How would you like to make 2022 the best year of your life? The year you get in spectacular shape. Finally lose weight and that unhealthy body fat. Build muscles and a strong, muscular body. The year you cross over from enduring to enjoying each day. Here are some tips on coming up with a fitness plan. 2022 is the year you create the body and life you deserve!
Does that sound like something you’re interested in? Ready to jumpstart your fitness plan?
If your answer is “yes,” or even “maybe,” please continue, and pay close attention to what I’m going to share with you. You see, I firmly believe all of those things I mentioned above are within your grasp—you can achieve them. However, I also believe there is one absolutely essential step you must take before any of those things will come your way.
So what is it? What is that first step I discovered every single one of those thousands of competitors made?
I’ll sum it up in eight simple words:
They made the decision to make a change
Please go back and read those eight words again.
Now read them out loud. (Seriously… read them out loud. Now, please. It’s extremely important that you hear those words, so they “sink in.”)
Wouldn’t it be a heck of a lot easier if I just told you the secret to success was a new wonder pill and gave you the name and phone number of a doctor who would prescribe it to you?
Forget about it. And don’t imagine that simply reading about getting in great shape or achieving success is the cure-all either. There have been hundreds of books and magazine articles written about building a great body. So why aren’t all the people who read them in excellent physical condition today? Why do most of them never actually change? Why are most people never able to “get it together”?
I’ll tell you why. It’s because they overlook that essential first step with creating a fitness plan. That step, the first stage of closing the gap between knowing and doing, is… DECIDING.
Fitness motivation
I’m not talking about making ambiguous resolutions like, “Yeah… this year I’m gonna get in shape…” Most people tell themselves this is one of their objectives every New Year’s Eve. But how many people are truly moving in that direction? Very few. And the reason? Because it’s one thing to make a New Year’s resolution, and it’s a completely different thing to decide to actually do something about it. You can start a New Year’s resolution at any time.
When you make a decision to make a change, your mind “awakens” and starts searching for a way. Beginning to develop a feeling—a deeply rooted subconscious and conscious need to make something happen. That sensation is what many people call desire. Before you know it, you’ll crave that change all day and night—the desire becomes a burning desire.
So now I ask…
Do you really want to build your best body ever now? Want to lose that unhealthy body fat? Can you build a lean, strong, muscular body? Do you really want to feel energetic, confident, and alive?
If your answer is “yes,” you’re gonna need to let your desire propel you towards those objectives.
Fortunately, we’ve all got desire. We may have buried it. We may have forgotten what it feels like. But it’s there. If it weren’t, we’d be dead. And we’re not dead. I’m not. You’re not.
Stay positive
You may be surrounded by circumstances and settings and people who are doing all they can to convince you that you don’t really have desire. There are negative people all around us—cynical forces and attitudes that would have us believe we can’t do it. We can’t have it. That’s because they don’t have it, or they’ve given up, and they’re projecting their own failure and abandonment onto you. Misery does love company, and it will do its best to create that company. It will do its best to pull you down with it.
But you don’t have to go that way. You don’t have to relent. When you decide you’re not going to go on living the way you’re living—when you decide the way things were last year are not the way they’re going to be in 2022—it’s like a baseball changing direction when it hits a bat. It’s so simple. But yet so powerful.
“Okay,” you might say. “So what? So I need to make a decision to do something here, to get off my butt and start moving. And keep moving. That’s fine, but how do I do it?”
You just have to find a reason to change
I’ll say it again.
Find… a… reason.
Picture this: an out-of-shape, middle-aged man who can’t lift a hundred pounds in the gym is asked to lift the back end of an automobile out in the parking lot. Right. As if. No way in the world is he going to budge that thing.
But let that same man see his child is trapped under that car. I guarantee you he’s going to move that mother. Or he’s going to bust his gut trying.
We’ve all heard stories of people achieving superhuman feats when a loved one’s life is at stake. That’s the power of having a reason.
It’s one thing to tell yourself you’d like to lose 30 lbs of fat and get in shape this new year. However, its another thing to have your doctor tell you you’ll be dead before the year 2023, and never see your children’s children, if you don’t lose 30 lbs, pronto!
It’s having a reason that creates the intense desire that is the fuel—the motivation as many call it—for both getting started and for following through. I cannot emphasize this point enough: there is a world of difference between simply wanting something and having to have it.
When you identify a specific reason to get a grip on your body and life, to make yourself stronger, healthier, more confident, and more capable than you have ever felt, then you will, by that very act, be taking the essential step in this process: you will be actually deciding to change.
So this is your assignment: identify a specific reason to make a change—to make this your best year ever!
Be particular. I know you know deep down inside you have a reason, actually several reasons—good reasons—to decide to change. I can’t tell you exactly what they are. But I can tell you they are there.
Here are a few tips to get you started on your fitness plan
Look into the mirror. (Try this before you get dressed in the morning.) Look hard. Realize that if you are over the age of 25, you are chronologically aging—beginning a physical decline—and this is the youngest you will ever look and probably the healthiest you will ever feel for the rest of your life, unless you decide to do something about it.
Here’s another tip: since we all “see” ourselves every day, we often don’t notice if we’re “slipping.” If we’re not careful, before long, the image we have of ourselves in our minds will not be in sync with reality. Looking in the mirror will help, especially if you really look. But, I suggest you also have someone take a photo of you, standing relatively relaxed with your arms at your sides, in a pair of shorts or a swimsuit. Get that photo developed ASAP, and take a good look.
Try this too: pinch the fat on your belly. Then flex your right biceps and squeeze it with your left hand. Are you really satisfied with what you see and feel? Would you like to be leaner and firmer?
Now, answer these questions: How do you feel inside? How do you really feel about yourself? Are you confident, energetic, and strong? Or, do you often feel uncertain and sometimes wonder if you’re on the right path? What are the pros and cons of continuing on in the direction you’re going? Would you like to feel better about yourself and know you’re creating a brighter future?
When you take some time to really “see yourself,” the reason (or reasons) will surface. When it does, write it down on a sheet of paper, and tape it up in a place where you’ll see it every day—on your bathroom mirror, at your desk, on your refrigerator door. Read what you’ve written first thing every morning and again at night before you go to sleep. When you do this, you’ll be amazed how much it fuels your desire. This reason will remain your guiding light, your beacon, throughout the journey you have now decided to begin.
Live your life to the fullest!
Now, if for some reason you’ve decided not to do this simple yet powerful fitness plan, keep this in mind: this is it—this is your life. This is not a “dress rehearsal.” It’s not a practice run. So if you don’t like the way it’s going or don’t like some aspect of the way it’s going, you have to make a change. Please do not continue to do exactly the same things you did last year and expect a different result this year. That’s not the way it works.
What does work is identifying the real reason you want to change, then deciding to make that change. When you take that step, you will be on your way to making 2022 your best year ever!
