The 3 Step Process That Helps Me Stay In the Green | Avoid the Q2 slump
Don't give up on those promises you made yourself at the start of the year
Don’t give up on those promises you made to your future self at the beginning of the year. They are counting on you to pull through.
Now typically when someone says stay in the green we think of finances, not our physical health and performance. And yes, I am stretching the term to fit today’s theme, Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
As a local of the Savannah, Ga area it’s a national holiday around here. If you have never made it down for the parade I highly recommend it! Although, I’m bundled up inside for it this year.
Anyway’s lets get to the good stuff.
Step 1: A failure is just another step towards your goal
This mindset shift alone is very powerful. Simple but not easy.
And trust me, when you fail big or fail often, this one is hard to remember. Even harder to implement.
It’s very common for people to look at failures, missed opportunities, another workout passed by as a negative thing. You work so hard for so little progress, only for the bloat to comeback after 5 to many drinks, that binge day of eating or that vacation that you enjoyed to well.
For years I suffered from this and It was a constant shadow weight on my shoulder. I knew I wasn’t reaching my potential and it created a negative feedback loop of self sabotage and doubt.
The biggest shift overall, instead of viewing my negatives as failures I looked at it positively as areas to improve.
This may seem vague but like most things a solid foundation is key. If you can’t wrap your head around this first, then steps 2 and 3 may create more negatives than positives for you down the road.
Step 2: Create challenging but achievable standards
Now that our mind is in the right place lets start looking deeper into our own life’s.
The biggest thing here is adding clear direction to your goals. And, meeting yourself where you are. Here’s a few examples but be aware this stage is highly individualized.
If you have never followed a workout plan or gone to the gym and you want to workout 5 days a week, that’s great in theory but might be a bit much to jump into at once. Instead for this cycle your goal might be 2 days a week, you can still do more but that’s the standard you measure progress off of. Then next performance review you could up it some.
I want to eat healthy. So do most of us. The truth is macro tracking is great but not practical for most of us. Maybe your standard for progress becomes I want to eat out less than twice per week. Or, I just want to eat 3 square meals a day. Yet again, adding more layers in the future to level you up.
Lastly, I want to sleep better. Even setting a bedtime here might not be the move. Instead look out things that remove friction and are adaptable. Something like, I want to be off my phone an hour before bed. Or, something like sleep banking, I want to try and sleep X amount of hours total for the week, this is a good one for parents or those without normal/consistent schedules.
Don’t be the level 1 average joe who tries to emulate the level 50 fitness influencer. What you see someone do in their peak/higher levels may not be even close to what got them their.
Start simple till the basics become automatic. Then layer in the difficulty.
Step 3: Give yourself performance reviews
We have the mindset, we have the standards now lets review.
A method that’s instilled in most pillars of society. Schools and Jobs world wide constantly access, analyze and implement strategies to improve. It may be annoying sometimes, uncomfortable or not seem necessary but it works.
There are tons of ways to go about this whether its with a coach, a friend/group or self evaluated.
You could go weekly, monthly, quarterly, whatever works for you (I find deeper reviews work best on a quarterly basis)
And, as we stated above, let’s remember we need to find a way to do this that removes our own emotions and ego. It’s not meant to shame or belittle.
BUT IF YOU AINT ACCESSING YOUR JUST GUESSING
A very simplistic way to go about this is reviewing the big 3. Remember though, based on your individual strengths and weaknesses you may ask different questions or have different categories to access. Let’s say this is a 90 day review for our example.
Sleep: How many days did I sleep my goal amount of hours? Can I Identify any recurring reason’s I am missing my goal?
Movement/Workouts: How many days did I hit my workout or movement goals? What are my biggest friction points with this? (note this is movement and workouts together, hitting a step goal on your rest day is just as much a win as a full workout, i’m not saying you should work out for 90 days straight lol)
Nutrition: Based on my rules/strategies I set how many day’s was I in the green with my eating habits? What worked well and what do I need to continue improving upon?
NOW GRADE YOURSELF.
For each category out of 90 days how did you do? It’s just like getting that report card back in the day.
81 out of 90 days compliance will get you 90% - A
72 out of 90 days compliance will get you 80% - B
63 out of 90 days compliance will get you 70% - C (still passing, C’s get degree’s)
You might and probably will fall below the 63 days from time to time but that’s okay. If you are a beginner this could be viewed more as a high score system than a grade.
If your new and hit 40 days for the first time that’s huge! Next review you better be fighting for 41+ though!!
More updates and frequent newsletters to come. It feel’s awesome to get back to this style of writing after a hiatus. Thanks for taking the time to read this!
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