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#152 - Practical Steps To Building Real Life Confidence Through Fitness
20 Plays4 days ago
Most people get into fitness because they want more confidence. Confidence isn’t something you’re born with, it’s something you can build and fitness is one of the most tangible ways you can do it.
In this episode, we're going to break down exactly how and you'll learn:
- The Look Feel Perform framework, so you know exactly how fitness builds confidence
- How to build confidence and a better body without relying on motivation or perfection
- Simple training and nutrition actions to improve how you look and feel without getting obsessive
- How performance goals expand what you believe you can do and carry over into work relationships and life
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Transcript
Introduction to Fit Fish Project
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome back to the Fit Fish Project with your host, Lathan Bass, where we make fitness and health simple for regular people like you and I before we get into the weekly episode.
00:00:13
Speaker
As always, if you can continue to leave reviews, share this with people who you think could get some value out of this show. We will continue to build this up and get the information out to people who can actually use it to improve their lives, live better, look better, feel more confident, all those different things, which is exactly what we're going to
Fitness as a Tool for Confidence
00:00:32
Speaker
talk about today. I wanted to do an episode.
00:00:35
Speaker
about how to use fitness to build confidence. And the reason why I thought that this would be a good episode is because I've talked to enough people now at this point to realize when I start asking them about their goals or why they want to get into fitness or why they want to lose weight, why they want to try to accomplish some certain sort of performance goal,
00:00:55
Speaker
If we dig deep enough and I ask enough questions, a lot of it comes down to wanting to feel and be more confident within themselves. So somebody has the goal to lose 30 pounds and I dig into that a little bit, ask them some questions and comes out that they just don't feel super confident in the body that they have right now. Maybe there're they don't have enough muscle mass, maybe their strength is a little bit low, maybe they're They don't really feel like they're the type of person who follows through or is disciplined. And so they want to use fitness to help improve this confidence. And I think this is awesome because I personally found that fitness is such an extremely tangible and very practical way to go about actually building your confidence when
00:01:34
Speaker
you ask people about confidence or if you try to figure out like how to build confidence, sometimes you'll hear people talking about, oh, you just need to believe in yourself or you need to have these affirmations or you need to watch these videos or do this, do that. And all that stuff, I guess, is great if that's what you want to do. But I think confidence is best built through evidence by proving to yourself that you can do the things that you say that you want to do. And fitness is such a great way to do that in such a simple and practical way to see your body changing, to see your mood and your mental health and all those different things changing to accomplish some sort of performance goal and then build that confidence through those things. And so for that reason, I'm such a big proponent for fitness.
00:02:17
Speaker
I understand that not
Impact of Fitness Beyond the Gym
00:02:18
Speaker
everybody loves fitness. Not everybody is super passionate about fitness the way that I am. But I do think it's one of the best tools when it comes to building your own self-confidence and really building some of that belief and some of that trust in yourself.
00:02:30
Speaker
Fitness can be such a great tool for that. So I wanted to actually break that down, how to go about doing that, like using fitness to build better confidence, talk about how this actually affects not only just you in the gym, but also how it affects you at work or at home or in your personal life and your relationships, all those different things, because I don't think there's confidence built in Fitness just stays in fitness. I think that it goes out and it spreads into other areas in your life and helps you to live just an overall better life. And so sharing a few examples of clients and some of my own personal examples from that, and then ultimately, as always, trying to give you some very practical steps that you can start doing literally today to start to use this process to build better confidence within yourself. So let's get right into
Defining Fitness Goals
00:03:15
Speaker
this.
00:03:15
Speaker
So when we think about fitness goals in general, there's three main fitness goals that I have found through having dozens of conversations with people in the categories that they fall into. We have people who get into fitness who want to look better. So they want to change their appearance. They want to build muscle, lose body fat, look more lean, more tone, more athletic, that sort of thing.
00:03:38
Speaker
Then we have people who want to feel better. So they want to feel better physically, get rid of some of those aches and pains. They don't want to be dealing with injuries. They don't want to wake up and feel like they're 75 years old, even when they're 30 years old. They want to also feel better mentally. So they want to be a little bit better, have a little bit more energy, you have better mood, those sorts of things. And then the third thing we have is people who have like certain performance goals or maybe they want to improve the quality of their life. So they're able to get around and do all the things they want to do. Maybe they have certain hobbies around playing in rec leagues or they like to go hiking or they like to do outdoor stuff or they have certain performance goals like they're into running races or high rocks or different things like that. So we have those three categories, those three main buckets. So I was going to go through
00:04:25
Speaker
and split each of these up and give you some details about how you can use each one of these three goals if you fall into these categories of wanting to improve that certain area in what you can do to accomplish those goals.
00:04:38
Speaker
So I thought that I would start with the most common one, which will probably not come too much of a surprise to anybody is looking better. Tons and tons of people get into fitness with the idea that they want to change their appearance. So for a lot of people, this means losing some weight, losing some fat, getting a little bit more toned, as people like to say, just changing their appearance to look a bit little bit better. And some people think that this is not a great goal. Some people will bash on these sorts of goals. Some people will say it's just focusing on vanity or different things like that, or it's egotistical. And I disagree.
00:05:16
Speaker
I think that we all want to look good and I don't think there's anything wrong with putting in some effort into looking good, like changing your appearance, building some muscle, losing some fat, doing things like that. It's like if you go into an event and you want to look nice, going to wear crappy clothes, right? You're not going to pick something out that you don't enjoy wearing. And so when it comes to your body, that's something that you have your entire life. You carry it around with you everywhere you go. So so why not put in some effort to look the way that you want to look? Obviously, I think for some people, this can go down a bad path if you are too obsessive with this or if you're just solely focusing on this sort of thing, like you're just nitpicking every little thing. But I think for a majority of people,
00:05:57
Speaker
who just want to look a little bit better. Like it doesn't have to become this super obsessive type of thing or this this journey where you just constantly feeling like you're not enough or you need to change yourself or different things like that. But a little bit of fitness and quality diet can go a long way.
00:06:13
Speaker
This made me think of a client that I worked with.
Client Success Stories
00:06:15
Speaker
Her name was Karen and I actually had her on the podcast not too long ago. She came on and talked a little bit about her story. And I remember when we got on the phone for the first time and we just started talking, she was going to grad school at the time. And she wanted to lose weight. She had been bigger pretty much her whole life and had gained more weight as of recently and just wanted to drop some weight. Like she just really wanted to feel better in her own skin. And she had graduation coming up in less than a year and like really just wanted to feel good in her graduation pictures. And so we put together a plan. We started working on losing weight. She started eating a little bit better. She got in the gym. She was working out three to four times per week, just kind of depending on what her schedule allowed.
00:06:55
Speaker
But throughout that process, we also had to overcome a lot of different things. So she struggled a lot with this idea of having to just be perfect. Like she was definitely a striver and like overachiever type of person, just like being in grad school and doing really well academically and doing well in all these certain areas. And so she sort of use that same approach or that same mindset when it came to fitness. And so we had to have a lot of conversations around how not being perfect wasn't the goal. You know, this was just about making this a lifestyle. And this was ultimately about getting to a place of being able to get healthier and look a little bit better. And you don't have to be perfect in order to do that. And so I think we had to work through a lot of those different limiting beliefs and really just challenge some of those old ways of thinking, because I think that is important when it comes to fitness. And I think that's important when it comes to trying to develop more confidence and just approach this with a more realistic outlook, because if it's not realistic, those things aren't going to stick. When it comes to building confidence, this is also important too, because a lot of people will have certain beliefs or certain ways that they see themselves in their old body and their own mindset and things like that and if you don't start to think about those things and really start to challenge those old things it's kind of hard to overcome those things and start to work into this new mindset or this new person that you really want to become and so throughout this process we did a lot of that and fast forward to today where she's down over 90 pounds and just absolutely crushing it but it's very very apparent how much more confident she is both in just like how she carries herself and how she talks about things and her outlook on fitness and life and different things like that and we've had some conversations since she's now doing things on her own and absolutely crushing it but it was just cool to hear about like how much better she feels and how she feels like it's helped her not only just like physically and looking better and those different things and feeling more confident but she feels like it's helped her at work and just being more confident and personal life being more confident and all those different things. And so I think a lot of this, you know, you look at and you'd be like, oh, she lost 90 pounds. Of course, she's going to be confident. But I can speak from personal experience on this. Like, yes, changing your looks definitely helps. And you start to see yourself better and you start to enjoy the way that you actually look and other people start to maybe give you compliments and different things like that. And all that stuff is nice and cool, but it really helps when you start to just learn that you are the person who can change, that you do have some control over the way that you look, that you do have control over your daily actions and the things that you eat and the way that you move your body and the habits that you engage in. All those things start to affect how you look. And when you really start to embrace that and really start to realize how much power you do have over these certain things i think that's a really cool feeling and that starts to again generate some of that confidence because you feel like you do have a sense of control over how you look and whether you like it or not like people judge you on the way that you look i'm not saying that's right or i'm not saying that's wrong but that's just the reality of it people will judge you based on how you look especially initially when people don't know you like they will judge you based on the way that you look And so improving your appearance and also just getting to a place where like you feel confident, that definitely has an effect as well. Like people look at you and they see how you look physically, but also a lot of how they're judging you is how you carry yourself. Because there's a lot of people who are fit, who carry themselves and maybe you have that kind of nervous energy or like don't look like they have a ton of confidence, don't really believe in them themselves, that sort of thing. And you can see that on people, but you also have people who are maybe not super fit, maybe a little bit overweight and they don't fit like the super fit or healthy build, but they also carry themselves with a lot of confidence. They like how they look and they're really carrying themselves in a way where like, it exudes confidence and that also plays a role. And so I think just understanding that yes, definitely physical is part of this whole equation. But also I think part of this is just that mental internal side of things as well. And just like feeling confident within your own skin and fitness can help with that from a physical standpoint, but it also can help from a mental standpoint, which I'll get into next. But again, I think just being super honest with yourself about like where you are and where you want to get to. Like if you're somebody who wants to be a little bit more lean and you want to drop a little bit of body fat and you feel like getting to a certain point is going help you feel a little bit more confident, then why not go for that?
Practical Steps for Fitness Goals
00:11:20
Speaker
and So when it comes to actually making this practical, like what can you actually do? I've kind of touched on it a little bit, but building muscle is a huge thing. And so when people say they want to look more toned, they basically just mean they want to lose body fat and they want to build some muscle.
00:11:34
Speaker
And so to build muscle, we know strength training, eating a high protein diet, prioritizing sleep, those sorts of things are going to help a ton when it comes to that. And a little bit of muscle can go a really long ways for a lot of people. I think that social media has kind of distorted our representation of what like fit and healthy can be because you see just dozens and dozens of people on social media who are absolutely shredded. But I think for a majority of people, that's not really the case and that's not going to be the goal. And that's also just not realistic for a lot of people like
00:12:04
Speaker
You have to have pretty solid genetics, but also be willing to live a lifestyle where you're not eating out very much, where you're really paying super close attention to your calories, where you're turning down a lot of things and exercising a ton in order to maintain that physique.
00:12:19
Speaker
And for a lot of people, like those people that you see, they have the genetic makeup and they're willing to live that lifestyle so they can attain those physiques and that's good for them. I think for a majority of people, they don't really want to live like that. And that's totally fine. But you can also look really solid, like look fit, look healthy, feel good, look good, all those different things without having to embrace that lifestyle 100% of the time. now I'm not saying that everything is supposed to be easy and you don't have to make trade offs and you shouldn't exercise and all those sorts of things. But I think there's often a big disconnect on what people think they have to do and what they can do to actually get to a pretty sustainable rate and to like look pretty fit and look pretty healthy and feel good and all those different things. And so strength training is a part of that doing that three to four times per week, you know, making sure that you're building some muscle. nutrition is obviously going to play a big role in this like if you have excess body fat and you want to get rid of some of that body fat so you can start to change your shape and change your body composition then obviously going into some fat loss phases maybe couple of times a year you go into 12 16 week fat loss cut you cut 10 to 20 pounds that is going to change your physique quite a bit if you have some muscle mass to go along with losing 20, 30, 40 pounds, like your body will drastically change and you will look very different if you do those things. And again, I think sometimes people really overlook these things and and how much it can actually affect their appearance. But if you spent a solid year, like really focusing on strength training and you went through a couple of fat loss phases where you were really prioritizing your nutrition and you really started to build some of these healthy habits and you lost 20, 30, 40 pounds, built a little bit of muscle,
00:13:55
Speaker
you would look very different. And that's very realistic for a lot of people. Along with that, I think it's important to realize too that nutrition, strength training, like those things are important and changing your body composition. But with exercising, you also get a lot of those benefits of just looking more youthful and more vibrant. So people who are active, who eat a quality diet of mostly whole foods, like your skin is going to look better, your hair is going to look better, your nails are going to look better, your posture is going to be better. So all these little things that that help you to look better, you get these benefits through exercise as well. And again, I think that's something that a lot of people overlook. But when you have people who are just taking care of themselves, like they're sleeping enough, they're eating the right things, they're exercising consistently, even when they're not like crazy obsessive about like their diet or anything,
00:14:41
Speaker
staying super shredded or like getting crazy big or anything like that. Like these people look younger. Like if you look at people who take care of themselves who are older, they look a lot younger than people their same age who do not do these same habits of eating right of exercising regularly of sleeping enough of managing stress. And you can see this pretty practically when you look at people, like if you just take, for example, like new parents, they're not sleeping a whole lot. Typically, a lot of times their exercise habits will fall to the wayside, maybe their diet starts to slip a little bit and rightfully so I'm not saying that they need to be, you know, focused in on all of these things, they have bigger priorities at hand, when it comes to being new parents, but it's very apparent to see like when they're sleep deprived, when they're not eating as well,
00:15:23
Speaker
When they're not taking care of their exercise habits, like these things start to show up on you physically, maybe you're gaining a little bit of weight, you're not looking as youthful, you're not looking as rested, you're just not feeling as good. And so it's pretty apparent to see like, when you start to prioritize some of these things, just how much they can change your appearance and just start to make you look a more healthy and more fit, that sort of thing.
Balanced Approach to Fitness and Appearance
00:15:45
Speaker
So your practical actions, lift weights three to four times per week.
00:15:49
Speaker
Said that many of times. And a lot of these things always comes back to the basics, but lifting weights is one of the best things that you can do. Biggest bang for your buck, very high leverage thing. If you can do that three to four times per week, getting in the gym anywhere between 30 to 60 minutes, like you can get a ton of benefit out of that.
00:16:06
Speaker
If you're somebody who wants to lose a little bit of body fat, change your body composition, then go into a fat loss phase couple times a year. Maybe again, that's 12, 16 weeks or so. So three to four months, you're in a calorie deficit, you lose 10, 15, 20 pounds couple times throughout the year. That's going to drastically change your physique.
00:16:24
Speaker
And then again, just doing some of those things regularly where you're focusing on your daily habits, like getting some movement in, you're getting enough sleep, you're eating mostly whole foods with plenty of protein. Because I think that's, again, another thing that a lot of people forget is that you literally become the foods that you eat. And so to me, i don't get super crazy about like, oh, you should never eat this chemical, you should never eat sugar, or should never eat processed foods or anything like that. But if you're From a broad general standpoint, it just makes sense to me to eat a lot of the things that humans have been eating for thousands and thousands of years. So eating mostly whole foods. Again, I don't stress it if you're eating some processed foods, you're going out to eat, you're having some alcohol, like have those things. I have those things. If you want to have those things, like have them, don't stress about it. But I think overall, a good general rule of thumb is to focus more on
00:17:08
Speaker
minimally processed whole foods. And I think that ends up being a pretty good thing for a lot of different reasons. And then lastly, I'll say about this too is and I've touched on it a little bit, but just not getting super obsessive about this, because I've also talked to people who do have like physique goals, and they want to really think about the way that they look and start to change their appearance and different things like that. And obviously, I have my own opinion on this, because I've lost 100 pounds. And I think there was a time where Maybe I got a little bit nitpicky about like how I wanted to look and different things like that. Or there are certain times where like I'll look in the mirror and I'll be like, oh, I could be a little bit leaner here. or I wish had a little bit muscle here. But to me, i don't really like stress over those things. Like I'm pretty happy about where I'm at right now. But I've also talked to people who have lost quite a bit of weight or maybe built a lot of muscle and really changed the way they look.
00:17:53
Speaker
And for them, they can start to really focus in on some of those, like what you would call their problem areas or things that they want to change, not realizing that like they look so much better than they did. And like to the average person, they look crazy fit.
00:18:06
Speaker
But again, like you see this in bodybuilding, you see this with bikini competitors and things like that, and it can become really neurotic and you can start to create a really bad relationship with just your body image and things like that. So i do think it's important to realize that because it definitely can go too far and i think there's some things that you can do to help balance this out which i'm going touch on a little bit later in the podcast but just understanding like it's not the end-all be-all to look crazy fit or like really start to pander how you look in your appearance to the validation of others of just getting that approval and having people give you compliments and all that different stuff like yeah that stuff feels good in the moment and that's cool and you know you feel good when somebody gives you a compliment about losing weight or building muscle or whatever the case may be but i don't think laying all your eggs in that basket of being like this is the reason that i train is that so people think that i look really great yeah it's fine to train and want to look better and you know getting that compliment every once in a while feels good but don't make that your sole reason to get in the gym because i don't think that ends very well and i don't think that's a really good relationship to have with exercise with training with those sorts of things and so
00:19:12
Speaker
Pulling it all together, just understanding like you shouldn't feel bad about having certain goals around just looking better. Like some people say it's kind of vain to do those things. But to me, it just it feels like a sense of control, like knowing that I can control how I look to a certain extent and really improve my appearance and actually like and look in the mirror and be like, oh, like, I really like the way that I look.
00:19:31
Speaker
I think that's a really powerful feeling. And I think that's something that a lot of people are missing and that a lot of people want. The biggest reason that people get into fitness is because they want to look better. And so using this as a tool to help you get there and build some confidence in how you look can be helpful in a lot of different areas in your life. Just realizing that it's a tool, it's definitely helpful, and it can be something that benefits you as long as you don't take it to the extreme and take it too far.
00:19:59
Speaker
The second category of this building more confidence and using exercise and fitness to build this confidence is how you feel. And this reminded me of a client that I've been working with for, shoot, almost two years now. And we've been working together for quite a while. When he came to me, he was probably 30 pounds overweight or so, and just not in a real good spot. Like he was a former college athlete. And so like he knew his way around the gym and different things like that. But like a lot of people after college gained some weight. And we just know that happens quite a bit. Like people gain weight. And things start to happen. They fall out of their old ways. Like they don't have a coach holding them accountable. They start eating a different diet. And pretty soon you look up and you don't really feel that great. You don't look the way you want to look. It starts to affect your relationships. It can start to affect you at work. it can start to just affect your day-to-day life because you don't feel real good. You have some of those aches and pains and different things like that. And that's kind of where he was with this. Like he was just in a spot where like he knew some of the things that he should be doing. But he ah hadn't found a way to put it all together. And it was affecting just his everyday life. And so he came to me and we put together a fitness plan. And we just started really focusing on just getting quality work in. Like we started with changing his diet a little bit and just really focusing on more whole foods. We started tracking foods so that he could actually get some knowledge around what this whole thing was going to look like. We started focusing on getting two to three good strength sessions in per week and just really dialing in like on exercises and not getting injured and different things like that. And it was slow at first, like it took some time, but then eventually we got to a point where he was down 30 pounds. And the biggest unlock for him was when he realized that this could be sustainable. And when he realized that he could make this a lifestyle and like how much it was affecting just his day to day. And what I mean by that is like,
00:21:50
Speaker
we were doing all these things and we were building some of these skills, but it never felt like it was too much. And I think this is a really important thing for a lot of people because there's often a disconnect when it comes to fitness and when it comes to like achieving certain goals, whether it be weight loss or building good habits in the gym and being consistent with it or whatever the case may be, like whatever certain habits that you're trying to build that you're really struggling with. A lot of times people think that it has to be this all or nothing thing or that you have to to be just really crazy about it. And For a lot of people, that's not the lifestyle that they want to live. And so it's actually adding to the stresses like it's not taking away. And I think fitness is supposed to add to your life, not necessarily take away from it. When a lot of people approach it in the wrong way.
00:22:31
Speaker
And again, this is going to affect how you feel like, even if you're super fit, but your entire life is geared around fitness, and that's not what you want your life to be like, like you're counting every single calorie. You never go out to eat. You never have any alcohol. You never have any desserts. You never do any of these things because you're afraid of gaining weight or you have to stick to your routine so close that you are missing out on different life experiences that you want to experience.
00:22:54
Speaker
Again, that's not feeling great. Like that's not helping you develop confidence. And if anything, it's doing the opposite and it's hurting your health. And so finding this nice balance and realizing that you can do both, I think is such a huge unlock for a lot of people. And that's exactly where we got him to, where he was doing these things.
00:23:09
Speaker
and with that just understanding that like he could be pretty flexible in this approach but he also could keep that 30 pounds off he also could build some muscle he also could feel good it started to help him just develop confidence within himself and just develop confidence within being able to sustain this lifestyle and since then he has told me multiple times just how much this has changed like fitness has become that foundation for him to help him just grow in all areas of his life. And so like his relationship has gotten better. He's been doing really well at work. Like personally, he just feels like he's better to able to handle things like stressful situations. Like he doesn't have this perfection mindset and he doesn't feel guilty when he has to maybe scale back a little bit in the gym or when he goes out to eat or goes on a trip or things like that. Like he doesn't feel bad about those things. And I think that's so important because when you realize that like you can do both,
00:24:04
Speaker
your confidence within just health in general, but then also just your confidence with your ability to handle things and your ability to just feel good and look good and all those different things, it becomes very apparent in how you live your life. And that's such a huge thing. And that's one of the reasons why I talk about this so much. And that's why this whole podcast is labeled the Fit-ish Project, because I think that's where a lot of people want to be.
00:24:25
Speaker
They don't want to be crazy neurotic about this. They don't want to work out seven times a week. They don't want to count every single calorie for their entire life. They want to get to a place where where they know that they can do this where they know this can fit into their lifestyle where they feel good they look good they're confident all those different things and that's exactly where you can get to and that's exactly where this client has gotten to and it's helped him so much and so now he has this base foundation of health and it just helps in all those different parts of life and so when we think about this from a tangible perspective like exercise is so helpful from a mental perspective and we know it has just tons of mental health benefits it has are stress relief benefits.
Mental Health Benefits of Fitness
00:25:02
Speaker
it has the mood booster benefits. It helps people with their anxiousness and anxiety. helps people with depression. you start to feel stronger as you start to do hard things. And so exercise can be such a great way to just physically start to change your mood.
00:25:17
Speaker
And I know a lot of times, like for me, this is a tool that I use pretty often and and to just change my my mental state. And that's why i exercise so much. And a lot of people who do exercise a lot, They will tell you a very similar thing. Like sometimes it's hard to think your way out of a a tough problem or to think your way out of a stressful situation or think your way out of an anxious situation or a sad situation. So rather than trying to think your way out of it, like you just go move your body, you get your body moving and that starts to change the way that you feel mentally.
00:25:47
Speaker
And I think that exercise is such an underrated tool for that. And it's the same reason why you'll see like therapists who will recommend that their clients who are depressed or dealing with these different things, get outside and go move or go on walks or go exercise because it's such a good way to start to just change your mental mood and start to really help you out with a lot of different things. And I think on a little bit deeper reason and on a deeper level of how this really starts to help with just your mental wellbeing and specifically with just like developing that confidence is that, When you're starting to do these things, like when you're starting to exercise, when you're starting to show up in the gym, when you're starting to be consistent, you start to realize that you can do hard things.
00:26:25
Speaker
Again, this is very underrated for a lot of different reasons, but fitness gives you that opportunity to do hard things every single day. Like you're showing up to a workout and you're willingly putting yourself in a situation where at some point throughout that workout, you're going to be uncomfortable and you don't really want to do that certain thing that you need to do. And when you can grow that and just develop that sense of being able to accomplish those things and overcome those things and face those challenges head on, that's something that you can take into your everyday life and helps a lot because we know that life isn't always all sunshine and rainbows. There's going to be things that are tough and difficult to deal with. And when you have that...
00:27:01
Speaker
evidence with yourself and you have that muscle that's been grown and you feel good about your ability to handle hard things that starts to creep out into other areas of your life. So when things do get a little bit hard or stressful, or you're going through a tough time, like you have that to rely on because you've done hard things before. And i think right along with that, like everybody talks about discipline, they talk about, you know, wanting to be a more disciplined person. Well, again, fitness is a very good way to grow that discipline muscle for a lot of people working out, especially in the beginning. And even if you do love working out like myself, there's days where I don't want to do the thing that I have planned or the thing that I know that I need to be doing that day. Like there's certain situations, at least a couple of times a week where I don't want to go run or I don't want to go work out.
00:27:44
Speaker
But I do it like it's just a habit at this point. And I know like discipline wise, I just want to make sure that I'm doing those things and so that I'm building that muscle up and I'm continuing to keep that discipline muscle strong. And there's actually been some research more recently. And I've heard Huberman talk about this, who is a big science guy and runs a big science podcast. But he's talked about this area of the brain called the anterior mid cingulate cortex,
00:28:07
Speaker
which basically they're saying is like a disciplined part of your brain. And so the whole idea around this is that when you do things that you really don't wanna do, it starts to grow this area and you build that discipline muscle. And that's pretty cool to think that like, I'm not very disciplined right now and there's things that I feel like I could be doing better at, but if I flex this muscle every time that I do that, that muscle is growing bigger and I improve my ability to do these things later on, which I think is really cool just to think about. And I think from a deeper level to just like building your self belief is so important. And when it comes to fitness, this is such an easy way to do it because like you're telling yourself each day, like there's these little actions that I want to do. There's these habits that I want to get done. And every single time that you do those things, you're just reinforcing that you're the type of person who follows through and then you're the type of person who does the things that they say they will do.
00:28:58
Speaker
One thing that I've done for quite a while, and it may sound kind of weird, but like unless I really like planning on doing something 100%, I don't say that I'm going to do certain things. And I think that language matters a lot.
00:29:11
Speaker
And the example that I've given a couple times that that seems to stick with people is like, if you have that person in your life who, or maybe just they like you had a teammate like this, or maybe you have a family member like this or a friend like this, they're just always talking such a big game.
00:29:26
Speaker
When it comes to like putting things into action or following through on these things, they never do it. We all know somebody like that or I've met somebody like that. And like when they tell you a story or they tell you about this thing they're going to do or they tell you about this goal that they're getting ready to go for, but then they never follow through with any sort of action. Like how much do you believe in that person? Like how much confidence do you have in that person? How much trust do you have in that person about how much they follow through or they're doing the things that they want to do?
00:29:53
Speaker
Probably not a whole lot. Like you might like that person. You might even love that person if it's a family member or friend or things like that. But like you're not relying on that person. You're not like putting your trust or you're not putting a bunch of responsibility on that person to follow through on things because you just know that their track record is not very good.
00:30:10
Speaker
Well, the thing about yourself and like the self-confidence and self-trust is like that is you with yourself. Like if you're telling yourself that you're going to do all these things, like you're telling yourself you're going go on a diet, then you never do it. You're telling yourself that you need to prioritize sleep, but then you stay up watching Netflix way late every single night. You tell yourself that you're going start running and then you run for two days and then you never do it again. Like when you're telling yourself that you're doing all these things and then you don't actually follow through on it.
00:30:34
Speaker
it just erodes away at that self-confidence. So then when it comes time to try something new or build a new habit or make a big change or lose a bunch of weight or build muscle or change your physique or add this new habit, why would you have any sort of self-belief? Like your track record is not very good.
00:30:50
Speaker
in order to build that up and in order to create that self-trust and create that self-confidence within yourself, you do this by those small daily actions. And again, this is why I'm such a huge proponent and I talk so much about the 1% better mindset because a lot of the big goals that you have,
00:31:05
Speaker
you don't know if you can actually accomplish those things. But I promise you that you can lose a pound, like you may not set out and think that I can lose 100 pounds. But I promise you that you can do the things to lose one pound. So don't worry about the huge things down the road, worry about the things that you can do in the moment. So you might not worry about running a marathon. But I promise you that you can get out and you can go and run for 10 minutes today. Or maybe you want to build some muscle, you're going to need to work out a ton and eat a lot of protein and do all the right things. And Rather than focusing on those things, how about we just focus on just getting your workout in today, like you can go in the gym and you can live for 30 minutes like those are tangible, doable, daily actionable things that you can do every single day. And not only are you going to get the physical benefits of doing those things.
00:31:51
Speaker
Now that you're doing those things, you're starting to, again, build that trust within yourself. So now when you start to say some of those bigger goals, or maybe you start to stretch your capacity a little bit, you start to build some extra skills, you start to take on some new things. Now you actually have the confidence and belief that you're going to be doing those things, which is a much better place to be than being like, I'm going to go run a marathon or I'm going to take on this huge goal. I'm going to lose a bunch of weight. But like in reality, you don't actually think that you're going to do those things. But when you have the track record, when you have the evidence, when you've proven to yourself that, okay, when I say these things, I actually follow through and I do them. Now you know that, okay, I have the ability to do these things. I have the the mindset and I have the discipline and I have the self-trust within myself to actually follow through and do these things. And That's a pretty powerful place to be because a lot of these things, especially when it comes to fitness, it's just a matter of just getting your reps in.
00:32:42
Speaker
Like it's not anything crazy. It's not crazy complex. You can break these things down into very small, daily actionable things. And when you do these things consistently enough,
00:32:53
Speaker
and patient with this whole process, you can accomplish some crazy things like some of the things that I personally been able to do with in fitness, I would have never thought that i would have been able to do those things. But breaking them down into like really simple ways that I can do those things has helped me so much and allow me to accomplish a lot of things that I didn't really know if I'd be able to do from a practical standpoint.
00:33:15
Speaker
breaking things down, making them small, and then checking those things off. So maybe it's a step goal. Like maybe you have a step goal for your day. And this is the same exact thing that I have my clients do. And again, part of it is helping to get them the physical benefits of these things. Like if you get 7,500 steps or 10,000 steps within your day, you're going to be more physically fit. You're going to get a lot of those benefits that come with being physically active. But on a deeper sense, what I'm really trying to do is just start to have them develop these habits and start to shift their identity into somebody who prioritizes these things. Same thing, you could do this with food. So maybe you have a protein goal or you have a goal around calories. So you track your calories or you have a certain amount of workouts that you want to get in per week or you have a bedtime that you want to stick to.
00:34:00
Speaker
Find these things that you can actually label and then make them goals and then do your very best to check these goals off. You don't need to have 20 different things, but like start really small and figure out a couple of things that you really want to start to focus on and then just prove to yourself that you can do those things. So if it is maybe right now you're only getting two, 3000 steps per day, like maybe we bump that up and we go for 7,500, 8,000 steps. Like that's, that's doable and you can do that and you can check that off most days. that's going to be a good place to be because again, you're getting those physical benefits, but on a deeper level, you're starting to prove to yourself that you can do these things. And then when you have more buy-in about these things, when you have more self-trust, when you can actually back up these claims that you have with evidence because you've done these things, Now you're able to really go for those big goals and you you have this confidence that you can actually achieve those things. And this reminds me a little bit of one of my favorite authors, James Clear. He has this quote that says, every action is a vote for the person that you want to be.
00:34:58
Speaker
The cool thing about health and fitness is like you literally have so many of these opportunities throughout the day to just make a little bit healthier choice. Every time you go to eat something, there's multiple options that you could do.
00:35:10
Speaker
Every single time that you pick maybe a little bit healthier choice, you are reinforcing that identity that you are somebody who prioritizes your health and also just prioritizing that you follow through on the things that you say you're going to do. So when you go to the store and you park a little bit further away, like that's another vote for being a more fit and healthy and active person.
00:35:28
Speaker
When you choose maybe a little bit healthier food or snack, that's another way. When you choose to go to bed rather than staying up another hour scrolling on social media, that's another thing. When you choose to go on a 10-minute walk after your lunch because you want to just be a little bit more active, that's another decision that you're making and pushing yourself in that right direction. So it's a lot of these little things that add up throughout the day, again, that 1% better, that culminates to...
00:35:53
Speaker
make you into this person who you can actually believe in and start to become that person who is fit, who is healthy, who does prioritize their health. And when you get to that point, you can accomplish so many cool things. And so that's number two on the list. And then getting into number three with performance and just like quality of life and how you can use this to build confidence.
Achieving Challenging Fitness Goals
00:36:13
Speaker
I think about this in a way of like, we've all been in that situation where we've done something that was very difficult and we didn't necessarily know if we'd be able to accomplish that thing, but then we get through it. And then the way that you think about those things in general and what you're able to accomplish after that changes forever. So like we've probably all taken a really hard class throughout our schooling, whether it was like high school, college, something like that. You took a class and you're like, i don't know if I can pass this. Like, this is crazy hard. Or maybe it was just a singular test. Like you took some sort of really hard test and like, I don't know if I can do this. But like you study, you get through it, you pass the test, you look back and like, oh, like, maybe I can do that. So then next time you have something that's really hard, a difficult class, a difficult test, whatever the case may be, you have a little bit more confidence going into that. And we've all been in those moments. Like we've had different situations that we've been put into, whether we chose them or not.
00:37:01
Speaker
And then you get through those things, which like we've gotten through every single hard day that we've ever been through. Like we're still here today. So just understanding that and realizing that you're the type of person who can get through those things. And when you do get through those things, it just expands what you think you're able to do is pretty powerful. And I think that fitness is such a cool way to do that because you actually get to choose some of these things that you want to try to stretch yourself with and try to accomplish new things. and i think Running a marathon is a really common one that a lot of people will talk about, like after they train for a marathon, run a marathon, and complete a marathon. They're just like open to all these different possibilities because they didn't think it was something that they could ever do. And now that I've gotten into running and you know I trained for a marathon, which was the whole way that I got into running.
00:37:43
Speaker
I believe that it really does like fitness in general. And it just helps a ton to just, it's sort of like rewires what you think you're capable of. So like a lot of people right now, like maybe you hear running a marathon, you're like, oh, I can never do that. And that doesn't mean that you need to run a marathon. I don't think everyone needs to run a marathon. But if you've had the thought about like, oh, maybe I wanted to challenge myself and see if I could do a half marathon. And i don't really know if I could do it, but I just kind of want to see if I could, like, I'm very, very confident that a very large majority of people could run a half marathon, no question. And I think even a majority of people could get through a marathon easily. Again, that's not saying that you need to do that. But I think when you go through and you do something hard like that, that really stretches you and shows you that you're capable of doing a lot more than you thought you'd be able to do. It's super powerful. And I think, again, fitness is such a cool way to do that. A lot of times, as I mentioned earlier in the podcast, like social media has unfortunately desensitized us to what's actually really impressive. You look around and you see people like,
00:38:39
Speaker
Bench pressing 405 pounds and like that's not normal. But when you go on social media, you see that all over the place. Or you go on social media and you see people with six packs. That's also not normal. Like you don't see that many people that are just ripped that have six packs when you walk around in your everyday life.
00:38:54
Speaker
You don't see people doing these crazy things. But on social media, you see it everywhere. And so then it starts to become like a normal thing. it's not normal and so realizing that like you can use fitness to accomplish some of these goals and start to really show yourself what you're capable of and doing some cool things so like getting your first ever pull-up that's pretty impressive that's a really cool thing to do being able to like bench press 225 pounds i know that's a big milestone for a lot of guys or even like getting up to bench pressing your body weight or maybe like getting to a certain squat or running a race or doing a high rocks or doing some sort of competition or having some sort of performance goal just starts to show you that you're capable of a lot more than you thought you were and again once you're able to
00:39:36
Speaker
First of all, just going for these things. I think just trying these things and giving yourself the chance to maybe fail at something like this, that in itself starts to build a little bit of confidence because so many people when it comes to fitness goals, they never actually even try, like whether it's a weight loss goal or changing their body or a fitness like performance type of goal. like They just don't try because of this fear of failure.
00:39:58
Speaker
Just by trying alone, you're already building some confidence because you're willing to do what a lot of people aren't willing to do. And then when you go throughout the process, you're building more confidence because you're constantly challenging yourself. You're constantly overcoming and doing hard things. So you're building that confidence. And then eventually, like if you hit that goal or you perform the race or you complete the marathon or you bench the 225 pounds, like that builds even more confidence. And so using fitness as a way to like really just rewire what you think you're capable of and really they show you what you're capable of, I think is another really strong way to just build a lot of extra self belief and self trust and self confidence. And again, that can go a long way when it comes to just how you feel and how you approach life.
00:40:40
Speaker
And I think with that being said to like I mentioned earlier, you know, people having goals around how they look and that being very popular, I think pairing that with some sort of performance goal is a really smart thing to do because you don't get so bogged down and just so hyper focused on solely what you look like. And so what I mean by that is like I don't have any issues with having a certain weight loss goal or having goals around your body composition, getting to a certain body fat level or building certain muscle and that sort of thing. But I think it pairs really well when you have a performance goal to go along with that because your body composition goals or just how you look, like it's very subjective and it's very hard to measure those things. And it's very easy to get too obsessed with that and too hyper focused on those things. When you have a performance goal, it's very objective. So like either you're running a race or you're not, or you have this certain goal that you're geared towards. Like I'm trying to bench 300 pounds or I'm not.
00:41:31
Speaker
I'm trying to get to this certain goal. Like you have a clear end point where you're trying to work towards and you have an easier path to like create a plan versus like when you're trying to lose a certain weight or change your appearance or do these certain things like you don't have as much control over those things.
00:41:47
Speaker
And so having a performance goal to kind of balance off these and not just solely focus on how you look, I think can be really healthy balance. And the cool thing about having performance goals, especially like most performance, like fitness goals, when you do really like lean into those things about like building more strength or getting better at endurance stuff, you ultimately start to look better too. And so they kind of complement a lot of your goals that you might have around your appearance or how you look. And so I think it's a really good idea to have both of these different things and so that you have that that good balance.
00:42:17
Speaker
And so just some practical takeaways with this is number one is just to have a certain sort of performance goal. And I think when it comes to picking a performance goal, like pick one that you're actually interested in. a lot of people will say like, oh, I want to run a marathon one day. And the whole reason why I said like, you know, earlier I was talking about marathons and things like that. And I'm not saying that everyone should run a marathon because if you don't want to do it, like don't do it. Like you should at least want to do this or it shouldn't treat you enough to where like you actually want to do that thing. Because if it doesn't, you're not going to stick with it. I think there's a lot of value in doing things that you maybe don't 100% want to do, but like there should be at least a little bit of pull and like little bit of excitement or a little bit of reason that you want to do this goal so that you actually see it through and so that you actually stick it out. So take some time to pick like a good goal. Again, maybe it's a half marathon or a marathon or a 5k or high rocks or getting your first pull up or getting 10 pull ups or getting 50 push ups in one shot or being able to hike a mountain or whatever like there's so many different performance goals that you could pick but like take some time to actually think about what would be really cool like what would I feel good about accomplishing or working towards
00:43:24
Speaker
and pick that performance goal. And like, like I said, once you do this, once you start to work towards these performance goals, it's only going to raise the ceiling of what you think you can do. And this, again, is going to build a lot of confidence with just how you see yourself and the things that you're able to accomplish and being able to take on things, not only just in fitness, this also starts to creep out into other areas. Like if you're doing this certain fitness goal that you didn't think that you'd ever be able to accomplish and then you do it, it starts to just make you question other areas in your life. So like maybe there's something within work like this promotion that you really want or this job that you want to go for or whatever the case may be. Like maybe you do have those abilities. Maybe this does give you enough confidence to go for those different things in other areas of your life. And so using fitness
00:44:07
Speaker
as that tool, again, I think is so powerful. And hopefully from this whole podcast, you got some nuggets out of there and just really got the core message
Conclusion on Fitness and Confidence
00:44:15
Speaker
of this. And so I think like confidence, we all want confidence. We all want to be confident. A lot of us wish we had better confidence. So it comes to just two main things, like keep those promises to yourself, the little things, especially like those little daily things that you're telling yourself going to follow through on those things and then just doing some things that are going to make you uncomfortable and force you to grow like that's only going to help you of course it kind of sucks in the moment like it's never all that fun but like the things that you get out of that and just the person that you become from that is just so helpful and fitness is a really great place to do both of those things it's super tangible it's super practical it's something that you can practice daily And it's super measurable. And so using fitness in this way, I think is really beneficial for a lot of people. And so again, maybe you're that person who doesn't love fitness, you don't really like get super passionate about it, but it can still be that tool to help you build confidence and which is going to help you in all your other areas of life and just help you to live your best life. And so why not use something like that?
00:45:12
Speaker
And with that being said, that brings me to the end of this podcast. I know this one was actually a little bit longer than most of my podcasts kind of got going a little bit there on some different tangents, but hopefully it was helpful and hopefully it allowed you just a little bit different perspective on how you can use health, how you can use fitness and help to just improve your life. Like I'm such a, I'm such a proponent for this stuff because I've seen it with so many people. Like I've seen moms and dads who say that fitness makes them a better parent.
00:45:39
Speaker
I've seen people who say that their relationships got better because they were getting more fit and they look better and they had more confidence. Like I've seen fitness help people in so many different ways.
00:45:49
Speaker
And so my whole hope is that you can find ways that fitness can benefit you as well in whatever that may be, whatever ways in life that you're looking to just increase that confidence and just to feel better, look better, all those different things. Hopefully fitness can be a help for you. If you have certain questions about any of this stuff ever, you can always shoot me a message. But for now, that is all I have. I appreciate you listening and we will see you next week.