Do You Have The Right Support to Make Progress?

There's a lot to be said for getting the right support when progress isn't happening.

Twice a week I spend 45 minutes cursing through strength training with my trainer. I negotiate the number of reps, the number of sets and the weight of each set. I take it as a personal challenge to distract her so she’ll go easier on me (I now know ALOT about her love life). She hasn't figured out that part of my strategy yet, so I'm hoping she doesn't read this.

When I say I’m nauseous, she responds that there’s a bucket over there. When I say I can’t, she won’t hear it. It’s not in her vocabulary.

She rolls her eyes at my complaining.

She stands firm that it isn’t a negotiation.

And I pay her to do that. She understands the assignment.

In fact, I left my previous Pilates instructor because she caved every time I said I didn’t feel like doing something.

The fact is that I barely felt progress with my Pilates instructor. We did the same thing twice a week for 3 years and there was little to no change. With my trainer, I’m hitting personal bests most weeks (the bar is low, so that sounds more impressive than it actually is).

I admit I tried to do this on my own for a while. I have a gym at home. I have weights, and there are apps and online trainers. As strong a mindset as I believe I have, I eventually had to accept I needed (the right) help. Trying to do it all on my own just delayed my progress.

So I found someone to hold me accountable to my bigger goal. No more dodging the discomfort or forcing a situation that was clearly not in my area of strength. To stop procrastinating, I had to remind myself that I was wasting time and that the end result is more important than the short term pain (I've also had to make this a mantra to survive the torture that is hip thrusts).

It's not a failure to ask for help when you're not making the progress you want on your own. There's also not a high likelihood of you starting that goal 'next Monday' if you haven't started it the last 20 Mondays.

Do yourself a favour and find the right person to help you take a step forward, whatever your current challenge is. It can be a mentor, a coach, or just an accountability buddy.

#HighPerformance #GrowthMindset #Coaching #PersonalGrowth #MindsetShift #PersonalDevelopment #Productivity #Leadership