Focus on the process not the goal…
“Focus on process“ - what does this mean in nutrition ?
In the last months I watched some motivational videos before I hit the gym and this “Process driven” concept caught my attention. Like the champions are “process driven” not goal driven. But how can we apply this concept in nutrition ?
“Focus on process ”… What does this mean in nutrition ?
For example our nutritional goals can be “eating healthy” (in order to “be healthy”) or “loosing weight” (in order to “be healthy” and “look better”). These are just two general examples, in fact everyone has their own goals. Now let’s analyse the “loosing weight” goal. To achieve this goal we must pass through some processes, we should form some habits, we should give up to some habits but more important we must do some actions.
The wall exercise
Imagine a wall, a 10 meters tall wall. Your goal is to get on the top of the wall.
First approach many of us would opt for :
You come every morning near this wall and look how tall it is and say to yourself “someday I will be on the top” of this wall. Or ”next Monday I will start looking for a solution” to climb this wall. Or you loose hours on the internet searching “how to climb fast a 10 meters wall without any training”.
Do you think you will get any satisfying results this way ? Most probably you won’t get those results, all you had in mind were the results and you are disappointed of you.
Second approach many of us should try :
Think more about the process. To be able to climb that wall you have to develop some skills. To develop these skills you have to form some habits. To form this habits you have to do some actions. This actions can be small and very small but they add one by one and at the end the results will show up. Go to that wall and check the material is made of, see how you can mount some metal bars you can use to help you climbing. Make a list with all the equipment needed. Train your hands muscles to be able to support you weight as you climb. Find the equipment needed for protection. Put yourself in the situation you climbed 9 meters of wall and you do not have any energy left. You have to be secured not to fall down. Make a progression plan to climb one meter in the first week and an extra one each week. Every Sunday check your progress. If you get stuck or reach a plateau search help from a specialised trainer …
The result…
It is probably that you did’t climb this wall in the time you planned first. But after trying this way you sure had some results and now you know more about you. You know what worked and what did not. You now what can be improved…Maybe you managed to climb 5 meters and you are happy. Maybe you climbed the 10 meters wall and now you are searching a 20 meters one… Who knows… But the most important thing is you tried, you made some small actions… the process…
Speaking about the loosing weight goal (or eating healty). The sum of small actions bring you the success. Every small action counts. The 35 salads you ate during last month counted for sure to the 2 kilos lost. The 25 minutes walking sessions helped your brain refresh and brought your blood pressure to normal. The 5 minutes you woke up earlier every day to prepare your lunch casserole, the 5 minutes you spent reading the food labels and the 5 minutes you spent every evening analyse what you did that day over what you could have done… Every small action is a small success is like a molecule of your goal. Prepare and plan your actions, your environment and yourself for the process. Do it on your own pace by giving yourself time by completing small tasks not by postponing big tasks.
“Only the disciplined ones are free in life. If you are undisciplined you are a slave of your moods, you are a slave of your passions…“ Eliud Kipchoge - the under 2 hours moarathonist…
