Mindset is something I love to talk about when it comes to women’s fitness. Most of the time when I first meet a client, they are struggling with the mindset. They want to do the exercise but they don’t know how to begin or don’t even think they are capable.

When we work together on the mindset, the changes really happen.
I was listening to a recent podcast, something I love to do, and I loved the concept of the Fixed and Growth Mindset. It’s a theory Carol Dweck came up with over 30 years ago.
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We’ll use exercise for an example and let’s say you have never exercised before. If you have a FIXED mindset, you’ll think that you’ll never be able to exercise the way you see others exercise and that you’re just not an active person. You decide it’s not for you and use it as an excuse not to start, even though you know it would be good for you. We’ve all done this with some area of our life.

Through my years as a personal trainer to women and observing and interacting with their health, fitness and wellness challenges, the biggest struggle is with forming healthy habits that stick around and don’t become a ‘I will do that one day when I have more time.’
The truth is that day will never come and we can use procrastination as a way of protecting ourselves, a way to mask the fear around failing. ‘If I don’t start, then I can’t fail!’
Think about how it would feel if you could build in a new healthy habit that will incorporate into your life, increase your happiness levels and the loved ones around you? Isn’t it worth trying again?  The healthy habits we want the most can also be the hardest to achieve but even more satisfying when we do.
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To comfort you and your fears, know that it is much harder to develop new healthy habits as an adult. The programming in our subconscious locked in there from a very early age is controlling our everyday decision making. We also have less free neurological connections dancing around to make new neural pathways. To build new neuropathways, we must override the negative pathways.

After working with so many different women, guiding and supporting them to reach their fitness and wellness goals, I thought it would help you to put down a few pointers to help you on your way. Is there a new behaviour that you’d like to invite into your life?