The Importance of Accountability
School curriculums today include lessons on self-confidence, goal setting, and general healthy living. While your children are learning about the typical subjects – reading, writing, arithmetic, etc., -- they are also learning how to take care of themselves and lead well-managed, productive lives.
Here’s a definition they might learn: “motivate: to provide with an incentive; move to action; impel.” In order to obtain goals in life, kids must be motivated to do so – and the same is true of parents.
When it comes to fitness, this is especially true. You might need to tell your children that if they go outside to play for awhile, forcing them to get some exercise, they’ll get a prize later. And while the nature of incentives change as we grow up, the need for them in life does not.
As a parent, you may be driven by the desire to feel better, to fit into your clothes, to keep up with your energy-bursting kids, or to obtain the many health benefits that come from a consistent training program. Regardless of your reasons for exercising, you must evaluate what it is that drives you in order to maintain some type of diligence and then you must set goals.
A key element to staying motivated is thinking like a motivated person. Over 90 percent of your incentive to exercise is purely mental, while the other 10 percent comes from the body’s physical desire to be in movement. Think about how many times you have talked yourself out of exercising; you can talk yourself out of working out a lot more quickly than you can talk yourself into it. What finally makes you do it? Determining the answer to this question will help the next time you’re faced with the choice of working out or doing something else on your to-do list.
I challenge you to make a list of all the things that would be better about you if you were to work out consistently. The list is endless! Exercise carries over into every area of your life, so as a parent your whole family will benefit from your decision to motivate yourself to work out.
Goals often become useless when no one is enlisted to keep you accountable. Let a trainer look at the fitness goals you set and ask him or her to help you outline a realistic timeline for attaining them. Also, don’t be discouraged when you don’t get immediate results. Studies show that it usually takes the body up to two weeks to adapt to a new work-out routine and produce physiological results. If it didn’t take three weeks to put on an extra 20 to 60 lbs, it certainly will take that long or longer to take it off!
Of all you have to be responsible for, your physical health should be a top priority. It’s one of those things in life that will never be the product of another’s decisions; only yours. Decide today to be stronger, to hold yourself accountable, and to make your life a better place to live. Lastly, remember: Believing in yourself is paramount to success.
If you apply the truths taught your children in school to your own life as a parent, you’ll reinforce all they’re learning and model with your own life, which they watch so closely. You can be an example of a healthy, motivated and physically fit individual for your kids – and you’ll feel better about yourself, too! Obtaining these goals starts today.
January 08, 2009
by Jeff Howerton ACSM-CPT
back to list of articles
School curriculums today include lessons on self-confidence, goal setting, and general healthy living. While your children are learning about the typical subjects – reading, writing, arithmetic, etc., -- they are also learning how to take care of themselves and lead well-managed, productive lives.
Here’s a definition they might learn: “motivate: to provide with an incentive; move to action; impel.” In order to obtain goals in life, kids must be motivated to do so – and the same is true of parents.
When it comes to fitness, this is especially true. You might need to tell your children that if they go outside to play for awhile, forcing them to get some exercise, they’ll get a prize later. And while the nature of incentives change as we grow up, the need for them in life does not.
As a parent, you may be driven by the desire to feel better, to fit into your clothes, to keep up with your energy-bursting kids, or to obtain the many health benefits that come from a consistent training program. Regardless of your reasons for exercising, you must evaluate what it is that drives you in order to maintain some type of diligence and then you must set goals.
A key element to staying motivated is thinking like a motivated person. Over 90 percent of your incentive to exercise is purely mental, while the other 10 percent comes from the body’s physical desire to be in movement. Think about how many times you have talked yourself out of exercising; you can talk yourself out of working out a lot more quickly than you can talk yourself into it. What finally makes you do it? Determining the answer to this question will help the next time you’re faced with the choice of working out or doing something else on your to-do list.
I challenge you to make a list of all the things that would be better about you if you were to work out consistently. The list is endless! Exercise carries over into every area of your life, so as a parent your whole family will benefit from your decision to motivate yourself to work out.
Goals often become useless when no one is enlisted to keep you accountable. Let a trainer look at the fitness goals you set and ask him or her to help you outline a realistic timeline for attaining them. Also, don’t be discouraged when you don’t get immediate results. Studies show that it usually takes the body up to two weeks to adapt to a new work-out routine and produce physiological results. If it didn’t take three weeks to put on an extra 20 to 60 lbs, it certainly will take that long or longer to take it off!
Of all you have to be responsible for, your physical health should be a top priority. It’s one of those things in life that will never be the product of another’s decisions; only yours. Decide today to be stronger, to hold yourself accountable, and to make your life a better place to live. Lastly, remember: Believing in yourself is paramount to success.
If you apply the truths taught your children in school to your own life as a parent, you’ll reinforce all they’re learning and model with your own life, which they watch so closely. You can be an example of a healthy, motivated and physically fit individual for your kids – and you’ll feel better about yourself, too! Obtaining these goals starts today.
January 08, 2009
by Jeff Howerton ACSM-CPT
back to list of articles
