Self-Awareness In Your Training

Today, we explore self-awareness and why it is SO important to your long-term training success.

​Episode Transcript:

[0:00] All right. Hello, hello, ladies and gentlemen. And in today's episode, we are talking through one of the most valuable characteristics that you can

[0:07] have to help with your long-term training success. Now, I've been coaching in one shape, form, or another since I was 16 years old.

[0:19] I am now, at the time of recording, 33 years old. So that's 17 years of helping people in various situations, various different contexts, various different sports, aspects of fitness or whatever may be. And over that time, I've trained hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people and been involved in so many more journeys as well in a massive spread of context. And today I want to talk you through a characteristic which I've seen is a defining feature over the years from those who see progress and success and see the results that they want, and a characteristic which is usually lacking from those who feel like they should be moving forward, but never really seem to get where they want.

[1:11] Now, this characteristic, as much despite popular belief, it's not determination, it's not motivation, it's not mental strength. It isn't hard work or grit or anything like that. It isn't even consistency or positivity, though both of those are very, very valuable and very, very, very important. The characteristic we're talking through today is self-awareness. Now, humans, on average are not very good at self-awareness. I'm not good at it. You're not good at it. Anyone listening to this podcast probably isn't good at it in a broad aspect of our lives. You know, we can take the whole concept of body image where, you know, we are just not aware of where we look or what we look like or how we fit into society or whatever may be. And that's a crazy topic in itself. But just as a whole, humans are just not super aware of what's going on with themselves.

[2:08] And we're really, really, really good at tricking ourselves or ignoring things and just not having a clear awareness around what's going on. And when it comes to training, this specifically comes into what we're talking about today, is just not having a huge amount of awareness around what we're actually doing. And not just day-to-day, but week-by-week and month-by-month. To give you an example of this and kind of show what I'm talking about. If I took someone who was having success with their training, and it could be a hiker, it could be a mountaineer, it could be someone trying

[2:40] to lose weight, it could be someone trying to put a muscle on, anything like that. If I took someone, just a random person who has seen success with their training and they'll progress in the way they wanted, and I asked them, what did you do for training three weeks ago? 99% of the time, they could give me a very clear answer. They could say, hey, I did this session, I did this session, Maybe this day wasn't super good, so I kind of skipped things, but I did this session or whatever it may be. And then if we referenced it against any records they had, if they had a training diary or a journal or whatever it may be, it would line up.

[3:15] And it will be like, hey, this session you said you did this and you did it. This session you said you did this and you did it. This session you said you missed and you didn't do it. And it would line up with whatever records they had. Alternatively, if I took someone who wasn't really seen success, who thought they were moving forward, should be moving forward, and they weren't seen success, if I asked them, what did you do for training three weeks ago? They would probably be a bit stumped. They'd be like, I'm not quite sure. And then they would give a really, really rough answer saying, you know what, I did some walking, I did some strength or whatever it may be and kind of just sort of say a few things. And then if we referenced it against any records, there would either be two situations. Number one, they wouldn't have any records to speak of. So they're like, well, I said I did this, but I'm not really sure if I did or not. Or whatever they said they did, probably grossly overestimated what they actually did. And they may have said, you know what, I did this on one day, this on another day, this on another day, but we went and looked at the records and maybe they just did one of those or whatever it is. Now, this isn't a dig of people who fall into this in the sense that, as I said, people as a human nature, this is very natural. I do the same thing. If I'm not in a good swing of my training and you asked me what I did three weeks ago, sometimes I'd be like, I don't really know.

[4:37] Human as a general nature isn't amazing at this. And on top of this, our memories are just not great. And it's really, really, really, really easy to forget what we've done. And it's very, very, very difficult to actually think what we did two weeks ago, three weeks ago, four weeks ago. If I asked you what you had for dinner three weeks ago, you wouldn't have a clue. It's perfectly normal. But even though this is normal, it does make it very, very, very easy for us to continually fool ourselves into thinking we are doing so much more than we are often doing. Now, a typical example of this is a conversation I kind of used to have with hikers with foot pain. And I used to have a lot of conversations on calls with hikers with foot pain previously. And over the years, I've had dozens and dozens of this exact conversation I'm about to lay out. And these days, I don't really follow the same conversation scheme because I didn't really feel like it was quite as valuable as I thought or whatever it may be. But the lesson still stands. I'm going to talk you through this. And it may sound a little bit like, you know, confronting, and I don't really talk about it anymore, but it'll give you an idea. Now, most people who struggle with foot pain, plantar fasciitis or something like that, usually have gone to see a physio, a physical therapist, a podiatrist at some stage. You know, foot pain sucks. Usually, people reach out for help. And usually, people have been given some exercises.

[5:59] And people, when we're talking with them, they'll often say, hey, I saw this person, I was giving some exercises and I've been doing them, but it hasn't really helped. And that was kind of how the conversation started. And quite often in this situation, I would ask them, how long have you been doing these exercises for? And they'd say, I've been doing them for a number of weeks or a number of months or whatever it may be. I would ask them how often they were supposed to do them. And they would say anywhere from three times a week to every day or whatever it may be, depending on their situation.

[6:28] And I'd be like, okay, cool. So you've been doing them for weeks or months. You've been asked to do them multiple times a week or whatever it is. And then we'll get into the specifics. And I'll ask them, how many times did you do your exercises last week? How many times did you do it the week before? And how many times did you do it the week before that? And when we actually drilled into the specifics, just to get an idea of, right, okay, have you been consistent or is there something missing or whatever may be? Almost always, it would kind of turn out that there hadn't really been a huge amount of consistency. When we actually took the time and effort to think about it, they'd be like, oh, you know what? Actually, in all honesty, I didn't quite do this or I haven't done this or I skipped this week, whatever it may be. And even though it felt like they'd been doing them for themselves consistently week after week after week, it wasn't really the case. Now, the reasons behind this lack of consistency and why it's so common for hunkers with foot pain is a whole different story. And in all honesty, the way most people are set up in this situation with exercises really just does set them up for failure.

[7:26] But that isn't the point in this episode. I'm not going to go down that route. The point is, if you want to see success, you want to be doing what you can to aid your self-awareness so you are aware of what you're doing and you can keep a consistent track of what you're doing.

[7:42] So, you can get the consistency you want and also identify if you're not really sticking with what you need. It's such a simple thing, but it can be so, so, so powerful. But you might be asking right now, it's like, okay, if as general as humans as general nature are not really amazing with this, what can you do? Well, the strategy here is so simple. It's ridiculously simple. And it may sound so simple that you're like, ah, you know what? That's easy enough. I don't really have to do that. But I promise you, if you do this, it can make a dramatic difference with this. Crack what you're doing and review it periodically. clue. Now, what I mean by this is if we just kind of wing our training, maybe we have a training program or whatever it may be, and we just week by week, we kind of follow the sessions or do the sessions or whatever it may be. It can be really, really, really easy to delude ourselves into thinking that we are doing more than we are.

[8:37] We'll forget about sessions that we skipped. We'll forget about sessions that we kind of cut down. We'll forget about days where it was raining, where we didn't get outside or whatever may be. And it's very, very, very easy if we are not tracking what we're doing just to dilute ourselves into thinking everything is moving forward. But the simple act of literally writing down what you are doing can bring a huge amount of awareness.

[9:00] This could be just jotting things off in a calendar and saying, today I did a run. Today I did a strength session. This could be using a training app where you really get granular. This could be having a training journal or whatever, just literally writing what you did on each date. Even if your training isn't perfect, I'm not saying you have to every single week have a consistent week of training and every single week is going to be perfect and every single week you can turn up and do your best effort in the training or whatever it may be. And I'm not even saying in this situation, your training has to be a structured plan or whatever it is. But whatever you are doing through the ups and downs and whatever it may be, simply write it down. This in itself is just so, so, so, so, so powerful. A common example of this is in the world of nutrition. One of the most simple things you can do if you are struggling with nutrition or you're trying to improve your nutrition, whether you are trying to put on muscle, whether you're trying to lose weight, whether you're trying to change things for health reasons or whatever it may be, one of the most simple things and where a lot of people start is doing a food diary and literally just writing down what you eat. And when I've done nutrition coaching before, this was a step that was often recommended is don't even give people strategies. Don't even say you have to reduce this or change this or whatever it may be. Don't start with that. Just start with them literally spending a week writing down what they do so you can identify what's going on. But also the person who's doing this can have that self-awareness around what's actually eating day to day.

[10:27] So in training, it can be just as powerful. And then if we take this a step further, say you are writing down what you do week to week, for good,

[10:34] for bad, for whatever it may be. The next step is just to have a plan in place where you can review what you're doing. And review not so much in judgment saying, hey, success, failure, you're great, you're horrible, or whatever it may be, but just sort of have awareness around what has been going on. This could be a weekly thing where you sit down on a Sunday and just look at the week and be like, okay, cool. I said I would do this and I've done it. Or I said I do this and I missed it or whatever it may be. It could be a monthly review where you sit down and just run your eyes over the last month or whatever it may be. But a set time where you sit down, just look at what you've tracked and just ask yourself the question, did I do everything I set out to do? If so, and you're moving forward, two thumbs up, happy days, keep at it. If you're not moving forward.

[11:22] And you didn't do everything you set out to do, and you look down, you're like, ah, you know what? In all honesty, I only did half the sessions I planned. I'm not really moving forward. Well, that's probably the reason.

[11:32] And then number three is if you did do everything you set out to do, and you're not moving forward, then that's a sign saying, all right, well, maybe I need to change something. You've got three outcomes in this situation, and it's very, very, very useful. Just by reviewing this, it can just greatly increase awareness, greatly give you that control over what you're doing. It can just be so powerful. And in all honesty, you can apply this to your training, to your nutrition, you can apply it to business, to personal growth, or in all honesty, any situation where you are trying to make positive improvement. Now, admittedly, the tricky thing here is this can sound really, really simple to do. And it is simple. And in all honesty, it's very, very easy to do when things are going well. When you aren't doing well, when you're ticking off your sessions, you're seeing improvements, when we don't really need this, it's very, very easy. But when things are not going so well, when this is needed, it's very easy to fall out of it. It's kind of like a defense mechanism because we don't like admitting our failures. We already know we're kind of not doing as well as we can be. And we don't want to write it down and have a record of it or whatever it may be. I do the same thing. Very, very common. Everyone does it.

[12:38] But if you can just simply make the promise to yourself that, you know what, I'm just going to track what I'm going to do for the next few months. And I'm going to stick with this even when things are not going well. On bad weeks, I'm still going to track, hey, I plan to do five and I did one session in a week or whatever it may be, and track it. And not to look at it and beat yourself up. And not to look at it and make yourself more guilty. Or not to look at it and be like, ah, you suck or whatever it may be. But purely just to keep a record so you can keep the self-awareness, it can be such a powerful thing.

[13:09] So if you are a hiker who's been trying to improve something, your fitness, your nutrition, whatever it may be, and you feel like you are not moving forward at the rate that you want, or you feel like you're just spinning your wheels, or you're worried that you're going to be able to maintain this progress over the long term, this is a strategy you can put in place. Get a calendar, get a journal, get a diary, get like a training app, and just track what you're doing. Through thick and thin, just keep a record. It can go and then review it periodically and it can go such a long way. So with that being said, I'm going to wrap up today. I really do hope a few listeners can put this into place because as I said, it is simple, but it is so, so, so, so powerful.

[13:53] So last thing I will say, if you are a hiker who does feel like you need a bit of help with your training, you don't really know what you're doing, or you're not really aware around how to keep consistent, or you just need an outside person to keep an eye on things and make sure you are on track, then I would love to chat with you. If you want to learn a little bit more about our online personal training for hikers, you can go to summitstrength.com.au slash online. On that page, there's a big video that talks through a bit about our online summit program, what it's all about, what's included. And if it does sound like something you want to learn a little bit more about, there's a link on that page where you can book a call with our team. We can have a bit of a chat and see if and how we may be able to help you out. So if you want to check it out, go to summitstrength.com.au slash online, and we can take it from there. So with that being said, thank you so much for listening. Hope you've enjoyed it, and we'll talk to you very, very soon. Bye.

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