How To Use Your Strengths To Achieve Your Fitness Goals
Achieving your goals isn’t always easy, but there are powerful strategies that can improve your chances of success. One important strategy is to use your strengths to achieve your fitness goals.
When I speak to people about their health and fitness, they often focus on the negatives. They talk about the barriers to exercise; all the reasons they can’t stick to their workouts, their previous failures, their bad habits.
That’s normal. Our brains are predisposed to negativity. We tend to remember bad experiences more than good ones and criticisms more than compliments.
While it’s normal to focus on the negatives, it’s very unhelpful when it comes to achieving your goals.
I see it all the time. People think they just need to get tough on themselves, push harder, or take a “no pain no gain” approach. Unfortunately, those things don’t work, at least not for long.
Instead, you should focus on the positives and leverage your existing strengths and previous successes.
We all have personal strengths and positive attributes. To overcome the obstacles to leading a healthy lifestyle, it’s just a matter of finding those strengths and using them to your advantage.
How Your Strengths Help You Reach Your Goals
I had a client who was having trouble sticking to her exercise program. She had tried everything: personal training, group fitness classes, expensive home exercise equipment. She would do great for a few weeks, then fall off the wagon.
In July, we were chatting between sets and she mentioned that she would be hosting Thanksgiving at her house for the first time. She had already started working on the menu, more than 3 months ahead of time. “I’m a planner”, she said, and I noticed a little glint in her eye and a sense of pride when she said it.
It got me thinking. How could she leverage that strength, being someone who likes to plan and organize ahead of time, to help her be more consistent with her fitness?
It doesn’t seem like it would be useful, and when I started talking to her about it she was confused as to the relevance. But every strength can be used to help you achieve your goal.
In her case, we talked about why planning ahead was important to her. She said planning was just something she had always done. It came pretty easily to her, it made her feel more in control, and it had helped her be successful at work and in her personal life in the past.
Turning that skill towards her fitness routine could give her confidence that she would be successful in the future, since it had worked for her in other areas.
That was something she really needed, since she had struggled so much with fitness in the past. She could connect those positive feelings to fitness, which would help motivate her.
Next, we talked about how she could use those planning skills to help her with her fitness. She started using the organization tools that she already used for other tasks (a whiteboard list on her fridge and her online calendar) to schedule her workouts and other habits.
These are simple strategies, but the real magic was in helping her realize that she was using her skills in pursuit of her goals.
Instead of going through the motions of scheduling her healthy habits, she was aware of what she was really doing and why. Each time she planned ahead she got a little confidence boost and motivation.
It worked. Her fitness planning became just another part of her daily routine, and she started to be more consistent with her workouts.
How To Identify and Leverage Your Strengths
Think about what you do well at home and at work. Are you good at organizing or time management? Are you creative, or a good leader?
If you’re not sure, ask the people close to you. It’s hard for us to evaluate ourselves, but we can easily see strengths in other people.
Sometimes a quality might not seem like it would help with a health and fitness goal, but any strength can be leveraged.
You might use your strength to overcome a barrier, find motivation, or structure your goals properly. Maybe you just need to remind yourself of your strengths when you’re having a hard time so you can refocus and push through a tough period.
Here’s a list of some strengths and positive qualities to help you brainstorm:
How To Use Your Strengths To Achieve Your Fitness Goals
Once you’ve identified your strengths, think of some ways you can use those strengths to achieve your fitness goals.
If you’re outgoing, maybe you could start a workout group with some friends and neighbors. If you’re a curious person, explore how you could turn that curiosity towards your fitness program. Maybe you could read and learn more about fitness and how it affects your body.
If you identify a strength that you have in other areas of your life but that seems to disappear when it comes to sticking to your workouts, that’s an opportunity to learn and grow.
Perhaps you have a lot of persistence when it comes to your work, but you give up on your fitness goals easily when you hit an obstacle. Do some soul-searching and figure out why. What keeps you going in one situation, and how can you apply that to your fitness?
Do you find it easier to be persistent when there’s a goal or metric you’re working towards? Set one for your workouts.
Do you need accountability to be persistent? Announce your plans to family and friends for some social reinforcement.
Is it out of necessity, since your work is what pays the bills? Think about how necessary your health is and what you would lose if you don’t prioritize it.
Take your time and really think this through. Your health and fitness will thank you!
It can be tough to identify your own strengths and even tougher to figure out how to leverage them to achieve your goals. It can help to have someone to talk it out with. If you need help, contact me!