A few years back as I was starting my fitness journey, I spend countless time researching, learning, and replicating the fitness knowledge. This pertained to my workout regimen. I chose different workouts I could perform and started hitting the gym.
I incorporated a dozen workouts in the 3 days a week gym sessions. At first it was great as I started seeing results and my weights increasing. It was all wonderful until I got to a point of stalling, not growing and repetitive exercises that put me on the fence.
Despite all the knowledge I obtained, several wrong doings brought me to that point:
- Choosing desirable exercises that I liked, instead of the ones I needed starting out
- Not having a program plan and time frame
- Not alternating the exercises and its reps and sets
- Starting too big with no end result
This forced me to figure out what I was doing wrong and reevaluate my actions. It led me to an eye-opening realization: setting small changes over time and focusing on short-term outcomes.
The Dangers of “big”
The challenge for a lot of us is that when we go about our lives, we try and achieve “big” things without knowing how to balance and juggle it all.
We all have big aspirations and want to get there fast.
I’ve personally made the mistake of trying to jump to “big” too soon and struggled to execute effectively on a much smaller scale.
I’m sure you have examples where you tried to achieve immediate huge vision.
Make it Smaller: You’re More Likely to Succeed
What I’m starting to notice, is that great things almost always start small.
If I look into my own life, I find similarly that some of the most important achievements I’ve made started as small projects.
If we execute on a smaller scale, we’re more likely to succeed.
The Point is the Process, Not the Finish Line
Changing your life, it turns out, isn’t about setting large, unattainable goals. It’s about small changes over time.
As I started to figure this out, my fitness workout regimen changed. I started with the 3 full-body compound exercises (bench, squat, deadlift) for an extended period of time. I did 5 sets for 5 reps. After that extended period of time, I chose a different program and put different variations of exercises with an end result to gain muscle and lose fat. This has worked out great for me and I see better results.
Before going big, focus on small achievements and progress. Leave no room for doubt.
I believe this secret applies in all areas of life.
Start small. Dream big.
Did something work out better when you started smaller? I’d love your thoughts on this topic.