How to Get What You Want - Iron and Grit Fitness

Subj: The only way to get the job done right is to take it seriously ————

Gentleman, I have a confession. I used to be a skinny punk.

I was cleaning up my Facebook recently – deleting old college photos and such – when I came across a picture of me in a short sleeve shirt.

“Holy shit” I said to myself. Man, I was skinny…

I couldn’t believe it. How was that possible? I worked out 4-5 times a week for 5 years and still looked like a pencil neck geek.

Fast forward 4 years and 30 pounds of lean muscle later – I’m sitting at my desk doing some reflecting and it just hits me. I realized why I was so skinny. I know why I wasn’t reaching my full potential. The simple answer is that I wasn’t serious about growing.

I didn’t push myself.

I didn’t track my progress in a workout log.

I didn’t have any specific goals.

I didn’t plan ahead.

I didn’t focus on diet.

I can attribute my skinniness to all of these things but the bottom line is I wasn’t serious…

It’s like I went to the gym for something to do and I thought I was getting something out of it. In reality I was wasting my precious time. Getting to the gym is half the battle, sure. But, making the most of your time in the gym is what counts.

I’d go the the gym. Train hard but I didn’t have any goals, I didn’t keep a workout log to track my progress and make sure I was improving. I ended up just going through the motions. Action without thought is for animals. Animals that just react to their environment. As an intelligent human being you must use your ability to plan, prepare and push through workouts. This is how you make progress. This is how you become better.

I finally realized that if I wanted to improve, I had to get serious. I had to focus on getting the body that I wanted.

I needed a goal.

I needed a plan.

I needed to track my progress.

I needed to push myself.

I had to get serious.

It wasn’t until I got serious about lifting that I made any significant progress. The progress was amazing really.

That was half way through my senior year of college. Over 5 years after I started lifting weights. I had a goal to lift 250 pounds and bulk up to 200 pounds. I then proceeded to made a plan to reach that goal.

I had my goal, I had my plan. Now all I had to do was stick to it. I was lifting hard and heavy three days a week and eating like a horse.

In a few months I hit my goal. So I set a new one and kept going.

My point here is it takes conscious effort to make progress and you have to really want it or you won’t stick to it.

I did a 5×5 workout with heavy barbell movements, at 80-90% of my max almost every day. After my workout I’d eat a box of pasta with three cans of tuna fish mixed with mayonnaise and green olives.

I realize that I practically wasted years in the gym because I wasn’t focused. I focused on lifting as an activity only, not as a means to an end Goal.

Because I had no goal in mind I had no direction – nothing to push me to accomplish, nothing to build upon. Nothing to plan for and work towards. So I drifted from set to set, day after day, year after year – making minimal gains.

My lack of focus caused me to lose out on a lot years to put on some serious muscle mass. Luckily, I learned from my mistake and now work with focus and determination toward a pre determined goal.

Here’s a quick run through of how you can get serious and take control of your workouts.

Visualize:

See yourself from the outside. What do you look like? What do you want to look like? Imagine your perfect self being seen through someone else’s eyes. How do you look? Envision that in your mind for as long as you can, as often as you can. Imagine what you want your muscles to look like while lifting. This is a very important step. The body follows the mind.

Set a Goal:

Set a goal that and write down what you think it will take to get there. Plan it out to the finest detail. What does your progress look like after a week, a month, a year? Keep in mind a year is just 365 days put one after another. What are you going to do each day to make yourself better than the last? What are you doing today to make yourself better than yesterday? What will you do tomorrow to make yourself better than today?

Work Your Ass Off:

Make your goal an absolute priority. This is something you truly want so work hard and work often to reach your goal. Track Your progress. Always be thinking today in terms of tomorrow. Always think days, weeks, months, and years ahead. Play the long game. Train hard and train smart. Push yourself in small increments. Don’t be reckless and get injured. Focus on small improvements each and every day. Push toward your goal, smart and steady.

Evaluate:

Take a step back from your situation and look at the big picture. Have you stayed true to your goal? Do you really want what you said you did? Why or why not? What have you done well? What can you do better to reach your goal faster, easier?

Still don’t know where to start? Here’s a few tipss.

Get a mentor. someone who is buff and tells it to you straight. Someone who already has the body that you want.
Reach out to me. I’ll give you a full evaluation of what you need to do to get the body you want. I offer meal plans and workouts that are customized to your weight loss and strength training goals. Contact me here to get started.

How do you get serious? Did you have a moment similar to mine? Let me know in the comments below.