6 Ways To Manage Expectations About Your Fitness Journey

Are you mindful of your expectations and the effort you put in to warrant those expectations when it comes to your health and fitness journey? The end goal of being more mindful of your expectations is to reduce the potential for unnecessary let downs.

When you’re able to effectively manage your expectations, navigating the ups and downs of all the things life can throw at you, and managing how you respond to those curveballs, becomes a lot easier. Life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to it. 😉

It’s important to recognize that expectations and standards are not necessarily the same thing. You can hold yourself to a certain standard and work hard to ensure your efforts meet those standards, but what you might be expecting to happen with that effort may not match up with reality. This is where we want to take a good, hard look at our effort to see if it warrants the expected outcome we have for our fitness journey. Giving ourselves a reality check isn’t always the easiest thing to do, but this is where learning to manage your expectations helps! So how do we do that? Here are a few guidelines:

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Focus on realistic and attainable expectations. The diet industry has done an amazing job at making us think there’s something wrong with us if we don’t achieve our dream body in 3 days. While I want you to have high hopes for your progress, I don’t want those hopes to be shattered if you don’t achieve them in the time you thought you should. It’s much more beneficial to set short-term, attainable goals that can actually be achieved rather than lofty, long-term goals that usually end up making us feel like a failure and derail all of the hard work we’ve done!

Be stubborn about your goals, but flexible about your methods. You might expect this journey to bring you straight from point A to point B, but maybe life rerouted you to point C. So how do you find your way back to point B? Reassess your routine, figure out where you can tidy things up, and carry on. Don’t get so upset that you veered off course or that it’s taking more time than you expected. The truth is that no journey will look the same or take the same amount of time. Remove any preconceived idea of what a journey should look like and just enjoy your journey for what it is, even if that means you need to take a few detours to find what really works for you!

Don’t make assumptions about your journey. Just because you lost 5 lbs quickly when you were in high school doesn’t mean it’s going to happen that way now. While I understand this can be frustrating, don’t let it be the reason you don’t succeed. Don’t assume it will be as easy as it used to be. I say this not to discourage you but to prevent you from getting so discouraged when you feel you’re doing your best but not seeing change you think you should. 

Communicate openly and honestly with yourself. Open and honest communication with yourself is SO important. Evaluate your thoughts and your efforts, and be aware of how each of those things are affecting your progress. Be mindful of how you talk to yourself, how you cheer yourself on, and give yourself a little pep talk if you know you can do better. 

You get out what you put in. Accept that without dramatizing it. What happens if your expectations were a little off and you didn’t see the progress you were expecting? Reassess and carry on. Please don’t slash your other three tires just because you have one flat. We don’t always hit the mark the first time around and the last thing I want you to do is to tear yourself down. It’s okay to hope for more, but it’s important to accept less than stellar results if you have only been putting in 50% of your effort. Accept your actions and don’t be upset by them or dramatize them because nothing can change them. Simply take the steps needed to learn from that experience and turn a negative into a positive. Always focus your efforts on turning negatives into positives.

Appreciate your life for what it is today. Soooo many people spend their lives wishing next year will be better. They expect that life is going to improve and they don’t focus their efforts on enjoying today; instead, they look forward to tomorrow. Live in the moment and accept that your life as it is today is something to value, cherish, and enjoy. 

To summarize:

💗 Focus on realistic and attainable expectations.
💗 Be stubborn about your goals, but flexible about your methods.
💗 Don’t make assumptions about your journey.
💗 Communicate openly and honestly with yourself.
💗 You get out what you put in. Accept that without dramatizing.
💗 Appreciate your life for what it is today.

Last but not least, don’t expect anyone else to do the hard work for you.

Be the boss of your journey, be relentless, and give yourself a reality check when you need one.