The Main Thing (4min Read)

One of my favorite pieces of information I’ve garnered from working with mentors is:  “the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.”

If we take this outlook and aim it toward health and fitness goals (specifically, your health and fitness goals), what we realize is working on too many goals is a recipe for quitting.

…not failing.  Quitting.

When You’re First Starting

You probably reached a point in your life where you decided that enough was enough.  You decided that you wanted to take ownership of your health and fitness and operatively do something about it.

That’s great!

You probably also found that you got fed up with several things and decided to work on all of these things at once..

This is not great.

If this is you, what you might not have realized is this is potentially self-sabotage.

New Habits

When you’re diving into new habits, what your first thought is [usually] turns out to be “all or nothing.”  If you’re in the all or nothing camp and you miss a day… it’s not “all” anymore.  It becomes “nothing.”

So, in spite of the fact that you’ve done a really great job at instilling a new habit, simply because you missed a single day in what might otherwise be a great streak, you’re prone to quit.

Multiply this by three or four or five different new habits at once.  The miss rate multiplies and your quit rate multiplies even more!

Leverage A Better Way

Ask yourself these questions:

1. “Do all of my goals share a common thread?”
2. Or, “is there one goal that stands above the rest in importance?”

Focus on the most important thread or the most important goal – this is your “main thing.”

When creating a new habit, you want to build momentum.  You want to have so many “votes” for the person you want to become that if/when you miss, it’s not a huge deal.  Not only that, but you are beginning to teach yourself that success is the sum of these habits and not a single “event.”

More than that, you are able to focus on one thing and not five things.  How much easier is it to focus on a single thing than five?

All Or Nothing Or…

If you are the product of what you do most of the time, it stands to reason that you don’t have to be 100% on point 100% of the time.  I’m a fan of 80/20 or 90/10.

Understand that when you miss, that fits into the plan.  The 80/20 plan, that is.

80% of the time is still most of the time.  Want more?  How about 90% of the time.  Just make sure it’s not “all or nothing.”

What’s Your Main Thing?

Sometimes it is obvious what your main thing is.  If you’re not sure, you need to seek out a health and fitness professional to help you with this:  a CrossFit coach or a Personal Trainer are my first choices.

Reach out to them and have them help you figure out what your main thing is:

• Your Personal Trainer is someone who has a vested interest in getting you to your goals
• Your Personal Trainer will help you figure out if there is a common link between your goals or if there is one that stands out above the rest
• And, your Personal Trainer will help build you a plan to get that one thing!

From there, it boils down to executing on the plan!  Want to chat with some amazing trainers to help you do this?  Click HERE to set up your free consult and we’d be happy to help you figure out your main thing.

If Nothing Else

If you get nothing else from this and want to start taking action today (not tomorrow, not next week, not when things “slow down”), here’s your list:

1. Write out your health and fitness goals.  Yes, all of them.
2. Take a few minutes and write out the “why” of all your goals.  Ask yourself, “why is this goal important to me?”  Sometimes writing out your why puts things into context and helps you figure out the weight of each of your goals.
3. Put your goals in order of how much weight they carry for you.  In other words, how important are each of your goals based on your “why?”
4. Now that you’ve got an order, focus on your first one.
   • This will help you make your decisions about your habits going forward until you reach your goal
5. Then, and only then, should you ever worry about executing on any of your other goals.

A quick note based on personal, and professional, experience:  you might find that once you hit your first goal, things change for you.  You might find that after you hit your main goal that the subsequent goals are way easier!  You might also find that after you hit your main goal that the other goals you have are no longer your goals!

So, get up.  Write down your goals and keep “the main thing the main thing.”