Simple fact: fostering a strong, healthy mindset is essential in creating your best body. Think for a moment, what are you saying to yourself when you look in the mirror? Are you getting to a certain point in your body transformation and feel stuck or start thinking it’s not worth the hard work? If you want sustainable and permanent change in your body, first you need to transform your mindset. In fact, with anything you want to achieve in life, whether that includes becoming fitter, fitting into your favourite jeans or climbing the corporate ladder, a healthy mindset is key. So with that in mind, here are 10 actions that will lead you to a total healthy mindset makeover:
1. Accept yourself for who you are as the starting point of a healthy mindset
It can be difficult with the ever-present social media ideal of ‘how you should look’ or ‘what you should be eating’ etc to just accept how you look and where you’re at. But, while ever you focus on comparing your life to others, your own life will never be fulfilled. You are unique and that is YOUR strength. Sure, take inspiration from Instagram and use it to be a better, healthier version of YOURSELF, not the image of someone else. Don’t ever allow the mirage of comparison cause you to end up in a negative thinking cycle.
Try today – Have a one-day social media detox! As shocking as this sounds, one day without social media won’t kill you. In fact, you’ll start to notice a whole heap of time that you didn’t realise you had!
2. Accept a compliment to pump up your healthy mindset
Don’t downplay compliments. Don’t dismiss them. Just accept them and be thankful. Oh, and at the same time, why not give yourself a compliment. Did you choose a healthy snack over chips? Did you walk up the stairs at work instead of the elevator? Did you get up early for a workout despite not ‘feeling it’? The smallest of wins deserve recognition, and sometimes you are the only one who will know how hard you worked for them! Self love never harmed anyone!
Try today – Find three things to compliment yourself on, then smile and accept the self-acknowledgement.
3. Know your compelling vision to see a healthy mindset
What you focus on is what you get. Have a little movie reel playing in your head of the body you want, the confidence you want, the energy you want, the self-pride you want, the health you want, the success you want, the life you want. Fill your mind with positive talk and empowering images instead of that little negative voice that tends to rule your mind with its fears, doubts and limiting negative talk.
Try today – This healthy lifestyle habit from the Active8me ‘Story of Your Life’ mindset lesson.
4. Surround yourself with positive people to ensure a healthy mindset
Have you ever noticed that one piece of fruit that has gone off can quickly contaminate the rest of the fruit? This is exactly how negative people operate. Sometimes, you may not even notice the impact of negative people in your life without paying close attention. If you feel drained, dull and demotivated after spending time with certain people, perhaps it’s time to reconsider your interaction with them. The same is also true of positive people. The more you surround yourself with positive people, the lighter your mindset load will be.
Try today – Be conscious of those people you have around you and interact with for the day. Try to identify those who are negative influences and those who are positive. Make a concerted effort to spend time with those who are uplifting!
5. Seek Support for your healthy mindset
Support in any transformation is CRITICAL. So, surround yourself with like-minded people, whether they be ‘real life’ or online (like the Active8me community). Support, encourage and motivate each other to help you foster a great mindset and create healthy active lifestyle habits.
Try today – Connect with one person who has healthy lifestyle habits you admire.
6. Review, reset and refocus your life for regular healthy mindset updates
We are often so caught up in the busy-ness of life that we forget to celebrate how far we have come and exactly what we have achieved. If you’ve ever heard the quote “It doesn’t get easier, you just get better/fitter/ stronger”, you’ll realise that it is so true. You push yourself further and harder … and that’s great …but how often do you reflect on the gains you have achieved? This is important, as it can act to reset any negative mindsets and refocus your outlook. With this reflection may also come the insight of areas that you need to improve and start to calculate what is preventing you from moving forward in these areas. Are you getting stronger, but not losing weight? Are you eating well, but not sleeping well? Are you winning at work, but have no time for friends?
Try today – Set a date in your diary to sit down every 3 months to track what you have achieved and what has gone on the back burner. Then consider why and if you want to change your direction.
7. Make failure useful to strengthen your healthy mindset
None of us are perfect. No one gets everything right every time. If you don’t believe this, then you are doing your mindset a big disservice. We’re human and everyone’s fallible, despite what you see on Instagram! We all have slip-ups. It may appear that successful people rarely fail, but that is just because they have used their failures to build their success. Instinctively, failure makes us want to give up completely. However, if you can take one small lesson from failure then you will be strengthening your mindset. Making good out of the bad.
Try today – Ask yourself some questions around your failures. Have you failed at sticking to a diet, then given up on it completely? Think back to the things you can learn from that experience…is it that you don’t fair well with restriction? Did you lack support from family or friends? Did you need more help with recipes or meal alternatives? Learn the lesson and move forward into your bright future.
8. Try Adding instead of subtracting to balance your healthy mindset
We all have ‘bad’ habits that we know we should do something about. We also all know how challenging it can be to change our habits. So here’s a tip. Instead of thinking about cutting out certain habits, consider ‘adding’ or replacing the old ones with new, healthy habits. Just as your unhealthy habits are compounded over your life, it will take some time to build good habits.
When you adopt the growth mindset of ‘small changes add up’ and ‘healthy habits are built one brick at a time’ you enjoy a long-term constructive view where you’re less likely to be derailed by short term disappointments or poor decisions.
Try today – Exchanging a high calorie, processed snack with a nutritious one. There are loads of delicious choices in the Active8me app.
9. Notice the signs that your healthy mindset can create opportunities
What are you complaining about at the moment? Jeans too tight? Feeling lethargic? Not getting ahead at work? The sooner you identify and acknowledge the signs, the sooner you can take decisive action. Be honest with yourself and willing to give up on something. When you are open to letting something go – a person, a belief, a material object…after the initial feeling of ‘loss’, there is space for fresh opportunities.
Try today – Make a list of your common complaints across the day. Don’t just ‘stop’ complaining. Take action. Think of actions you can take to no longer have the complaint. Tired? Go to bed 15 minutes earlier. No time for exercise? Give up TV or social media for just one hour. You get the idea!
10. Take Responsibility for your healthy mindset
It’s your mind, your thoughts, your excuses and no one else’s! Recognise that your thoughts create and control your behaviours, so the only person who can change them is YOU.
Never underestimate how important mindset is. It is why we devote an entire part of our app to mindset and it is why we say Exercise. Nourish. Think. Transform. If you want to see transformation; if you want to succeed; if you want to just think more positively, then do any one of these 10 tips and you’ll notice a difference. And if you dare to take action right now, then sign up for Active8me now to get the ball rolling with your healthy mindset makeover and body transformation.
