By Michael Walker, who is a professional motivation consultant, body transformation coach and founder of game-changing fitness and lifestyle coaching platform Kapla Fitness Elite-14.
Taking the first steps towards transformation – whether in a personal or professional capacity – can feel like a daunting task. But what often gets overlooked are the small, simple changes you can make in your day-to-day, changes that sharpen your focus and set you up to achieve those big transformations in the long run.
Body & business transformation skills
The first and most effective way to achieve long-lasting, positive change is to cultivate healthy habits to do with our bodies. If you start to take care of these things you’ll be in the few percent that do, putting you one step ahead of the competition.
These simple ‘Healthy Lifestyle Guidelines’ will naturally increase your energy levels, make you more focused and motivated, and improve your general mood and productivity. Without these, you won’t be able to achieve true transformation in either field.
EXERCISE AND HEALTHY HABITS:
1. More movement – (especially aerobic exercise) – Try to achieve a minimum of 3 x 30 minutes of aerobic exercise per week. This could be fast walking, cycling or running – anything that gets your heart rate up and a light sweat on for 30 minutes. Can you increase your movement at work by taking calls on the move, or walking to a green, outdoor space on your lunch break?
2. Quality sleep – more exercise will help you sleep, but positive routines such as going to bed at a regular and reasonable time will help in your day- to- day transformation.
3. More sunlight – Exercise outdoors before or after work and get your outdoor fix when you can. At work take opportunities to get some rays at lunch, or take a short break to re-energise with a walk around the block.
4. Good nutrition and plenty of water – Try to plan ahead for healthy eating and make
sure you take time out of your day to enjoy your meals (NO eating at your desk!)
Once you have incorporated these small but effective habits into your daily life, you will be able to focus on the steps you need to take towards those bigger transformations. Here are three key skills to develop in order to affect change in body and business:
1. GOAL SETTING:
You need to be laser focused on your goals for either body or business transformation to work.
Short Term Goals – In order to set yourself up to achieve, we need to set the vision and create shorter, more manageable goals. This will help us to remain focused and
motivated even when things get tough, which they will.
Set the Boundaries – These are the ground rules that make it attainable. What are you
NOT willing to do to achieve that goal? When you figure this out, your motivation will be sky-high. For example, I’m not willing to work at the weekend. If you take this decision you’ll never think I should have got that done this weekend. No regrets. It keeps things framed in a really positive way.
Long Term Goals – these ultimate targets mean you have a focus, a purpose, something to look to in the more difficult days.
Discipline – Firstly to stick to the achievable goals and boundaries you’ve set. It’s easy to slip into overdoing it (working too hard, exercising too much, working too late etc.)
Dedication to the vision and goals, and discipline to remain consistent are key to our
success.
2. ROUTINE AND TIME MANAGEMENT:
With both body work and professional transformation there's lots of moving parts and routine is vital. Creating a daily and weekly plan of attack is essential to keep things on track.
For body work, this includes organising and planning your fitness and nutrition schedule carefully: organised food shopping and regular meal times, exercise planning and timeframes, socialising, leisure time and sleep.
In terms of business transformation, in order to balance the interests of different
stakeholders, clients, and systems, you must focus strategically on your management
planning such as delegating tasks, daily or weekly standups, governance meetings. It is
essential to think ahead to avoid over reaching yourselves.
COMMUNCIATION AND FEEDBACK:
Listening to your body is essential to staying on track, which means paying close
attention to our energy levels, concentration levels, motivation, and general fitness.
All of these markers show if we can push harder or need to slow down, need to eat
more or less, need to get more sleep, or allow for more recovery time.
In business you need feedback from the people around you. You can’t improve
processes or put in new systems to solve challenges if you aren’t getting regular and
honest feedback – so establishing a platform for the people involved in a project to
communicate is essential to a successful transformation.
If we can incorporate some of these ideas and routines into our daily lives, and establish long- term, sustainable visions for the future, we can set ourselves up for success at every turn, and increase our potential at work and in life. The positive momentum we create through the positive changes and transformations we make will propel us forward, as well inspiring others to reach high performance themselves.
Michael Walker is a professional motivation consultant, body transformation coach and founder of game-changing fitness and lifestyle coaching platform Kapla Fitness Elite-14.
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