I want to talk to you about mindset. If you are anything like me and have been exercising or training for a given period, then you probably have had one of those days…
Uhm….one of what days? There are many days.
What I’m talking about is you plan your workout for the next day, get your clothes ready, get your meals ready, write it in your schedule for the day and you are pumped. Your inner voice is saying, Yeah! I’m going to kill it at training tomorrow! The next day comes and suddenly, due to unforeseen circumstances, you miss your training session. GRRRRRRRRR!
Now you’re in a bad mood, you’re aggravated or frustrated. You go home and kick the dog, you’re yelling at the walls, arguing with your significant other, the sky is falling, your whole world is imploding. So reluctantly you decide to scroll through Instagram or Facebook to see what’s going on at the gym.
Everyone you see is training hard and you start saying to yourself, look at them, they’re all training hard and hitting pads, losing fat and gaining more knowledge. Meanwhile your inner voice is telling you, I gained a pound of fat as I’m sitting here, I’m lazy, I missed training today I will forget all the technique I have ever learned EVER! I SUCK…The last one used to get me all the time. It’s the story I used to tell myself whenever I missed a training session.
I learned that this was a poor mindset. I told myself this lie to beat myself up over the situation at the moment. What I now realize is, I was not losing anything physical. I was not going to forget anything, I didn’t suck at Muay Thai, and will not have to start back at day one.
Situations come up and you must adjust. So, make the adjustment. Go for a run instead, do some burpees and shadow box for time, or worst-case scenario you must take the day off completely. Just chalk it up as a rest day. Then make it up the following day or as soon as possible.
Don’t fall into the mental trap that suddenly you’re fat, lazy, slow or worse than when you started. That’s not the case, that’s only the story that you sell yourself. Trust me no one is going to be harder on you than the person you are looking at in the mirror.
Give yourself permission to miss a day when it’s out of your hands, just don’t let it become an excuse to miss three weeks of training. Keep moving forward. Think about all the progress you have made to this point. You are not going to forget it overnight.
I hope that this gives you some encouragement. Sticking to a training regimen is hard enough as it is without me, myself and I teaming up on you. We all go through the physical and the mental challenges of training together.
As always, train hard, be a beast!
P.S No dogs were ever harmed due to me missing training, that was a joke.