All or None vs. Less or More!

With the excitement of the New Year, many individuals in pursuit of fitness and weight management goals make commitments that at first seem logical and the path to go to make the desired life change.

These commitments include such as...

• I will stop eating junk food
• I will not miss a workout and exercise every day
• I will give up alcohol

These are examples of the "All or None" mindset.

Unless you never want to have a drink again with friends and family, have a slice of cake at your next birthday or expect never to get sick, this approach is unrealistic for long term success. In essence this doesn't help you learn how to have balance so you can (no pun intended) "have you cake and eat it too".

Additionally with All or None commitments, you leave zero room for human error and create more of a perception of failure when you slip for whatever reason.

Trust me, you will slip, as we all are human. With the perception of failure (key word "perception") odds are increased you will ultimately just give up altogether. This illustration is just one of the reasons the majority of New Year's Resolutions fail and barely make it a month into the new year.

The alternative approach to All or None is to attack your goals with the "More or Less" strategy or as I like to describe as WIN THE MAJORITY.

WIN THE MAJORITY is based on knowing what you should be doing and what you shouldn't be doing while recognizing the value in frequency and majority.

For your 2020 year goal, lets break this WIN THE MAJORITY into weeks, and months to show you how to make 2020 your best year ever.

There are seven days in a week. If you do the behaviors that will lead to the desired outcome four or more days of the week you will WIN that week. This removes the pressure to be perfect and allows for not-so-perfect days while still winning.

Now look at it from a monthly perspective. There are four weeks in a month. You only need three successful weeks to WIN the month. Therefore if you had a bad week that you didn't win the majority the month isn't a complete lost. You will be OK moving forward successfully toward your goals.

From an yearly perspective. There are twelve months in the year; therefore you only need seven months to win this "Healthy Lifestyle" thing everyone talks about.

Remove the stress for perfection and focus on being BETTER!

Think about that. You can see success; long-term, LIVABLE results knowing you had five months in 2020 where you had more weeks where you didn't do the behaviors needed four or more days of the week.

The kryptonite that will absolutely sabotage any chance of winning the majority is giving up all together. Once you get started never quit, let me repeat, NEVER QUIT.

For newbie's, aligning yourself with an educated, professional coach for a minimum of a year is critical to build the necessary LIVABLE foundation to help you stay accountable and WIN THE MAJORITY, especially when obstacles (sickness, vacation, etc..) occur that could derail your consistency to the majority.

Looking at those ALL or NONE examples above, you can see how you could approach it with a different and more LIVABLE mindset.

Rather than "I will stop eating junk food," it could be, "I will eat less junk food by limiting my access to such foods at home"

Rather than "I will not miss a workout and exercise every day," it could be, "I will exercise to win the majority."

Rather than "I will give up alcohol," it could be; "I will limit/reduce my alcohol to one to two drinks per occasion." The key is what you define as an occasion. Every evening isn't an occasion.

Ultimately, decisions will have to be made. If your junk food, skipped workouts or alcohol consumption in the past has played a role in getting in the way of your current fitness or weight management goals, you may have to raise the bar in what you consider the things you need "more or less" of.

Bottom line take ownership of your decisions in a LIVABLE manner..

Excited for you and the changes you seek to achieve. Avoid the perfection mentality and strive to be better each day.

As stated above, look to WIN THE MAJORITY; what you know you need to be doing more of and what you know you should be doing less of, that will lead you to success, more importantly LIVABLE SUCCESS.

As always, if need help, call us at 724-879-8523 to schedule a FREE no-obligation strategy session.