WS#53 - Personal responsibility & confidence
Week of 4/22/24
I have helped many people change their bodies, and watched as they became completely different people. As their fitness improved, the way they organized their lives changed because their goals and priorities naturally shifted. Many, with the newfound confidence in who they had become started taking bigger risks in their lives. This risk taking increased their odds of accomplishing certain goals. They started taking leaps they would have not taken in their previous lives and those leaps led to massive returns, a higher quality of life, and more fulfillment. This always comes with small failures and speed bumps along the way, but it is usually worth it. One of the most important ingredients that created these successes was autonomy. What first would start as me guiding them through every aspect of what needed to be done, ended with them managing their calendar, creating workouts, doing research, and proposing new ideas. They took ownership. Taking ownership of the process in any effort to create change leads to more value being placed on each step in that process. If you only rely on others to create change for you, it is very difficult to value your actions and therefore put in your best effort.
An example that comes to mind regarding autonomy is the way that my daughter is developing. The more we let her do on her own the more she can do. She is capable of so much more than we expect and often surprises us with a new skill that she learned. There is a certain balance of protection and guidance that we must provide for her in order to keep her safe and moving along the path. We are always searching for that balance. Being conscious of this, it is easy to see how that protection and guidance could lead to us throttling her development and stunting her growth if we overdo it. The same rules apply to adults in some capacity. There is a balance of guidance and protection that I must use when working with clients. Searching for new ways to do things independently is crucial to the journey towards whatever the goal may be and will lead to the ability to maintain whatever it is that you accomplish, at least in some capacity.
I went through a life changing journey when I was working towards changing my career from finance to health and fitness. I thought about changing careers for years before I had the courage to do it. One of the keys towards me taking the leap was being aware that I was solely responsible for my actions. Even if it is not true, it was not helpful to put any responsibility on anyone else. Having a handle of my fitness was absolutely a part of me having the confidence to pull the trigger on this life change. There are a few crucial elements of life as I see it, some of them being family, health, relationships, the ability to provide, and personal responsibility (I am sure I can think of more). Taking control of your health and fitness helps to create more personal responsibility and ultimately leads to more self-confidence. We all know a person with self-confidence when we see them. Most of the time, if they are not “cocky”, we want that for ourselves. Start with your fitness and see what happens.
-Matt