In Part 1 of this series, we talked about Stepping into the Identity of An Athlete. Not only will this shift in identity evolve a new you, in the new year, but this mindset will do more to help you achieve your goals than anything else.
To follow up that INSIGHT, read the following to discover the one thing that will inspire you to live better than ever before and, then take the three simple steps at the end.
Now, really pay attention to what’s going on inside your head when we say step into the identity of an athlete.
Are you thinking, ‘no way, I’ve never been into sports, I don’t even work out that much; that’s not me? Or, “I’m too tired to think like an athlete; I’m too stressed or I need more sleep (which is likely true), or I’ll just eat a little better and exercise a little more when I can.?
I’ve heard variations of both these responses before and way more, and the ironic thing is; if you are saying any of those things or anything like them, all the more reason you need to start thinking like an athlete as it’s the mindset that will change your previous usual way of thinking.
Frankly, even if you’ve never been into sports or aren’t a fitness enthusiast, doing something to get something else is hard-wired into us and it’s no different for you than it is for the athlete.
They optimize the way they live to achieve their goals. Their goals just happen to be in sports, most of the time. But they are people too, and have other life and business goals as well, even creative pursuits just like you.
They simply live optimally so that they can perform well and achieve whatever they are up to in their world.
And that can be true for you. That mindset shift alone can change everything.
But most of us don’t think this way. Most of us think we’ll live a better lifestyle once we achieve our goals and not only is that backward; it causes all the struggle.
Here’s why:
“I’ll live a better lifestyle once I succeed,” that’s true in terms of what you wear, how you travel, the house you live in and what you can afford, etc, but that’s the economic definition of your lifestyle.
In a capitalist country, it’s the predominant definition. But this is not the core definition of lifestyle.
Yet, while it’s true you can live better when you have a better socioeconomic status, no matter where you are right now on that scale, the definition of lifestyle we are focusing on, is the one, which more than anything else, has the ability to keep you healthy and rise up the socioeconomic scale.
In other words… to perform at your best, you need a lifestyle that supports you to think, live and therefore achieve at higher levels. That the way you live is healthy, is the given not the goal. If you are not living in balance and healthy, your performance will get crushed do the same to your success.
So you live in balance with the vibrant health and peace of mind that ensue, so you can achieve even your most ambitious goals. You do this to get that.
That, do this, get that relationship is extremely important in the whole Performance Lifestyle idea, because your lifestyle is ultimately, how you achieve your goals.
That’s how athlete’s think. It’s why it makes sense to step into the athlete’s identity and why it doesn’t matter if you are into sports or even a fitness enthusiast.
It also doesn’t matter what age you are; performance lifestyle become all the more relevant the older you get, and the more stressed you are.
Why do people struggle with staying healthy and achieving their goals? It’s because their lifestyle has either gone awry, is underdeveloped or it has been established on faulty principles and practices, with no strategy, which leads to the following scenario.
People living under too much stress, exceeding one’s capacity to cope.
When we don’t get the “think and live like an athlete” idea and start living in such a way supports us and what we are up in the world, we tend to start living with too much stress. With no boundaries, we to-do ourselves to death and end up with so much going on we’re barely hanging on. Talk to most people and that’s the reality.
In other words, the stresses we are facing are more than a person can recover from, eventually leaving you to struggle with lifestyle-induced diseases (dis-eases); from tiredness to fatigue, from mood swings to mental health issues, diabetes to heart disease…
All of those outcomes are rooted in your lifestyle. And when you have those conditions they take your eye off the ball of your success in life, as you are now distracted and held back.
And what do most people do when they are in these conditions? They cope because they are not skills on how to change or improve their lifestyle, and they simply go to the doctor who does not in any way specialize in lifestyle optimization.
Stress is the number 1 reason why people go to the doctor!
We are changing that and we hope as a result, you take full advantage of that opportunity.
So here are 3 steps to thinking like an athlete.
- Tonight, when you go to bed, think about how you are going to make it an awesome sleep, so that, you have enough energy to crush it tomorrow (accomplish and achieve what you are up to), from a place of being at your energy best.
- Tomorrow morning, when you wake up, think for a moment about your routine; what are going to do today to perform better, not simply to be healthy (that’s the given).
- When you eat, think about how it’s going to make you feel, energetically, at your 10:00 am meeting. Will you have freed up energy or will most of your energy available be tied up digesting food?Simply put, those are three simple examples everyone can relate to. Of course, there is much more to a performance lifestyle, but it’s this kind of thinking that makes the difference between becoming a healthy high achieving person who thrives and all other achiever types.
What’s your lifestyle like?
