Once again this fall, many Finns embarked on a lifestyle change. After a few weeks, however, many lose their enthusiasm and slip back into their old, familiar routines. Some blame their busy work schedules, while others blame their self-esteem, since their self-discipline wasn’t enough this time either. Often, though, self-discipline has little to do with success, because our current condition is the result of habits we repeat—and habits aren’t changed by self-discipline alone. Habits change when a new way of doing things is maintained consistently and regularly for long enough. In order to sustain a change for a sufficiently long time, the change can be only and exclusively small enough that maintaining it is truly possible for many months in a row. Faced with too big a change, anyone’s self-discipline will run out in a couple of weeks.
So be kind to yourself and look for ways to build lasting change that go beyond self-discipline. One key to success may lie in working with a coach—specifically, a personal trainer. Here are three important reasons why so many people are more likely to succeed in making a change when they have their own coach by their side.
1. Realistic Goals and Measures
So many exercisers fail to recognize their starting point and set realistic goals, resulting in routines that are completely unsuitable for their fitness level and daily lives. Recognizing one’s starting point and setting realistic goals requires in-depth knowledge of various aspects of well-being in order to make realistic assessments and choices. Furthermore, we often see things the way we want them to be, so we aren’t always realistic with ourselves. A trained personal trainer, on the other hand, can view the situation from an outsider’s perspective and is able to quickly identify a client’s starting point based on an interview and simple tests. This allows the trainer to work with the client to set realistic goals and begin developing realistic, sustainable routines that fit into daily life and will help achieve those goals.
2. You’ll train effectively and recover optimally
Planning a progressive training program and balancing it with adequate recovery is no easy task. A professional in the field possesses the necessary expertise to structure your weekly routine in a way that sensibly integrates different training methods and their volume, with a focus on both progress and recovery. A coach ensures that you get enough progressive training to achieve results, but also makes sure that recovery isn’t compromised, because ultimately, that’s the path to effective training and progress.
Personal growth and recovery are always unique to each individual. The same approaches rarely work for everyone. Often, recognizing these situations requires working through them with a professional in the field, who can help you identify different feelings and make the right decisions for moving forward.
3. A coach helps you stay motivated
One of a coach’s roles is to motivate, but an even more important role is to help the client find their own motivation. In other words, the client must find their own inner motivation so that they are committed to working toward their own goals. However, a coach can help identify things—even on a daily basis—that serve as sources of motivation, but which the client may not always notice on their own. Often, we focus only on objective metrics, such as weight, but the problem with these is that results come slowly, and we end up waiting a long time to reach our desired milestones. It’s important to learn to find joy in even the small, everyday insights and successes, which, when added up, create the desired change and lead you to that coveted goal. The most important thing is to notice when your own way of thinking has changed. Ultimately, our thoughts shape what we do every day, who we are, and who we will become. We can and should be grateful for the little things, as they provide the foundation from which to reach great heights.
You've already gotten to know the trainers and training services at your local EasyFit center, right?