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Writer's pictureBars & Stripes Fitness

PLANNING: TAKE OUT YOUR ROAD MAP




Welcome back MisFits!


Since starting our series on the 5 Pillar of Your Fitness, we’ve talked about the first pillar - Purpose - at length, and we’ve even talked about how to turn that purpose into a goal through the use of SMART Goals.


But that is just our goalpost. That is our destination. That is where we want to be at the end of our journey or at least at the end of this stage of our journey.


Getting there is an entirely different step, and undertaking that continues with the next pillar - Planning.


Just like a road trip, you could set out blindly, knowing your general destination.


Without a map, you could use road signs to try to get there.


But just like with that analogy, it would be easy to get distracted with stops along the way. And while there's nothing wrong with taking some detours and looking around… you can also get distracted by bad advice or get distracted by signs and directions that you don’t understand.


Worse yet, the mile markers along the way might make you feel like you haven't come far enough fast enough, or get distracted by the traffic around you.


And you for sure couldn't gauge it off the cars in front of you or around you, since you don't know where they're going, where they're coming from, or what they're working with.


It's a silly example, and it's not meant to fearmonger or scare anyone into not setting out on a journey before they have every last detail figured out. Sometimes, with the gym, you just need to get up and get moving.


But, if you're like many clients I have trained, this isn't your first rodeo or attempt to get up and get going. This time... you want a plan.


All great journeys, all worth undertaking, need a plan.


My dad, as with many things in my life, has always said it better than I can. He has a way with compacting complex feeling and ideas into easy to digest wisdom:


"Hope without a plan is just a wish."

I have added, in my time trying to motivate others, that:


"Planning without hope has no point."

But in the Purpose pillar, we set our goal.


We set our point.


We set... our destination.


So now we have our hopes, purpose and goals, and we need to make a plan to get there to ensure that we stay on the path, that we are following the right signs, we are keeping our eyes on the right mile markers, and that we are not allowing ourselves to get distracted by anything that doesn't serve our Purpose for too long: the people around us with their own paths to follow or who may not want to see us succeed, bad advice, or just things we would rather stop and see along the way but which will delay us from our goals.


Now, that’s all great and proper, and a really ethereal way of driving home how important


Planning is... but what does that concretely mean?


What does proper planning look like?


As you might have figured out, that's why we mapped out our goals so specifically. Half the work is done there, by simple figuring our how far you want to go, which direction, how quickly, and how to measure distance along the way.


We still have much planning to do - routes, supplies, means of transportation - but plotting ahead so specifically helps us to much more accurately suss out the best ways to get there.


Now, I'm biased... and while I don't often use travel agents, I do find tour guides once I get to my destination, and if I do stop to see the sights, I ask locals... so I'd highly recommend getting someone - a coach - to help make your journey easier.


But even if you do, these are all still questions and answers you will have to figure out with them (or us).


I am going to cover this in the following installments in this series as we go into depth on each of them. Trying to spend a roughly ten minute a installment on all of them wouldn't do them justice, and ten minutes each might still not - we might run a little longer with each.


But for now, the core components of a good fitness plan are:


Nutrition - the fuel in your tank.


Hydration - the oil keeping all your systems functioning


Exercise - keeping the engine running, burning fuel, and not letting your body settle into a state of stagnation or disrepair


Sleep & Recovery - the routine maintenance you need to do to keep your vehicle from overheating


Supplementation & Vitamins - not really a car analogy (maybe I'll come up with one later), but it can help round out the other needs


Your homework is to, with these components in mind, start to look for yourself into which of these you think might align with your goals before we go further into each of them. Dig around. Look into food, routines, apps, coaches, and tools that might keep you coming back to work on your body.


For now,


This has been Coach Cap, helping put the Fit… in MisFit.

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