Posts Tagged mental
Drop the Anchor…
Posted by Matt Hoover in General on August 11th, 2010
Yesterday I shared how I had been in a little funk. It amazes me how the simple act of “coming clean” can improve how you feel so quickly.
Sometimes the things that we are carrying around as baggage seem like a giant anchor that is just holding us back. Most people that have ever boated know that in order to move you have to pull up your anchor. It is possible to move the boat while it is still anchored, but it takes a lot more power and you won’t get any place to quickly. Once that anchor is pulled up, however, that boat will cut through the water with relative ease.
Why is it so hard to pull up our own anchor? Once we do, things tend to go easier. Unfortunately, many of us choose to simply walk around dragging that anchor around like it is attached to our body like an arm. It’s time to pull up anchor and move forward.
The things that have been holding us back or dragging us down are only able to do so when we give them permission. Pull that sucker up and go!
See you tomorrow!
Are You Living Out of Fear or Without Fear?
Posted by Matt Hoover in General on June 30th, 2010
Researchers have diagnosed over 2000 known phobias or fears. That is a huge number of fears that people struggle with everyday. Here is the interesting part. Guess how many of those 2000 diagnosed fears we are born with. Think about it for a minute, the answer may surprise you. Those same researchers have found that humans are born with 2, that is right, TWO innate fears. The fear of loud noises and the fear of falling are the only fears that we are born with. The rest are learned.
So the question is, how do we learn to overcome our fears? We have to do exactly that, learn to overcome fear. Any habit that is learned can be unlearned. Unfortunately, sometimes unlearning habits is harder than learning them. Often it takes longer and come sometimes be physically uncomfortable but it can be done.
The thing about fear is that it must be faced. We will never overcome fear by running from it. The first step in overcoming a fear, or fears is to identify that fear. Second we must acknowledge that fear and third we need to develop the steps we need to take to beat that fear.
Our minds are like a giant storage cabinet. Inside those files are all of the experiences we have had throughout our lives. When we face a situation we draw form those files to decide how we are going to react. That is the key. WE decide how we are going to react to a situation. If we have operated out of fear most of our lives, we will more than react with fear.
In order to stop living out of fear we must reprogram and refile our reactions. It starts with one act of courage. It starts by decidng that we are going to react to situations differently than we have in the past. After we react positively enough times those old negastive files will be replaced ant thrown out with the trash. It will become easier and easier to react in the way that will move us forward toward where we want to go.
As I said earlier fear and old habits can be unlearned. The process does take longer than initially learning something because we must first unlearn and then relearn the new habit. The act of unlearning takes work. We have to commit to our new thought patterns and choose to implement those new ideas at the appropriate times rather than reacting as we have in the past.
This can be difficult because even though we may know our habits haven’t been working they are familiar to us and therefore easier even if the results we have achieved have been less than ideal. In essence, we may have to be uncomfortable as we begin facing our fears. As we relearn our new habits, that uncomfortableness will subside and will become easier and more natural.
Today is a great time to start facing our fears and stop living out of that fear. become fearless!
See you tomorrow!
Break Down….
Posted by Matt Hoover in General on June 21st, 2010
After last week, I feel a little bad to report that life isn’t a big bowl of cherries here at The Biggest Loser Resort today. It was a rough day and it all started with a genuine compliment from someone.
What are you talking about Matt? How can a compliment mess up your day? Let me explain. Last night I didn’t sleep well. I can tell I am losing weight and my body has changed a lot in the past week. I was actually worried that someone might say something today and someone did.
The reason I struggled with this is because for some reason when people tell me I am looking good or that they can tell I am losing weight, I almost always take a day off and go eat. The day turns into two and often turns into a week until I am back where I Started.
I don’t know why, but it seems like a positive comment from someone gives me permission to slack off. Rather than going out and feeding my face, I stopped into the office of one of the staff here at Fitness Ridge. As I told her what happened and how I reacted, I realized how out of line my thinking was. Rather than appreciating the fact that someone was recognizing my hard work, I was trying to make it harder on myself.
I set a goal for the day to stick to the nutrition plan and finish all my workouts. I did that. Now at the end of the day, I sit here and realize that if I am going to have long term and lasting results, I have got to change the way I see myself and more importantly the way I talk to myself.
Unless I am willing to accept praise and appreciate the work I am doing today I am always going to go right back to where I started. Things, especially weight loss, don’t have to always be hard. I have been making it hard on myself by feeling like I have to be in constant struggle in order to being doing a good job.
These thoughts have led me to struggle in other areas that I don’t need to struggle in as well. Today I finally recognized them and on top of that, I verbalized them. I made it through the day and feel that I will pick up where I left off last week tomorrow.
The focus this week. Change the way I talk to myself. I am worth it and don’t have to make things difficult on myself in order to acheive success. As one of the trainers said today, “Don’t let the only person standing in the way of your success be YOU!” Great advice at a great time.
See you tomorrow!
Taking the Great Leap of Faith…
Posted by Matt Hoover in General on June 2nd, 2010
About a month ago I got an email from a lady named Jana. She lives in Utah and wrote to ask if we would ever consider working with someone to help them get started down the road to fitness. I am passionate about helping people so I was happy to try and help.
I get several emails a day from people asking for help, but many people aren’t ready to accept help. When I respond to them it is then up to them to follow through. Unfortunately, most people don’t. Many just want to share their feelings and that is it. When Jana responded back, I knew she was serious.
We emailed back and forth a couple of times and came up with a plan. The plan was that she would come to Seattle and work with Suzy and I. I was asking her to make a commitment to us, a financial commitment, a time commitment, and most importantly a time commitment.
Many people are afraid to really commitment. Jana has a husband, 4 boys, one who is Autistic, but she was willing to make a commitment. She is now here this week. She is doing things she never thought she was capable, but most importantly, she is honoring her commitment to herself.
Jana did something huge, she reached out for help and then accepted that help once offered. So many time people talk about what they want to do or are going to do, and then never do anything. We are so proud of her. In just a couple of days we have seen a huge change in her attitude and mind set. Sure she is sore and I would imagine that at times she questions why she decided to come, but the fact is she IS here.
There is nothing more rewarding than seeing a person change their life and to be part of that change. I would love to take credit for what is happening in this woman’s life, but the fact is that SHE is doing it.
Jana has shown this week that it is not enough to go to the precipice of change and stare over the edge. You have to be willing to take that leap and embrace all that making a change has to offer.
Takin My Own Advice….
Posted by Matt Hoover in General on February 10th, 2010
Have you ever just wanted to kick yourself for not listening to yourself? I know I have. In fact, as a speaker I have been telling other people the keys to being fit. I am going to admit that sometimes the hardest person to motivate is myself.
I bet I am not alone. I see people every year come off The Biggest Loser vowing never to gain weight back or put all their weight back on. Guess what, every year someone who said those words in front of millions inevitably does the exact thing they said they wouldn’t.
I’ve experienced it myself. I gained weight after the show. I am talking about weight beyond the simple act of re hydrating after cutting weight for the finale. In fact, I got myself fat again. I believe a lot of it had to do with focusing so hard on not gaining weight again.
Let me explain what I mean. I have found in my own life that what I focus on is what I get. More specifically, the way I speak internally almost always manifests itself. Did you know that studies have shown that our subconscience is not capable of interpreting negative words? If I say “Don’t eat that brownie.” My subconscious mind hears “Eat that brownie.” It has been proven over and over that no matter how many times we put a negative word in front of a comment to our self we don’t hear it.
When it comes to weight gain I have found that the more I focus on what I don’t want to do the more I am drawn to it. “Don’t eat too much.” is a signal to my brain to go for it. ”Don’t sleep in tomorrow.” almost always lead to extra time in bed.
Positive phrases yield positive results. ” I want to eat lean meats and veggies and drink more water.” leads me to crave those things. Our brains are like giant computers that need to have data input manually. The type of data we put in is the type of results we get. Make sense?
To be successful we need to be constantly feeding ourselves positive input. Leave off the negatives when you talk to yourself and see what happens in your own life. I am going to set a goal to do this for one week. I hope you will join me and I will revisit this topic next week. Let’s see what happens when we listen to our own positive advice!
See you tomorrow!
In Defense of Erik Chopin…..Season 3 Biggest Loser
Posted by Matt Hoover in General on January 19th, 2010
I don’t want to count calories! I don’t like to count calories! I have to count calories! It has finally sunken in that I am not blessed with a body that allows me to work out and then eat anything I want. It is no secret that I have struggled with my weight since winning The Biggest Loser. I want to talk about it today.
With all the controversy as of late about The Biggest Loser I have decided to give my two cents. Many people who follow the Biggest Loser also tuned in to see the Discovery channel special on Erik Chopin, the winner of season 3, who has put back on a good chunk of his weight that he lost on the show. After reading some of the comments that people were writing about his episode I felt it necessary to talk about a few things.
One of the things that I saw over and over was a pretty nasty comment about how he wasted his opportunity and it was especially disgraceful since he won money. First, he didn’t waste his opportunity. He won the show! I want people to understand that being on The Biggest Loser and losing weight in that environment is completely different than doing it in the real world.
People, including myself, get the results they do because the only thing they have to do is work on losing weight. They don’t have to go to work, or take care of their kids, they only have one thing to do and that is lose weight. When I was on the ranch there was no television, no internet, no magazines, no phone calls, in essence no distractions. ANY person in that environment can lose that kind of weight.
Here is the thing about being on the show. I have never been to prison, but I imagine that coming home from BL is a little like being released from prison. Although one may go through a serious transformation and may see the error of their ways, the minute they leave that structured and regimented environment, they are faced with many of the same temptations they faced before they went in. Even though the individual may have undergone a significant transformation both physically and mentally while away, they are returning home to people who may not have done any changing.
The thing about being on the show is that after you come home you are still working toward the goal of winning the cash prize at the finale. To use the prison analogy, you are on probation upon release. But what happens when you get off probation, in effect step on the scale for the last time? Many criminals tend to go back to their old ways. On The Biggest Loser, many begin to think that their struggle with weight is over, that they are rehabilitated. I did!
There is certain euphoria that comes with winning a reality show and all of the sudden becoming a “celebrity”. For a while that euphoria seems to be enough to help you want to stay on track, you are eager to show people how great you are doing since being on the show. After a while the cameras fade and real life sets in. It is at that time that a few past winners began to lose focus.
For me, the thinking was like this. “At least I’ve kept off 120 pounds… at least I’ve kept off 110… at least I’ve kept off…” It is a vicious pattern because after losing so much weight I kind of felt like I deserved to gain a little weight. That right there was a problem in my thinking. I was setting myself up to gain weight again and I did.
I am going to spend the rest of this week sharing my thoughts on this and what life is like for a “weight loss celebrity”
See you tomorrow!
The Key to Consistency is Being Consistent!
Posted by Matt Hoover in General on January 12th, 2010
As we proceed deeper into the new year at what seems to be an incredible rate of speed, I am forced to come to some self realization.
When the new year started I decided that I was going to be more consistent with things in my life. This blog, for example, is something I wanted to be more consistent about. Looking back over the past year of my pieces showed me that I was rather sporadic. I’d have a week of blogs then some time off, then another week and some time off.
What became painfully obvious to me was that doing something consistently for a week does not make one consistent. In other words, to be consistent we need to do things consistently week after week.
Only by being consistently consistent can we consistently be consistent! Alright, now I even feel like I have taken this a little too far. But maybe I haven’t. One of the other things that I have come to see is that, unfortunately, being inconsistent can be some people’s only form of consistency.
Whether we choose to accept it or not, we are all either consistently consistent OR consistently inconsistent. I really don’t see any middle ground.
I am going to come clean right now. Last year I was more inconsistent than consistent. I found myself focusing in on some very direct goals while losing site of others. By doing this I was able to have some amazing experience but I missed out on some opportunities as well.
Had I been consistent, who is to say what other things may have arisen. Here is the thing about inconsistency. When we are inconsistent we can never fully realize our potential. The only way to maximize our potential and increase opportunities to reach that potential is by becoming and being consistent.
This year I am going to be consistently consistent with my faith, my family, my exercise, my nutrition, my business, my blogging, well with everything that I set inside my heart and mind to acheive.
This is going to be an awesome year. And if nothing else, a consistent one!
New Year Note
Posted by Matt Hoover in General on January 1st, 2010
I am not going to spend a lot of time talking about resolutions today. Everywhere you look and everyone you talk to is going to be telling you how to make and keep resolutions. Just like every other year many people are going to read about resolutions and get all fired up for a solid week or two. Unfortunately, after that short amount of time many people are going to start saying “Well there is always next year.” Have you ever noticed how packed the gyms are the first month of the new year? Have you noticed how spacious the gym feels by the second month?
Here is the deal, all of us know how to make resolutions and all of us know what we need to do to keep them. Very few are willing to do the work that we know we need to do to succeed at what ever we have set out to do in the new year.
When I turned on my computer this morning the lead story on my home page said: Americans look back at difficult decade. That headline is an excellent example of why many don’t suceed at acheiving their new resolutions. They start their year off looking back rather than deciding to move forward. They concentrate on what went wrong rather than looking at where they are today and how they are going to improve.
The new year isn’t an opportunity to go back and fix the events of last year. The new year is an opportunity to begin anew and to do something everyday that is going to make our lives better. This year I want to encourage you to change the words you use as you set out to acheive the goals you have made for this year.
Let’s not talk about all of the things we aren’t going to do and start talking about the things we are. Let me briefly explain why this is so important. If we talk about the things we are not going to do it is easy to beat ourselves up and feel bad when those things happen. When we talk about the things we will do, and then do them, we will be able to speak positively to ourselves and see the progress we are making. The more we see positive results the more we want to continue to experience them.
This year can be a great year! In order for it to be a great year it is up to us to make it happen. Be positive and take action then next year you won’t have to set the same goals that you did this year.
Wake Up!
Posted by Matt Hoover in General on December 17th, 2009
The alarm clock buzzed at 5:30 this morning. It was still dark and I could just feel that it was going to be freezing cold outside. To stop the ringing of the alarm I didn’t just push snooze, I turned it off fully expecting to stay under the warm covers.
I lay there thinking about all the reasons to stay in bed: I am sore and need to recover. I have a little cough, maybe I am getting sick. I’ve worked hard this week, I deserve a day off. No one will notice if I am there or not. I’m not hurting anyone by not going. It’s still dark out!
As you can see, there was no lack of excuses to stay in bed. Then it hit me. In the same amount of time it took for me to think up all of those excuses I could have stood up and got moving. Rather than getting up right then, I started thinking of rebutals to all the excuses I had just made for myself.
I am sore…. So what, if I don’t work through this I will continue to be sore everytime I do these workouts and the fact is that I am going to continue to be sore for a while since I am pushing myself again in wrestling.
I have a cough, maybe I am getting sick…. Maybe I just have a cough. If I get up I will know whether or not I am sick or not. If I don’t get up I will lay here and convince myself that I am sick and waste a whole day.
I deserve a day to rest…… I will get a day to rest on Sunday. I deserve to get up and push myself to improve a little more today!
No one will notice if I there or not….. Actually, my team mates will notice, they will be there putting the work in to become champions and it isn’t fair to them that I “need” a little more sleep. If I am not there the guy I would have worked out with won’t have a partner. Someone WILL notice!
I’m not hurting anyone by not going…. I am hurting someone, myself. I am also hurting my family who allowed me to come here to chase my dream. I am cheating them and myself by not doing what I came here to do!
Next time you are laying in bed making up reasons not to or don’t feel like going to work out, ask yourself if those reasons are really that good or if you should call them what they are. Bad EXCUSES!
Stop Psyching Yourself Out!
Posted by Matt Hoover in General on August 12th, 2009
This weekend I will be competing in my first Ironman 70.3 (half Ironman). The race will consist of a 1.2 mile swim, a 56 mile bike ride and a 13.1 mile run. Lately as I have been talking to people they will ask me what I think it will be like to run a half marathon after swimming and biking. I always tell them that I will give them an answer after I do it.
A half marathon? Wow, that really sounds intimidating. I have chosen not to call it a half marathon when I am talking to others. Somehow just calling it a 13.1 mile run makes it seem less intimidating to me.
Our minds are amazing and sometimes mysterious things. I know that 13.1 miles is technically a half marathon and when a person hears the word marathon they almost instantly start thinking of the Boston or Chicago Marathons. They envision people crawling across the finish lines and cramping up. They envision pain and suffering.
Lets think about this. How can you get yourself excited for something that conjures up such vivid images of pain? The answer is simple, you replace those images in your mind. Is me saying 13.1 mile run rather than half marathon going to make it less difficult? Not necessarily, but it does alleviate the stress in my own mind.
It really doesn’t matter what the endeavor is, the way your mind perceives it makes all the difference. Even with weight-loss you can substitute words to make the potentially long journey less stressful. When I weighed over 350, it was intimidating to think of the huge amount of weight I needed to lose. In fact, for years it was so intimidating that I simply chose to do nothing.
I would psych myself out before I even began. I know I am not alone in doing this. Often we start out with the best intentions only to get frustrated when we realize the enormity of what we have decided to do. This is exactly when we need to think of what we are saying to ourselves.
If I needed to lose 100 pounds and only focused on the number 100 I would undoubtedly get discouraged when each week I only saw a 1-2 pound loss. If after a week I got on the scale and saw that I still needed to lose 98 pounds chances are I would immediately think “I am still so close to having to lose 100 pounds.” Because of shows like The Biggest Loser, many of us feel that we should be losing outrageous numbers each week.
The reality is that if we would shift our focus from the 100 pounds that we need to lose over to the 2 pounds that we did lose, our journey could become much more enjoyable and manageable.
Don’t be afraid to trick yourself and don’t be embarrassed by the tricks that work for you. Break the big challenge down and press on toward your goal. It may be as simple as changing the marathon of weight-loss to the 26.2 miles of weight-loss. It’s still a long way to go, but can conjure up two completely different images.
When it comes to psyching ourselves out, we have to personally give our minds permission to allow it to happen.
