A Guest Blog by Jen Wilson

Decide on Sunday that you are only going to have a couple of glasses of wine at the weekend,

you then have a shit day at work on Monday and the wine gets opened on arrival home.

Monday to Friday you eat like a saint, Friday night arrives and it’s treat night, you go a bit

overboard and before you know it Sunday is here and you have eaten 2 weeks’ worth of food in

a weekend.

You have been following a training plan for the last 6 weeks, you are starting to see results but

the kids are back to school and you don’t have the same free time now they need dropped off,

picked up, taken to dance class, theatre class, gymnastics, their friends house…

I have now had the absolute pleasure in working with women in particular for the last 7 years on

their health and fitness goals. Something that I found really interesting was when they started to

make progress they would disappear off the radar, and then they would sometimes appear back

a bit worse off than when we had started before. They let life get in the way and forgot that

they needed to be a priority.

I realised that there was a missing link in my initial training in the health and fitness courses.

What about the psychology and mind-set when it comes to achieving our goals? That is when I

came across a thing called NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) and started learning more about

our minds and bodies and the connection we have linked in to our beliefs and behavioural

patterns.

Nearly every woman I know says that they want to look better and feel better about

themselves, feel more confident, healthier, and happier and have a life we are delighted to jump

out of bed for (I include myself in this too).

We say we want all this yet we don’t seem to love ourselves enough to give up the excuses and

get those results.

Let me ask you these questions:

On a daily basis, what do you do for you?

Do you eat for health or is it out of boredom/comfort?

Do you exercise or do activities that keep you healthy and moving or are you sitting on your ass

all day?

Do you have hobbies, interests that entertain you or is the TV your escape?

Are you learning new things every day to develop yourself in to an even more amazing person or

do you think ‘what’s the point’?

Do you make time for yourself every day or do you think ‘I don’t have enough time for

anything’?

Do you always have an excuse to put someone or something else as a priority in your life?

Every single person will have a variety of answers and these answers probably will change from

day to day depending on how stressed you are / how you feel about yourself that day etc. So

what are these questions all about?

You might have heard of the term ‘self-sabotage’.

Self-sabotage is the thing that gets in our way and prevents us from achieving the results we say

we want. We get to a certain point on our journey, then we hit a roadblock (excuse).

Some women I know think it’s a relief to have a label for their behaviour… ‘yeah, I self-sabotage

all the time, it’s my thing’…. Just because there is a name for it, doesn’t make it okay. This is

where our beliefs come in, do we believe that we are good enough / deserve to have the body /

job / life we dream of?

I have bad and good news for you… Self-sabotage is not a good label to have, it is holding you

back, but it is possible to stop doing it.

Let me tell you how.

When we recognise a pattern we have the ability to break it to get a different outcome. If you

keep repeating the same actions, you are always going to get the same outcome. To identigy

these patterns and start to move forward you need to ask yourself some questions and answer

them honestly – no holds barred:

What is it that stops you from keeping going towards your goals?

Is there just one part of the journey you don’t want to take?

Where does that doubt come from?

When else have you felt this way before?

Why would you rather stay in pain rather than move towards real happiness?

What would it mean to you if you could get past this roadblock?

Now, don’t get me wrong, these are not walk in the park questions. These are dig deep, pull

your big girl pants on and take a good hard look at yourself questions. Absolute honesty is key to

success here. Identifying and understanding your patterns makes it easier to break them.

The only person preventing you from being happy is you. Now, there might be people around

you who you feel help hold you back by questioning you, doubting your abilities, validating your

insecurities, but ultimately it’s down to you. You are the boss of you.

You need people around you to question you and push you and be your devil’s advocate but you

should use that to push you to positive places, and motivate you to be better. These are the

people that don’t take your excuses and help you make things happen.

It’s time to stop the bullshit and ditch your label as someone who ‘self-sabotages’. Be the one

that pushes through, inspires the people around her, gets the results because you know you

deserve this happiness.

Every time you fly you are always told fix your own mask before fixing anyone else’s… your

health and happiness needs to follow that same procedure for the exact same reasons.

Jen x

Bio:

Jen Wilson from Glasgow has been working in the Health & Fitness industry since 2009, over the

years she has gained a BSc Sport & Exercise Science, PGDip TQFE, NLP Master Practitioner. She

runs Freedom in Training which includes Pilates classes, Indoor Cycling Master Trainer, personal

trainer, fitness presenter and the Warrior Woman Project which is an online programme that

deals with our mind-set issues to make us stronger from the inside out.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WarriorWomanProject

Blog: http://freedomintraining.co.uk/

Instagram: https://instagram.com/WarriorWomanProject

Twitter: https://twitter.com/WarriorWomanJen

Linked In: https://uk.linkedin.com/pub/jennifer-wilson/31/43a/255