I recently listened to a podcast that featured Mike Tyson.  Have you heard him speak before or listened to his insights? The man has had quite a life of extremes, so much so he was both a millionaire and served time in prison.  He tested his body, his mind and his health. Today, he lives a simple life, sharing his bouts of wisdom from both sides of success and failure.  The heavyweight champion is worth listening to his words of wisdom of gain and loss. 

In an interview with The Pivot Podcast, he talked about how the best years of his life were his time in prison. Even with having $30M per match, he found peace, stability, and balance. He said you need your sanity to help dictate any part of life. 

This got me thinking about my time bodybuilding and health.

When I was bodybuilding, I removed all excuses to create my success with my body. I didn’t win any titles but I was in the best physical shape of my life. 

The thing is, I wanted to keep my body in its best shape for as long as I could. Any weight gained messed with my head.  This is called body dysmorphia. 

Even though to everyone around me, I was doing great, I would constantly workout more, sleep less to make the gym or meal prep, continuously criticize my body and my efforts.  There was no peace or grace. 

How Coaching Started with my Health

I would’ve continued on that downward spiral if it wasn’t for a health scare. 

I started to get concerned when I would fall asleep driving home from work…AND fall asleep driving TO work in the mornings. There was no doubt in my mind something was amiss when pulling over to nap in the mornings became a common occurrence. 

The doctors checked out my body by sending me to a sleep study with a neurologist. 

Conclusion – I was the equivalent of a sleepwalker. 

Mind you, I have never had a history of sleep related issues in my life. I thought my health was in shape like my body.

Furthermore, this diagnosis would disqualify me from my pursuits of commercial flying. This was serious and it was the first time I realized the look of my body is not the only thing to determine my health.

Additionally, I realized, I am not my job but I also want my ability to choose my job. The idea of losing the opportunity to fly again was more concerning than finding another profession.  Tell me I’m not alone here.

Once I figured how to find this careful balance between physique and overall health, I became a coach.  

Now notice how my extreme mindset of working out more and pushing to do more blinded me to everything else.

Why Mindset Matters to your Health & Body

As a coach, my clients initially come to me wanting that physical change. And I’m here to give them that. 

They also get homework that forces them to not become blind to the other factors of health.  Mindset work is just as important, if not more important than lifting the weights or following your nutrition plan. 

The thing is much of the fitness and nutrition is relatively easy directions. So why aren’t people just following the directions?

Here’s the deal, if a person’s desires for him/herself do not align with what he/she is doing, then there’s going to be resistance. This resistance doesn’t show up in the form of adult communication. Many times is shows up as a rebel by cheating or missing workouts or neglecting part of the plan. 

And sometimes, the drive so great, everything else doesn’t seem to matter.  But this neglects becomes neglectful.

Well if the person wanted to change his or her physique, why are they doing things that won’t give them what they want?

3 Exercises for your Mind

We humans are complicated.  It’s our nature! And sometimes we could use some help. 

Here are 3 exercises for your mind that improves your health of your body. 

Disclaimer: Just like a physical workout, time and space is required.  Some of these workouts are not easy in execution.

1. Manage Stress – There’s a lot of literature out there on how to manage stress from workouts to hanging out with friends. These activities do alleviate the feelings of stress but what about identifying the cause of stress?

Work backwards to find the root cause of your stress. By managing the cause of the stress you can either reduce the frequency of stress or mitigate it all together. Setting boundaries is a great start.

There are times the feeling of stress is so great it’s hard to think clearly enough to manage the cause of stress.  That leads us to another workout.

        2. Manage Emotions – Feelings can be overwhelming; you’re human, you’re supposed to have feelings. How you express your feelings and how you’re affected by your feelings is the focus of this exercise. 

Take notes on how you react to emotions. Do you want to keep this or change this? Allowing the body to relax from an excitable state doesn’t purge the feelings, but it does allow your mind to think more clearly. Taking a pause before reacting ensures your feelings are acknowledged while being able to intentionally assess your situation.

        3. Ask for help – We’re all works in progress and we’re not reinventing the wheel. There is literature, life coaches, therapists, to help you work through stress and the feelings stress brings up. 

Look for a resource that allows you to move toward your goals. Instead of looking at help as a sign of weakness, look at help as your support system and your team to propel you into the person you envisioned yourself to be.

Mastering your mind creates peace around you.  There’s both acceptance and balance.  Here’s the first step to doing all of that.