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Episode Description

In this episode of How to Make Your Fitness Journey a Lifestyle, I want to start getting into some of the practical things you can do every day to reinforce the decision you've made to trust yourself, appreciate yourself, and build an active lifestyle that works for you.

In the previous episodes, we've talked about making the declaration that you're going to trust yourself to figure things out.

We've also talked about how your thoughts and actions can reinforce the person you've already decided to be.

But what does that actually look like in your daily life?

And how much time do you really need to commit to practicing it?

You can begin reinforcing this new approach in less than ten minutes a day.

I'm not asking you to spend hours working on your mindset or completely reorganize your schedule.

I'm talking about a few small, intentional practices that help you build a different relationship with yourself.

The first is listening to reinforcement podcasts.

These short episodes are designed to remind you of the beliefs you're choosing to strengthen, help you challenge familiar thought patterns, and encourage you to keep moving forward.

I've built an extensive library of podcasts covering fitness, self-confidence, body image, mindset, and other areas of life. You can explore them at https://yourlevelfitness.com/podcasts.

The second practice is the mirror challenge.

Spend 15, 30, or 60 seconds standing in front of the mirror and intentionally building yourself up.

Instead of automatically criticizing what you see, practice appreciating it.

And as you continue doing this, I want you to begin recognizing that there's more to appreciate than your physical appearance.

There's the person looking back at you.

Your experiences.

Your resilience.

Your abilities.

Your personality.

Everything that makes you who you are.

If you've spent years criticizing yourself in the mirror, this may feel uncomfortable at first.

That's okay.

You're not trying to force yourself to believe something overnight. You're practicing a different way of responding to yourself and giving that belief time to develop.

The third practice is using journal prompts.

These usually take just a couple of minutes, but they give you an opportunity to reflect on how you're thinking, how you're feeling, and how you're approaching different parts of your life.

The prompts help you explore your relationship with eating, exercise, body image, and yourself.

And when you put these practices together, the time commitment is surprisingly small.

A five-minute podcast.

Two minutes of journaling.

One minute in front of the mirror.

That's approximately eight minutes.

And I want you to consider how much time you may already spend each day worrying about your eating habits, questioning your workouts, criticizing your appearance, or feeling overwhelmed by the choices you're trying to make.

There's a good chance you're already spending more than ten minutes thinking about these things.

We're simply becoming more intentional about how we use some of that time.

But these aren't the only ways we're going to reinforce the foundation.

As we continue through the Your Level Fitness Framework, we'll talk about minimum daily actions, weekly goals, and how consistently following through on manageable commitments can help you develop greater trust in yourself.

All of this supports another important part of my approach.

Operating from a calm headspace and moving at a deliberate pace.

Your workouts still take however long they take.

Your eating habits still require decisions and adjustments.

Your goals still require effort.

But mentally, you don't have to feel like you're constantly rushing, struggling, or trying to hold everything together.

You can learn to approach those things with more confidence, patience, and intention.

Get the Journal Prompts

https://yourlevelfitness.com/email

Join the Live Streams

https://yourlevelfitness.com/stream

Episode Description

In this episode of How to Make Your Fitness Journey a Lifestyle, I want to talk about something you're already doing every single day, whether you realize it or not.

Reinforcing what you believe about yourself.

Throughout your life, you've developed certain beliefs about who you are, what you're capable of, and how you see yourself.

And whether those beliefs have been helpful or limiting, you've probably spent years reinforcing them through your thoughts, actions, and the stories you tell yourself.

Think about the experiences you've held on to.

The situations you replay in your head.

The mistakes you remember.

The moments that seem to confirm something you've believed about yourself for years.

Sometimes we hold on to those experiences because they fit the narrative we've already created.

But what if you became more intentional about the narrative you're reinforcing?

That's what we're working on through the Your Level Fitness Framework.

In the previous episodes, we talked about making the decision to trust yourself to figure things out before you have all the answers.

Now we're going to practice reinforcing that decision.

You're not waiting for your actions to eventually make you believe in yourself. You're choosing what you believe about yourself and using your actions to reinforce that choice.

You're choosing to trust yourself.

You're choosing to recognize that you're confident and capable.

You're choosing to appreciate both who and what you see in the mirror.

And you're building an active lifestyle around your preferences, your capabilities, and the life you want to live.

Your thoughts and actions become opportunities to reinforce those decisions.

But there's another important part of this.

You are not going to be perfect.

You're going to have moments when your old thoughts return.

You're going to make mistakes.

You're going to make decisions that don't necessarily support your goals.

You may even recognize moments when you're getting in your own way.

That's part of being human.

The goal isn't to eliminate every negative thought or never make another decision you regret.

The goal is to become more aware of how you're responding to yourself.

When you notice an old pattern, you don't have to immediately criticize yourself or force yourself into a different emotional state.

You can acknowledge what's happening.

You can give yourself time to process what you're thinking and feeling.

And when you're ready, you can redirect your thoughts and actions toward the person you've already decided to be.

That's where I think this approach becomes empowering.

You're no longer relying entirely on the next workout, the next weigh-in, or the next accomplishment to determine how you see yourself.

You're actively practicing that belief throughout your everyday life.

And over time, those repeated choices can help you develop a healthier relationship with fitness, consistency, and yourself.

This is also why I encourage you to participate in the journal prompts and live streams.

They're opportunities to explore how you see yourself, recognize patterns you may have been reinforcing for years, and consider different ways to approach familiar challenges.

You don't need to rewrite your entire life overnight.

You don't need to get everything right.

You've already made the decision. Now keep reinforcing it.

One thought, one action, and one day at a time.

Get the Journal Prompts

https://yourlevelfitness.com/email

Join the Live Streams

https://yourlevelfitness.com/stream

Episode Description

In this episode of How to Make Your Fitness Journey a Lifestyle, I want to build on something we talked about in the previous episode.

Making the decision to trust yourself to figure this out.

And today, I want to explain why that decision needs to come before you start taking action.

For years, the fitness and weight loss industry has marketed to people by playing on their insecurities.

The message is often that you don't know enough, you're doing something wrong, or you need another program, product, or expert to finally figure everything out.

And when you've spent years struggling with eating, exercise, consistency, or weight loss, those messages can become pretty convincing.

Especially when they're packaged with celebrity endorsements, influencers, expert opinions, or scientific research.

But here's something I want you to consider.

Your life isn't a controlled environment.

You have responsibilities, preferences, stressors, relationships, schedules, and countless other variables that influence how you approach eating and exercise.

That's why I want you to learn to trust yourself to figure out what actually works in your life.

And this is where my approach to change may feel a little different.

We're often told that we need to take action first.

Do the workouts.

Follow the eating plan.

Build the habits.

Achieve the goals.

And eventually, we're supposed to start believing that we're the person we've been trying to become.

But when does that happen?

How many workouts are enough?

How much weight do you need to lose?

How many goals do you need to accomplish before you finally decide that you're capable, consistent, or worthy of feeling good about yourself?

If you're constantly waiting for another accomplishment to give you that feeling, the finish line can keep moving.

That's why I encourage you to approach this from the opposite direction.

Decide that you're capable of figuring this out before you have all the answers.

You don't have to know exactly what your eating plan will look like.

You don't have to have the perfect workout routine.

You don't have to know how every challenge is going to unfold.

You simply need to commit to trusting yourself to learn, adapt, and figure things out as you go.

Then the actions you take become ways to reinforce the decision you've already made.

You're not exercising to someday become someone who believes in themselves.

You're exercising as someone who has already decided they're capable of building an active lifestyle.

You're not learning about nutrition because you can't trust yourself around food.

You're learning how to create an eating plan that supports your preferences, your goals, and the life you want to live.

And you're not waiting for a particular result before giving yourself permission to appreciate who you are.

You're practicing that appreciation throughout the process.

Now, that doesn't mean everything suddenly becomes easy.

You're going to have moments of doubt.

You're going to make adjustments.

You're going to learn things that challenge what you previously believed.

And you're certainly not going to be perfect.

But none of those experiences mean your original decision was wrong.

They simply become part of learning how to follow through on it.

Trust yourself first. Let your actions reinforce that trust.

Give yourself time, continue showing up, and allow the momentum to build.

You have an entire lifestyle to create, and you don't need every answer before you begin.