"Well Michael, why don’t you tell me about something that you really like."

Michael looked up to the ceiling. "I like animals!"

"And tell me, what’s your favorite animal?"

"The Cheetah!" Michael nearly jumped out of his seat.

"Great!" Nick matched his enthusiasm, "and tell me about the cheetah."

In double-time, Michael began to tell Nick all about the cheetah, how it walks, how it eats, how it sleeps, when it sleeps, again what it eats--to the point where a non-caring Nick would have kicked himself for asking this question at all.

When Michael seemed to be winding down, Nick gently interrupted.

"Wow, you certainly know a lot about the cheetah don’t you? You mentioned something that I want to talk about. You said that the cheetah eats zebras, right?"

"Yeah, and antelope, and..."

"Well, Michael, when the cheetah goes out and hunts, so you know how many times he gets the prey and can eat dinner?"

Michael thought for a minute then exclaimed, "All the time!"

Nick’s face became more serious, knowing Michael was wrong and he slowly gave Michael his lesson, "That’s not true, Michael. The cheetah is lucky if he gets to eat once or twice a week. He hunts many times and doesn’t catch a thing. Did you know that?"

"No, I didn’t"

"Michael, the Cheetah is a very special animal because it keeps trying all the time, day after day so it can eat. He may miss his dinner 4 or 5 times in a week. Now would you call the cheetah a big fat failure for not being successful every time?"

Michael got the lesson Nick was trying to teach him and started performing better in school.

We can’t be at our prime all the time, and when we aren’t we absolutely cannot punish ourselves for it. Be more like the Cheetah, go out everyday knowing that you are doing what you need to be successful.

If you fail, breathe, and come back more concentrated the next day. You will be a success, I’m sure of it!

How to be a Cheetah

Here are the tools that will allow you to tell your drill sergeant that he or she’s better off making sure we don’t forget our business appointments that interfering with our fitness and health successes!

Step One: When you start to hear the drill sergeant, listen to his speak for a short time. Listen to what he says. They will probably be similar to things like this, "You stupid..." or "I don’t believe you just..." or "Why can’t you ever keep a commitment for..." For this step, just be aware that this is happening so you can recognize it when it happens again.

Step Two: Tell your drill sergeant that you are thankful he is around. Seriously. Thank him for sharing his thoughts because this same drill sergeant is the one who gets you out of bed in the morning (he’s not all negative!).

Step Three: Take a few deep breaths.

Step Four: Ask your conscience to move on to the next thought. If the next thought is just as negative and just as degrading, repeat the four steps!

When you master this, you will be able to deal with your drill sergeant easily and quickly before you begin to start the self-doubt that can destroy your chances of reaching your ultimate fitness goals!