This is the second post of a seven (7) week series covering the 7 biggest obstacles and pitfalls that many people encounter and which can potentially stifle ones health and fitness success. For most this occurs even before they even begin. This week's post covers the topic of "DENIAL"

Denial – It’s more than just a river in Egypt

“By these things examine thyself. By whose rules am I acting; in whose name; in whose strength; in whose glory? What faith, humility, self-denial, and love of God and to man have there been in all my actions?” Jackie Mason (1934 - )

Denial is another of the “sins” of personal responsibility to any individuals hope for a successful attempt at gaining their desired level of physical fitness, or any other endeavor for that matter. Any individual who fails to fully recognize and admit their own fears, shortcomings, abilities or weaknesses and then furthermore fails to strive through them toward their own level of achievement is either delusional or irresponsible in their thought process. I know that may sound harsh, but, as a wise man once stated, “the truth is controversial and confrontational.”

I have met a myriad of people over the years that live in a constant state of denial. I once had a client who wanted to lose a distinct amount of body fat. She told me, rather emphatically, that she was “strictly following the dietary recommendations” and strategies I had laid out for her. However, upon further questioning, she informed me that she was “enjoying” 3 to 4 glasses of wine a night as well as several pastry treats a week. Was this an example of denial?

I had another client who came to me because she wanted to get ready for her daughters wedding. We had the usual client/trainer session wherein I told her my record of success, what I expected of her and what she should expect from me. After three weeks she said that she wasn’t having any success. I asked about her daily routine and if she was following the success formula I’d given her. She said, “Well mostly. I still drink three glasses of wine a night and I’m on the Hot Dog Diet!” My look of utter amazement (not to mention that my eyes began to bleed) must have scared her because she swore she would do better. Her denial of was completely stifling her progress.

By denial, I do not fully mean the denial of self to the extent of complete sacrifice. Denying oneself of certain non-supportive foods and liquids is, of course, necessary for the attainment of any particular health and fitness desire. Rather, what I speak here is of someone who is not eating as they should, not following the recommendations for cardio work outside of the gym, not getting the recommended amount of sleep, not drinking the proper amount of water, etc, and yet deluding themselves into believing they are doing everything necessary for their personal goals attainment. It’s utter foolishness!

Brian Tracey conveys this thought very well in an anecdote from an article entitled “Everything Counts”: “I have a friend who is chronically overweight by about 30 pounds. He insists that all he eats is "fresh fruit, salads and vegetables" and he can't understand why he has a weight problem. One day, I found him polishing off his second piece of cheesecake over lunch and I asked him about it. He looked me squarely in the eye, pointed to the dessert and said, "I don't count that."

Oh, I’m very sorry to inform you but, it doesn’t work that way.

Denial of the facts does not lessen the reality of them or their magnitude. Arthur Lynch is quoted with saying, “The only atheism is the denial of truth.”

What’s the lesson here? Look for and accept the truth of a situation, deal with it accordingly and act upon it responsibly. Doing so will have long reaching positive results.

7 Roadblocks to Fitness Success

“…the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Matthew 26:41 KJV

I love this particular verse from the Bible. It is succinct in its proclamation, but profound and deep in its interpretation. Too many, however, use this particular verse as an excuse for not completing, or worse, attempting a valiant effort in the pursuit of their particular health and fitness desires. We’re going to change that.

The opening chapter of M. Scott Peck’s brilliant and insightful book, “The Road Less Traveled” contains a wonderful anecdote which illustrates the responsibility we all have in dealing with the difficulty each of us experience while here on our temporary home known as Earth. The chapter begins with these illuminating words: “Life is a struggle.”

What does that statement have to do with this article or this particular piece of information? Simply this: If life is indeed a struggle in its regularity and “everyday-ness”, why do so many complicate it with such unnecessary and frivolous wastes of time, effort and thought?

We’ve all experienced periods of frustration, those times when we just couldn’t seem to “see the forest for the trees.” However, when it comes to the attainment of health, fitness and wellness goals, many never even begin the journey. This article will tackle seven (7) of the most prevalent hurdles that many of the people I have worked with over the years have struggled to overcome or conquer. The seven obstacles which we will explore are:

Fear
Denial
Indecision
Procrastination
Lack of goals
No accountability
No game plan

FEAR – The self imposed stop sign on the road to happiness.

“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” Bible, 2 Timothy 1:7

Franklin D. Roosevelt made a bold statement in 1933 during his first inaugural address: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself!” I once heard a comedian comment on this as well: “Great! Now I’ve got to be afraid of fear, too!” Well, that may make us laugh right now but, for too many people, fear is the underlying weighty principle from under which they never seem to escape so as to reach their fullest potential. Fear is quite possibly the single biggest barrier to any sort of accomplishment, be it personal, in business or on a spiritual level. If you’re fearful to the degree that you never even take a shot at achievement, you can be sure you'll never bring about anything of note in life.

Fear is such a hideous word that the mere mention brings sign of physical distress to some people. In order to understand why fear is such an insurmountable obstacle for so many, we must first examine what fear actually is and from where it stems.

Each of us feels fear on such a corporal level that, apart from most emotions, just the thought of it is repulsive. In the presence of fear the heart rate increases in speed, the sweat glands kick into overdrive, your senses become finely tuned, and more than likely, it feels like a boy scout is trying to earn his knot tying merit badge by practicing his skills with your guts. Remember, however, that the physical expression of fear is no more than a reaction to what is going on inside our brains.

First and foremost I firmly believe that the root of fear stems from a lack of knowledge. The Bible states that, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.” (Proverbs 1:7 NKJV) This type of fear results in reverence and respect for the things of God. However, its’ application is not solely limited to biblical wisdom. A certain degree of reverence and respect for the principles of health and fitness will also make a powerful positive impression in an individual far into their in life.

Sadly, many people’s lives are stifled and stunted by fear; fear of failure, fear of success, fear of recognition and so forth. Phobias are simply a more pronounced form of fear, but just, if not more so, as emotionally crippling. Thousands of phobias exist, and they all have their basis, their root, in a lack of knowledge. The real cause of fear lies in our thoughts, and my contention is that they are all based in the fear of the unknown.

The unknown is the place in the recesses of our powerful minds where thoughts, factual, fantastic and otherwise, are all created. We’ve all experienced this sort of “mind trip” at one time or another and probably will again. It’s how we handle it that makes all of the difference in the world. How many of us have been walking along a quiet stretch of woods in a foreign place, maybe at night, and have heard an unfamiliar rustling in the cover beyond our visual frame of reference? Or maybe it occurred on a street where we knew a less than reputable element frequented? Did your heart seem to take leave of your body and continue on its own? What was it that caused this sudden elevation in heart rate and pulse of adrenalin? I’ll bet I know; fear of the unknown!

Let’s bring the scenario down a notch. Maybe you wanted to make an attempt at starting a new business, to ask a total stranger to dance, to propose to the woman you love, or just call someone on the phone from whom you may need to ask forgiveness. What surreal specter feels as though it is looming over you that appears to stop you in your tracks? My money says his name is “Fear of the Unknown.”

What’s not to fear? All of the aforementioned instances just may result in actual rejection, success, attention or any of a number of other results. The greater the potential achievement, the greater the fear. For the most part, the reason each of us fears doing a task, or a selection of tasks, is because we somehow believe we might fail. This may, in some part, involve our past experiences in failure we may have actually endured. Or we might simply want to avoid failure we fear we might experience. However, you will never know success if the attempt is never made. Fear of the unknown will triumph over any success unless we make a distinct effort to combat it at every turn.

The subconscious mind is quite possibly the most powerful of our many gifts of God. It may also be our largest obstacle to success. That is unless it is trained to work on our behalf and to effectively conquer fear. The subconscious mind cannot discern between imagined experiences and those that are real. A study performed on 94 engineering students from the University of Washington by psychologist Elizabeth Loftus found that when adults vividly imagined the occurrence of events that took place in their childhood, they became increasingly confident that these incidents actually happened to them. This phenomenon has been called imagination inflation. And because the subconscious mind is so powerful, this phenomenon also takes place if one imagines events that may not have occurred but are imagined as real.

When these “events” are perceived as negative, detrimental or counter-productive to ones own being, a physical response may occur, such as the knots in the stomach mentioned above. Most of these events never actually take place except within the confines of our mind. As the acronym for fear so aptly states: F.E.A.R. = False Evidence that Appears Real. I believe Samuel Clemons (a.k.a. Mark Twain) said it best: “I have been through some terrible things in my life, some of which have actually happened.” I know it’s happened to me. How about you?

If one firmly believes what they fear will come true, they will never take the necessary action needed to accomplish the task, to reach for the goal or to enjoy the immeasurable feeling that follows the successful completion of an accomplishment. Therein lies the definition of a true failure: One who never tries because the overwhelming fear in them keeps them from a perceived fear of a negative result.

So what do we do to overcome this thing called “fear”? Since fear is fabricated within the mind, if you gaze deeply enough within your fear you’ll discover that it is probably an empty shell. Fear influences you not to try. By not trying you are deprived of the acquisition of personal knowledge and experience. And failure to acquire these skills means you are not growing. As Tony Robbins says, “If you’re not growing, you’re dying.” When you grow you become successful, no matter the endeavor.

Therefore, the first thing to understand is that fear is a façade, an empty shell, an illusion that hoodwinks you into thinking you’re not good enough, smart enough or strong enough to reach the goals or desires you may have so long wanted to achieve. If you have the courage to look your fear in the eye you'll soon realize that you can move forward, and that it can't really harm you. I’ll again quote Mark Twain; “Courage is not the absence of fear. It is acting in spite of it.” Therefore the sign of a courageous person is someone who is feels the fear, recognizes the fear and still goes on to do what he or she desires or believes to be right.

We lose fear in the face of familiarity. Familiarity leads to personal knowledge, which in turns leads to comfort. Not many folks enjoy getting out of their “comfort zone.”

How many of us who have been driving for some time fear filling our cars gas tank with fuel? Probably a very small number, if any. However, remember the first time you attempted it? Wow! Visions of the “Towering Inferno” or maybe a fiery mushroom cloud filled your mind. (Well maybe not yours, but I have a VERY vivid imagination. Cut me some slack!) However, after several successful fill-ups, we became comfortable with the task. Some become so complacent they even drive off with the nozzle still attached to their vehicle!

The obvious solution then is to become familiar with what we want and desire. After all it’s a certain degree of comfort and familiarity why we do what we do on most weekends. It’s why we buy from the same salesman, watch the same programs on T.V. and why we go to the same convenience store among all of the other choices in our area. It’s also a reason why we don’t change grocers often, or let another mechanic work on our car, or use a different route to get from work to home. Familiarity is the key!

What, then, do we do to get to this place of comfort, of familiarity? One method that is highly successful is visualization. Remember the study mentioned earlier on the power of the subconscious mind? When you visualize with feeling yourself achieving a success, the power of your mind starts thinking the event has actually taken place, whether it has yet or not. This process in turn inspires your comfort and familiarity with it. In turn, that inspiration will drive you to strive to achieve the success that has, until now, eluded you.

The next step in this process is to solidify your commitment to this endeavor. You do this by writing the specific desire down so that you can fully use your all of your positive persuasive emotions to deeply experience it. What do you write down? You can:

• Write a short story about what your life will be like.
  
• Take the “Who’s Hot – Who’s Not” list, remove a “Who’s Hot” contender and insert your name instead.
  
• Act out what you’ll be like 5 years from now, as if you were starring in “The (Your name here) Story” for a big name director.
  
• Or, do something else that uses your emotional senses to fully visualize your personal success story.

There’s one more step: You must clearly connect your own life to that ultimate success. How? Answer these questions and fear will disappear. What steps will you need to experience to achieve that success? What fears will you overcome? Who will you meet? What resources will you need? Clarity and specificity are key components of success. The more specific you can be, the more rich the success will feel.

Overcoming fear is a process, but one in which you now possess some of the necessary tools to achieve success, contentment and achievement. In my next update we'll explore the second obstacle to many folks attainment of success in health and fitness; Denial.

If this message has impacted you in some way, or you'd like to discuss it, please tell me about it at srp6731@hotmail.com.
Thanks a bunch,
Steve Payne

Welcome to my first blog

I am thrilled to finally be a part of the highly technical, finely choreographed latest rage of the electronic age: blogging. Finally, there's a place for me to post my thoughts and insights on health, fitness, wellness and sports performance, as well as all of the inane, goofy and just plain weird happenings that take place within the realm and confines of my mind.

I'll be writing about things that interest me, which will hopefully interest you. Most of my ramblings will fall under the canopy of health and fitness, but occasionally I will stroll through the by-ways of whatever subject strikes me silly.

I look forward to coming to you often with news, views and reviews. Stay tuned, I'll do my best not to disappoint.

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SP