Belief is a huge part of sustainable strength. If you don’t believe you can achieve your goals or that the approach your taking is reliable then failure is imminent. Sheer determination to get from A to B may get you most of the way, but it’ll be a long, hard road, compared to the mentally and emotionally effortless path that belief allows for.
When you believe something:
- The result is as good as certain; it’s just a matter of going through the motions.
- You avoid self doubt, cultivate confidence, and eliminate stress in one fell swoop.
- Nothing will stand in your way until that belief transforms into a reality.
Can you see how important genuine belief really is? But how do you actually form a belief that is conducive to your strength and fitness aims?
- Define what you want with clarity. Be incredibly specific with what you want the final result to be; your exact weight, how you’ll feel, the habits you will have adopted – spare no detail. Pretend you’re writing the story of your future.
- Own your goal. Don’t set your sights on becoming a bodybuilder just because you’ve been told to. Allow yourself to vigorously follow your own dreams.
- Visualize. See yourself with this new lifestyle and this new look. Whenever you’re feeling unmotivated come back to these pictures in your mind of what your life will be like if you’re more physically capable.
- Repeat endlessly. Never let go of this dream and repeat your goals to yourself on a daily basis. How you go about this is dependent on what works for you, but the most common methods include saying a small mantra to yourself before you go to sleep, or simply changing the wallpaper on your computer to include an outline of your goals.
- Simplify. Complexity is detrimental to belief. When approaching any goal the more steps you have to take the more chances you have of second guessing yourself or the pre-defined actions. Focus on the essentials like lifting heavy things and eating more food.
- Trust your sources. Be careful with who you learn from. I try to be very open where I’m coming from. I’m still skinny myself, but I’m making the effort to move away from my current situation. If your mentors aren’t transparent about their past or present you will find it difficult to trust their advice sooner or later.
- Jump the first hurdle. For the first 2 months or so in my muscle building journey I was flying blind, and you will be to. Results are not always quick to arrive so the early days require significant amounts of faith. After that hurdle is jumped though, and you can physically see the pay off for your effort, you would be hard pressed to not believe in yourself and the path you’re taking.
Forming a rock-solid belief in your ability to defy your ectomorphic genes is a sure-fire way to work past the roadblocks that will inevitably pop up. Taking the time to ingrain one in your thinking is a very wise choice.
