Wow Jar!

As many of you will already know I have been doing free strategy sessions with both members and prospective members. For prospective members this is an opportunity for us to find out more about them, find out their wants and needs and to create a plan to help them achieve their goals.

For current members it is a great opportunity to review what they have done well, what the could have done better, what they enjoyed most and what they wish they had or hadn’t done earlier. From this we can be a bit more laser focused to get their goals just right.

I have recently been doing a few of these and when looking back I find it is very easy to focus on the negative. They seem to be the things we fixate on. As an example, I unfortunately lost both of my parents in the space of 12 months. It would be very easy to say that it was the worst year of my life. However, I was also fortunate enough to welcome my beautiful baby girl into the world. How can a year that saw me given the most beautiful gift in the world be the worst year of my life. If you focus on the negative, then yes it was.

The problem we have is that we are almost programmed to focus on the bad. I was recently watching the world snooker championships and they were interviewing some current and past players and the funny thing is they all said, although winning was great, once they won that was it. However, a loss would eat them up and they would relive it over and over again.

If we can agree that there is great value in taking a look back at what we have done in the past and using it to drive what we do in the future, what can we do to make sure we are not focused on the negative?

My solution is stolen from my children’s childminder. As part of their development folder, the childminders ask us to write down any “wow moments” our children may have.

So get yourself a post it pad and a jar. Every time you have a “wow” moment, in whichever aspect of your life, write it down and put it in the jar. When it comes time to look back on your year or defined period of your life, you can revisit the jar and see exactly what you have achieved.

On the subject of “wow” moments, sometimes they come along without any planning. This morning I was training one of our members, Molly. She has been with us a year and initially all she wanted to be able to do was full press ups and is now hitting out 30 full press ups in a minute. I know her next target was to do a pull up, so I asked her how she was doing and she said she could still not hit one. So I said, every time she walks into the gym, I wanted the first thing she did to be to walk up to the pull up bar and try to do a pull up. I then said give it a go now. Lo and behold, Molly did her first full Pull up.

Wow Moment!

Greg is one of the owners of Core Results Gym Chichester. A true professional, Greg has a passion for fitness and training, specialising in rehabilitation and correctional fitness. Greg’s experience in competitive sports and training elite junior athletes led him in a natural progression to a career as a leading professional in the health and fitness industry.