Re-Kindle your Commitment

Good morning, ladies. It's Sheree here from spicefitness.com. I'm just here to talk to you today about commitment.

We all know about commitment. We all need to know. We already know why we need to commit to things, but how that lack of commitment can totally radically alter results you get in whatever field.

Today, I'm really putting the commitment word to fitness and health, but it can alter whatever you want in life when we have a lack of it or when we have a lot of it. If we have a lack of commitment, I'll let you know a few little tips and tools that you can help your commitment. When I'm training ladies, when they come in with back problems, with knee problems, with osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, with whatever complaints I've got, I am looking for a commitment, first of all, that they are ready to proceed with something because if I take on a new client and they come and see me, and then the next week, they're pulling out, and then the next week, they're tired, and then the next week, work has been hard, we're not going to get any results at all. It's somebody that's committed that is going to get results, and that person that's committed will come, whatever's going on in their life, they have made that thing an important part of their journey, and so they put it above everything else.

When you're committed to something, you will come hail, rain, shine, whatever's going on in your life, whatever's occurring. Hi, Jan, thanks for joining me. Commitment, I'm just going to give you some tools at the end of how you can stay committed.

I just want to give a few little stories of some of my clients that are the most committed. I've had two of my clients before that have broken legs. Yes, broken legs, and did they miss one time of training?

Not one. They didn't miss one time of training. Hi, Pip, great that you could join me.

Why didn't they miss one time of training? Because they are committed to the process. They knew that if they broke their leg, well, they did break their leg, but they knew that if they didn't come for six-odd weeks that it would take for their leg to be in plaster, that they would lose all the actual benefits that they'd gained before.

Those two girls who both broke their legs, not at the same time, one fell off a ladder while she was painting, the other one fell down a hillside when we were out doing some bushwalking, but the fact is they didn't let their broken leg stop them from the commitment they'd made to get the strongest, healthiest body that they could. And there's another client that will be coming with me tonight. Now, she said, Cherie, I've just been told I can't work.

I can't work out for like four to six weeks because my arm needs to have a rest. I think she's got some bursitis in her arm. And I said, you know what?

Why don't you still come along and we'll still work out. I just won't use your arm. We'll work out every other part of your body and we won't use your arm.

And she went, oh my gosh, I can't believe I can still do that, because she's totally committed. She is the same lady that eight years ago had major back surgery and she was meant to go back for a second surgery. And when she found out about strength training with us, she started doing that and got her back to the degree that when she went back to her back surgeon, he said, I don't need to do that second back operation.

Your back is looking really good. And that's then after she had wanted to go overseas for a long time. She didn't go overseas because she thought, well, I'm not going to be able to travel overseas and lug around a big suitcase with my back.

But after strength training her back, she could, because she was committed to the process. So two times a week, rain, hail or shine, however she felt, she came. And now she's just gone away for this last week and said, thank you so much for the strength training, because it's the first time she's been on a horse and able to ride a horse since before she had back surgery eight years ago.

So that all comes from being committed, committed to the process. I just see people that drop in and out every now and then they'll come, and then they won't come, and then they'll come, then they won't come, and they won't get results because they just are not committed. And you know what?

Strength training is one of those things that sometimes you enjoy it. Sometimes you don't. Sometimes you go, oh gosh, that was so hard, but you get to the end of it and you go, whoa, do I feel good?

It releases endorphins and gets you feeling great. And so just being able to move through the process regardless of how you feel is a really important step. And if you've got a swollen hand or something's going on, but you still committed to the process and do something, something is better than nothing.

Again and again and again, I see people, I went on a bike ride a few days ago, and I was flying along. And when I came to the big hills, this lady on one of those old people scooter things would pass me by because she had a pretty powerful scooter and she's actually going quite fast. So she passed me on the hills while I was riding my bike.

And then I'd get to the top of the hill and I'd fly by her. And sometimes I'd even pass up the hills, but I thought she was going pretty fast. So I had just done work previously, a night duty.

And just talking to lady on the scooter after when we caught up, she's my age, but she's in a scooter. She gets herself around a scooter. Why does she get herself around on a scooter?

Because she's got a sore knee and a sore hand. And so she finds it too hard to walk. Now, the moment that you commit to not committing to working on your body and you give up and put yourself on a couch or put yourself in get yourself around, you're already on the way out.

You are taking your lifespan and reducing it dramatically. They've done studies that have shown that people that sit around, sit on a couch and don't move will reduce their life expectancy quite a lot. So the moment you get to my age, and I'm about to turn 58 in about another week, the moment you take that sore knee or sore shoulder and go, I can't do anything about it.

I'm just going to rest up. Then the rest often clients will come into me and their rest will extend from, let's just have a few weeks rest to let's have a few months. It's still sore.

Well, it's really sore now. Why? Because you haven't been doing anything to actually work those muscles around a joint.

And then you know what, before you know, it's extended to three, five, 10 years, and you'll have had a rest all that time, but your whole body started to break down because bodies are not designed to lie around. So today I'm talking about commitment and commitment is so important because if you're decided that you're not going to let that sore knee stop you, it won't stop you. You'll find someone in your local area or online, and you'll start to work that knee.

You'll start to work all the muscles around that leg. And we all know that if you work and get stronger in weaker areas around a joint, it makes a massive difference, a massive change in what you'll find. So that knee doesn't need to become worse.

It can become better by strengthening up our inner thighs, our thighs, front thighs, back thighs, our glutes, our calves all join into that knee and make it better. Anyway, I'm going a bit off track here. I'm coming back to commitment.

To make the changes that you want to see, you need to be committed. It's such an important thing. Hi, Barbara.

Hi, Janet. Great that you could join me this morning. Actually, it might not be morning there.

It could be evening. But yeah, so being committed. Commitment, as a term, is being dedicated to a cause or activity that makes your behavior predictable in the face of fluctuations in your desires.

So you may not feel like you want to do anything today for that knee because it's been giving you grief for three or four months, maybe, or even a few weeks. But the fact is, if you start to find somebody that knows about bodies well and you start to work it, it's going to start to get better. It may not be 100% how you'd like to be, but it's going to be better than if you just sit on a couch.

And so, yeah, so the clients I talked earlier, the clients that have been the most committed, the ones that broke their legs, I've had two clients that have done that and they've not missed one day of training, not one day. Into the plaster they go and back to training they come. And we get them, obviously, there's stuff they can't do on their leg, but they can do so much.

If I can't use my leg right now, I can do a lot of upper body work. I can air punch. I can be doing some band work and pull, pull.

I can be doing some bum work. Don't need to be actually able to use my leg. Now, when that leg's out of plaster, you want to go, well, obviously, gentle at first, but after a few months of being out of plaster, you want to be really working that leg hard because it's going to be deconditioned compared to the rest of your body.

And we all know if one part of your body is deconditioned or weaker than the rest, you may have problems like with limping and putting weight too much on one side. So that's where you want to work it hard, but you still can work hard while you're in the plaster. There's no reason to let it all go.

So some ways to stay committed to the process, and this may be a job that you want to get. It may not be fitness, but I'm just going to relate mine to fitness and help today because that's what I'm involved in. So you've got to work out your why.

Why are you doing it? Why am I starting to strength train today? Is it because I want to go overseas in one year's time, two years time, and I need to lug my suitcase around.

I need to get up thousands of steps in that place I want to go. Well, then you've got a great why. So keep that at the first and foremost of your mind.

You want to remember the why when the going gets hard and you're too tired and work takes over. Because don't forget at the start of every year, we all have great intentions. This year, I'm going to be the strongest, healthiest, fittest I can ever be.

And as the months went on, could even be weeks or days, you kind of lose that major mindset that you've got at the start of the year. And it's because it gets too hard. Life gets in the way.

It does for all of us. But if you put first and foremost, this is what I'm going to do and nothing's going to change it. Put it in your diary.

Make sure you've got little notes to remind yourself around. You will do it and you will succeed. But you just have to be committed to the process.

So whatever comes your way, you still, if I break a leg, I'm still going to do it. It's not going to stop me. So I would also think in there, what are you trying to change?

So if my body's weak right now, if it doesn't work for me the way I want it to, well, great. What a great goal. Put that as the first part of your goal.

This is what I want to achieve. So you need to set out your goals long-term and short-term. And I think the easiest way for goal setting is to take your long-term plan.

So in two, maybe in a year's time, I want to walk to the top of that mountain and I want to go traveling through Italy and Greece. Let's just believe that coronavirus is over by then. And we want to go traveling and this is what we want to do.

So that's your main goal. So take your main goal, then break it down into smaller goals. Okay.

So 12 months' time, I want to go traveling. I want to climb that mountain and I want to do all those steps that lead to whatever ruins. It could be Makubiku or something.

So then break that down. Okay. Well, in six months, this is where I want to be.

I want to have a vacation for five months, four months. Okay. So starting in one week's time, I can't walk down to the oval right now, but I want to be able to walk down to the oval.

In maybe three weeks' time, let's make that a part run, part walk. In five weeks' time, I want to be, and if you're into street training, it could be I start with that little can, that can of baked beans in my cupboard that weighs 400 and something grams. And then a month after that, or maybe a week after that, I'm going to go to the bigger can.

Maybe a month after that, I want to progress to a milk carton with two liters of milk or sand in there. So you're going to progress it along until you kind of go six months down the track. You go, wow, I have totally transformed from that person that couldn't lift a weight to look where I am today.

And I'm on my way to going on that trip at the end of the year, like in 12 months' time that I didn't think I could do before. So it's all about being committed to the process. Then I would work out, so how are you going to achieve this goal?

So it could be, okay, in 12 months' time, I want to go on that trip overseas. Right. How are you going to do that?

Okay. Well, there's a trainer down the road I really like the sound of. I've asked my friends and they all go to her and they think she's great or a guy.

So I'm going to commit to two times a week. I'm going to be committed to go. And that's what I'm going to do.

It goes in my diary and I'm going to put that before anything else. It could be an online program like we have for the mature person. We've got an online program that has more beginner, intermediate, advanced stuff.

So when you see us in quite a few of our things, I've got three ladies. My daughter asked me the other day, mom, why don't you just do training on your own on there? Why do you have three people?

Well, sometimes it's great to have three people because one can do the beginners, one can do the intermediate and one can do the advanced. So you can follow whichever one that you can. So it may be that you find a good online place like spicefitness.com and come and join us for our actual workouts every week. Tonight I'm doing a Zoom with everyone that's on there. And so, yeah, so there's things like that that you can be doing. So if you find out how I'm going to achieve this strong body, that's huge as well.

Then you've got your plan. So you need to have a plan worked out. Just don't go, this is what I'd like to do and then let that go.

Because if you don't have a plan, we all know if you plan to fail, if you fail, if you fail to plan, if you fail anyway, if you don't have a plan, you're going to fail. Probably. You might not.

You can probably wing it, but we need a plan. So in that plan, you're going to work out how you're going to do it and when you're going to do it and then commit to those days.

Don't let anything take it away. You may be really sick. That's fine.

But if you can, get there. And you know, it's knowing that when you fall off the wagon and we all will, we all will fall off the wagon at some stage. We'll have like a week where we laid on the couch and that's perfectly fine.

Your body probably did need that week on the couch, but it doesn't need six months on the couch. So if you fall off the wagon for a week or a few days, get back on. Okay.

Go say to your trainer, I'm away for a week, but I'm going to be back next week and ready to roll again. So then if you fall off the wagon, get back on. Okay.

It's not the end of it. It's just a little ditch in the whole thing. I think a way to stay really totally committed to the process to find an accountability buddy.

I think that's great. Could be a friend or it could be somebody in a group that you like the fact that they always are fit and strong and healthy. Maybe commit to them.

Both of you go on that walk and then do some strength training at the end every time. I think as you get older, walking is not enough. I'll say that again.

Again, quite a few of my clients have walked many kilometers every day of their lives, but can't come in with strength problems. So I think walking and strength training both combine well. So find someone or find a group that you could make sure that you can be accountable to someone.

So if you're in a group like ours, you can be accountable there. And the other thing I'd say, stop making excuses like I'm too old, I'm too tired. I don't think I could do it now.

I should have started years ago. You know what? You can't take back the time that you could have started, but you can make a difference now.

So how many of my clients come in and start training in their seventies and eighties? My 88-year-old client that I'll be training tomorrow, they only started training about a year and a half ago, maybe two years ago now. And they've made incredible changes in their lives.

So never think you're too old. No time. You can find time for those things that are important to you.

And I always think for those people that say, I don't have time, you'll have time when you get sick and you probably will get sicker than somebody that's really healthy and active. And so you'll have to find time to lie in a hospital bed, whereas why not find time now to just stay fit and healthy? It's a great way to live, to be able to have a body that works for you, that takes you around, that gets you to do what you want to do.

If I want to pick up that big suitcase, I can, I'm not going to have to get someone else to help me. Now I understand some of you will, but as you go on and you start to get your body stronger, you will get to the point where you feel so proud of yourself and give yourself a pat on the back that you can do it yourself. So just really just tying this off for the last bit, just a quick talk about goals.

So keep your goals at the forefront of your mind always. So review them on a regular basis. So if my goal is to get strong and fit and healthy, don't let that go by the way.

Put yourself notes around the house. Put that, maybe if you want to lose some weight, put that favorite pair of jeans that you've had, put them somewhere where you'll see them every day when you get changed. And you know that that's what you're aiming to do to fit back into them.

Or I can't pick up that vase right now or that big pot with the plant in, but my aim is to get to that point where I can do that. So, you know, keep things at the forefront of your mind, put notes for yourself at the back of your toilet door. We all have to go to the toilet and hopefully you close the door.

I don't have to close the door too often now because we are here in the house on our own, but put a note there to remind yourself why you do what you do. You're doing it because there's some reason. Maybe if you want to climb that mountain at the end of the year, put a picture of the mountain on your wall, put a picture of the mountain in a few spots where you'll see it while you cook dinner and stuff, and remind you why you're doing what you do.

So you stay committed to the goal. So Anna, I'd say to you, what does success look like for you? What does it look like?

Does it mean, can you picture yourself climbing that mountain that you didn't know whether you'd be able to get up there? What will success look like to you? How will it feel?

If you're clear on your success, you will do daily things to get there. I think it's great. So if you've got a great picture, you can see it, you can feel it, you can taste it, then you're going to be able to hopefully get there because you'll stay on track with doing those things that you want to do every day.

Review your goals consistently, track your progress and focus on those things that will get you to your goals. So just continue to review those goals consistently. I want to climb that mountain at the end of the year.

So what am I doing every day to get myself to that point? Okay, so just review those goals consistently and finishing off, celebrate on those goals that you've achieved. So celebrate on small goals.

It could be that my aim is to pick up that 10 kilo weight and do some rows with it. But right now, I can't even pick up the 10 kilo weight. So I'm on a one kilo weight.

And then you go to a two, maybe a four, then a six and an eight. When you get to that, or even celebrate the fact you've gone from a one to a two, celebrate the fact you've gone from a two to a four, celebrate those because that's a good feeling. When you know that you couldn't pick up a weight before, but you can now.

When you know that you couldn't walk down to the mailbox before without getting short of breath, but you can now. When you know you can climb that mountain just down the road, you couldn't do it before, but you can now without getting out of breath and having to stop for too long, celebrate those successes along the way, because they'll make you more wanting to get more, achieve more, do more. And if your aim is to climb that mountain at the end of the year, then even if you go partway up the mountain, come down, maybe month two, you go a little further up the mountain and come down.

Month three, month four, it's all about progression and commitment. Then maybe in 12 months time, you get to the top of the mountain, you can stand on the top of that mountain, give yourself a pat on the back, scream and yell, and just be proud of yourself. Because any win is a win, any progress that we make is a win, and we need to celebrate the successes along the way.

So this today was just a short talk on being committed. At the start of the year, we all have a plan, and that goes out the door for many people within a month or two, because things get in the way. Don't let things get in the way, be totally committed.

And the clients that I train that I see get the best results are those that are totally committed to the process, whether they break a leg, break an arm, we can still train. Okay, so that's it for today. I hope I've inspired you.

So this is Cherie from spicefitness.com signing out as I'm committed to this and I've got a client I've got to train next. Have a good day, everyone.

Bye.