I got some great feedback from my latest "Mid-Week Motivation & Real Talk" message that I send to my clients every Thursday.

It changed their perspective (in a good way) to achieving their ideal health and I figured it might change yours, too. :)

Here it was...

Imagine your family at Christmas (I know, I know. It's too early. But bare with me here)...

The laughter. The food. The reminiscing.

However, you won't be there.

The thing is...

You have a big project at work.

You want to crush this project so you can get the promotion you so desperately desired for so long. You want to leave an incredible impression.

So you tell your family, “I won’t be around for Christmas this year as I need to press pause on being a part of this family. I’m so glad to visit, but I’m spending the night at a local hotel to get this project done. So don’t contact me for any reason and Merry Christmas!”

You and I both know that won’t go over well.

We don’t have the “luxury” of pausing being a family member, just like you can’t stop coming to work because you “need a break” and not expect to get fired.

What you may not realize is when it comes to your health, you won’t always be able to go “all in”.

Even the world’s best athletes have games where they struggle and don’t perform well. That doesn’t mean they quit and do another career.

Why do you expect it to be any different with your health? 🤔

You put the pedal to the metal, going 100mph until you suddenly run out of gas or worse - CRASH. 👎

When you approach fitness this way, you don’t build the ability to get fit under “real-world” conditions. That’s why it’s hard to stick to. Not because you’re a failure.

There’s this myth that if you “start fresh” later, you’ll find the “magical right time” to begin.

That’s why there is a plethora of 21-day, 6-week, 8-week, even 90-day programs out there.

No one can commit longer than that to their health with “all-out” effort.

I remember having a client going through a very challenging season in her life including her husband stressed out at work, an aging mother, and her own work deadlines, causing a lot of mental clutter and stress. 

So we worked together on doing just a couple of things to simply “keep going”:

✅ Three 10-minute walks per week after work to destress and get some fresh air (any more than that is fine, but aiming for 3).

✅ One serving of protein with every meal or snack 80% of the time to limit stress-eating.

It was a foreign concept because she thought this would be a waste of time because it wouldn't make an impact on the scale.

Yet after doing this for a few months during a busy season of her life and leveraging accountability, she was mentally prepared to go "all in" with a little momentum VS starting over when the timing WAS better.

She told me, "I'm starting to finally realize I don't have to accept the pressure to be perfect."

That’s real-world. 👍

The point is to keep going. Sometimes it will be minimal effort and battling defeating thoughts such as "Is this even worth it?" But you keep going anyway.

20% effort is better than 0%. #Science 😏

There will be times where you want to (and can) crank up your focus, and then there are times when you’ll want to (or need to) dial it back.

Many people start with their fitness dial set at 10 out of 10.

Suddenly, life gets in the way.

Do you turn the dial off? Of course not.

What’s important is that the dial is “on”, even if it's at 3 or a 2. And even if your dial is at 1, that’s a big difference from being completely off.

When you realize how effective having a lower dial number is, you’ll see there’s never any reason you need to hit the “off” button on your dial.

As long as your dial is on, you'll succeed BEYOND the scale, which is way more important anyway.

Have a great finish to your week,
Mikey

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I hope that encourages you.

And if you like the idea of stepping away from dieting for good and finding out what works and is sustainable for you, reply to this email with "INTERESTED" and I'll send you a link.

That link will show you in about 5 minutes what is keeping you from losing weight. (Hint: No, it's not a supplement or magic herb).

And if it resonates with you, then we can communicate what it looks like to work with me. 

Either way, I hope you got perspective today,

Coach Mike