Weak Mentalities and Weak Lifestyles

Motivation is crap.

If you have listened to Coach Cam and I talk about motivation on the podcast you know how we feel about it. Motivation can be a powerful tool when used with starting or assisting on something, but relying on motivation to be the main driving factor for progression is anything but ideal.

Little, baby coach Andrew with a weak mentality

For a period of about 3-weeks or so recently, I have felt more tired, slower, and overall weaker across the board. When it comes to personal training/coaching/running a company (even if it is a company that involves two people) there is no time to be any of those things, and on top of that I have been sick for also that same amount of time. Why am I writing about my problems? No, it’s not to vent over to you, anon reader, I’m writing about these things because everyone goes through them, including you. As a fitness professional, I take a lot of pride and responsibility in being a great reference for health & fitness, and what I think that should look like. Over my recent 3-week period I have felt anything but a great reference for health & fitness.

What was I missing?

During that time period I was living a monotonous lifestyle with minimal day to day purpose or week-end goals. If you want to be someone who gets shit done you need to be someone who gets shit done. It’s that easy, so don’t complicate things. I was not intentionally living out my days with objectives in mind. When we are training in the gym we are working towards a set of goals, if we are not training with purpose then it’s not training, it’s only exercise. Exercise can be a good thing too, but exercise is more like a deflated, less intended version of training - and I am not interested in exercise (neither are my clients, that’s not what they pay me for).

OK, but what else was I missing?

Outside of training, I was not eating, sleeping, and getting my shit done during the day. If you eat without nutrition in mind your body will feel it. If you do not care for the quality and duration of sleep that you get, then your body will feel it. If you do not get your shit done during the week, your whole damn life will feel it. I could feel my mental toughness slipping while everything else seemed to be falling off the wagon. I could feel the drastic low’s in my mood, my negative thoughts started to feed off of each other and become more overpowering. In turn, my weak mentality effected other areas of my life. Sometimes depressive states are astoundingly in our control. I realized over this 3-week period how incredibly unsatisfied I am with my life and where it is at right now. Sometimes we need the painfully low points to show us how worthless our comfortable lifestyles truly are. Take extreme ownership in your routines, they shape your everything.

Moral of the story?

I got my act together and hoped back on the horse. Weak mentalities are a direct reflection of a weak lifestyle. Take overwhelming ownership in your moods, your body, your work, and your life. And if I haven’t said it enough today, get shit done today.

Andrew Happel

Andrew Happel is an online coach who specializes in powerbuilding, or creating strong and aesthetic-looking bodies.