The Importance of Purpose: What is the Purpose Behind Your Health Goals?
When meeting a client for the first time I always ask a few questions about their health goals going forward. This helps me determine if their goals are realistic and how they’ve gotten to the point of sitting and talking with me. I can usually tell a few minutes into our conversation how dedicated this person is going to be, how much energy and time it’s going to take from me to help them and whether they’ll actually achieve the health goals they’ve mentioned.
The reality is, not everyone has the drive, determination, dedication and purpose driving him or her hard enough to make the change they claim they want. Even though someone has taken the step to meet with me that doesn’t mean they’ll make a transformation. I can show someone how to eat and train to see the results they’re after but it’s ultimately up to them to apply those principles. The clients who do follow my advice see incredible results. The clients that: “don’t have time”, “this was a bad week”, “forgot to go grocery shopping”, “there was this wedding, birthday, vacation” etc…those are the tricky clients.
So what is the difference between people who see great results and those that never seem to get it together? First up you should know that getting super healthy and in amazing shape sounds easy but the reality is it takes a lot of work and dedication! If it didn’t we’d all be walking around perfect specimens of health. When it comes to hard work and dedication there are just some people who are more dedicated than others. However, sometimes those dedicated individuals just have more purpose than those that don’t.
If you aren’t one of those super dedicated people then you better have a strong purpose driving your health goals. Otherwise waking up early to exercise or heading to the yoga studio after a long day of work is rarely going to happen. When I’m working with an actor, or someone with an upcoming event such as a wedding, photo-shoot or reunion, I tend to see amazing results from them. They have a very specific purpose and every day they make healthy decisions to behave a specific way because they have that purpose driving them!
Health goals are great but they need to have purpose driving them! Let’s assume you aren’t one of the super dedicated, love the gym so much you wake up at 4:00am to workout and make your food for the day kind of person. In that case we need to do a small exercise to help get you focused. I want you to write down three goals and three reasons for those goals.
Not just “I want to be less stressed out” or “I want to get healthier” I hate to break it to you but everyone wants those things. Instead, you need to put down what you want and why. The why is the purpose.
Use some old school paper or better yet put them down in the notes section of your phone since it’s always with you.
For example:
1a. (goal) I want to lose 15 pounds of fat.
1b. (purpose) To make my ex boyfriend jealous at my friends upcoming wedding…and I want to fit into my old “your bum looks amazing in those” jeans.
2a. (goal) I want to be in the best shape of my life in six months.
2b. (purpose) Because I want to look amazing on my wedding day.
3a. (goal) I want to stay strong on my sugar free, whole foods diet.
3b. (purpose) I really want to get off my cholesterol and blood pressure medications that are causing me all kinds of side effects.
Your purpose could be for your health, vanity or even vengeance reasons. Everyone’s purpose can be different. As long as that purpose is strong enough for it to be laser focused in your mind each day it doesn’t really matter. The weaker the purpose the less focus and drive you’ll have! Along the way if you find stronger goals and purpose behind them swap out old ones. Same goes for when you achieve your health goals…make new ones!
Now that you have determined the driving purpose behind your health goals you should have some newfound focus going forward. Stay focused my friends!
