When it comes to coaching in health and fitness, there’s a word that I really, REALLY detest.
It’s a word that a lot of people love to use. Truthfully, it’s a very positive word, so my detest for it might come off as pretty callous and lacking empathy. But after coaching thousands of people and seeing countless successes AND countless frustrating fumbles, I promise you this is not from a lack of empathy or callousness.
It’s from frustration of watching people fail to get out of their own way, and failing to take action and make changes.
Utilizing this word in question is a way for us to avoid the real work, and the real internal process that needs to be addressed before we actually see the progress that we are wishing to see (I say we because I used to say this word allllllll the time). We avoid, avoid, avoid by routinely using this word as our crutch.
The word?
Hope.
Ugh.
“I hope I have a better week this week.”
“I hope nothing bad comes up.”
“I hope there’s nothing stressful.”
Hope. I detest this word.
Hope is defined as “a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen.”
But like my Papa used to say, you can wish in one hand and spit in the other and see which one fills up first (insert hope for wish, and …err… a different word instead of spit).
When talking about the progress you want to make (be that weight loss, habits, etc), the saying would be, you can hope all you want but if you don’t make changes and take action, you still won’t achieve what you want.
Tough love, but you can handle it.
It can be tough to hear and even tougher to accept.
But after all, nothing changes if nothing changes.
Action > hope.
Making changes to behaviors > hope.
Making the effort consistently > hope.
If you find yourself hoping for change, or hoping that things get easier, or you just hope that somehow all of your progress will be made without changing anything… I’ve got good news and bad news for you.
The bad news: what got you here won’t get you where you want to be (your previous behaviors) and hoping things change without changing is a fool’s errand.
The good news: you can accomplish what you want to as long as you’re willing to make a few small changes and take action.
Don’t hope for progress. Take action, make changes, and make progress happen.
Let me know how I can help you, be it nutrition, fitness, or other aspects of health and wellness. I’m here for you. Email me at [email protected] to set up a time to chat.
-Clark