Living In The Present
I became a Personal Trainer to inspire people, but the reality is, it is the people I have met along my journey that have inspired me.
One of my clients in particular has a profound way of viewing the world, and said something a few weeks back which changed the way I see things. They said ‘there is no future and there is no past, all we have is what is happening right now.’
It got me thinking, what is the point of worrying about the future or regretting things in the past when the only thing we can control is the very moment we are living in?
No matter how much you plan/worry about the future or analyze the past, you are never sure how life is going to turn out. How many times have you tried planning something but it just didn’t work out the way you wanted? Trying to control everything never works out, it just causes more stress.
Now this brings me back to one of my favourite topics…stress! You may not realise it, but living too far in the future (or too far in the past) is often a great cause of stress. Whether it is worrying about your body image, future finances’ or career, the stress caused from not living in the current moment can be extremely detrimental to your present mindset. Think about it, how often have you devoted time to worrying about something that probably did not even happen or even matter if it did?!
Lets relate this to body image for a second. Think back to a year ago…I am sure there was a point where you had an event coming up (holiday, birthday, dinner etc) and were worrying about how you would look. But when the event came did you really care? Probably not!
I know this personally as I have been there many times before. Coming from a past of having an eating disorder, I wasted too much time worrying about how my body looked whether it be that day, in a few hours time, the next day or even for an event months away. I would often not go out for fear it would ruin how I looked or worry so much in the days or months leading up to it that I purposely missed other social events and wasted massive chunks of my life! Yes, this is an extreme example, but I am sure you can all relate to it to a certain extent. You spend so much time fretting about body image when all that matters is how you mentally handle it right this second.
Once you mentally reset your way of thinking from ‘once I reach this goal‘ or ‘once I lose x % body fat’ you will be amazed how much more you enjoy your training, take the pressure off of your nutrition and enjoy more of the small things that really matter in life.