How to Smash your Wedding Health and Fitness goals

 

 

What’s Your Wedding Health and Fitness goal?

Could be fat loss, or wanting to lose x number of pounds.

Perhaps muscle growth? Where you’re looking to sculpt your shoulders and back to accentuate the dress you plan to wear.

Maybe it’s just feeling full of vitality, energy, happiness and good vibes so you can feel your best on this day of matrimony and fun.

Whatever it is, if you declare any of the goals I just shared and stop there, it’s incomplete.

In fact,

It’s why you likely won’t smash your wedding health and fitness goals.

Setting a goal like that, then stopping is the equivalent to saying “I want a horse carriage at my wedding!”

Then, doing nothing.

Or, magically expecting for it to show up.

Saying Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo to all the pumpkins and mice in the world won’t do a damn thing unless you have a Fairy Godmother(or the resources and systems) to help you achieve your goal.

It takes consistent skills and practice to achieve any goal and see any change but the beauty is, you can start right where you are with what you have.

So, how can you smash your wedding health and fitness goals?

Glad you asked, here’s the 4 steps to doing so.

1.) Marry your behaviors, leave outcomes at the altar

The goals of fat loss, muscle growth or general health are what’s known as “outcome goals”.

Outcome goals are the finish line and where you want to end up, usually ending in a number, such as; “I want to lose 10 pounds.”

However you’d like to look, feel and show up for your wedding day, would be your outcome based goal. 

What is good about these, are, they give you a target to aim for. When you reach that number, you know you’ve accomplished the goal.

Yay!

But, remember I said they’re incomplete.

Outcome based goals don’t tell you what actions to take and we can’t control outcomes.

Behaviors on the other hand, share what we’re willing to do(or not do) to accomplish a goal. 

Behaviors are the actions that lead to accomplishing the outcome goal, (which, fills in the gap of actions needed to take that outcomes leave out.)

Since we can control our behaviors, and you choose what you’re willing to do, it’s generally a more positive experience in moving toward your goal.

Not to mention a much higher rate of success.

So I repeat, marry your behaviors and leave outcomes at the altar.

If you’ve been in this thing called life for, I don’t know, at least past 5 years of age… I’m sure you’ve gotten familiar with the idea that “shit happens” in life.

Think of “shit happens” as outcomes.

You can plan a night out with your bridesmaids to a nice restaurant or bar.

You can throw on your nicest threads, doll yourself up in make-up and be ready to hit the town…

Then it rains,

or you get to the bar and its ridiculously crowded, or worse,

an annoying ex is there and does not let their presence be ignored.

“Shit happens?”

Yeah, big time, but that’s the nature of outcomes and despite well intentions, you can’t control outcomes.

You can, however, control the behaviors that lead to the outcomes you want.

In that same example, the outcome(or what you want) is a night of fun! So what can be done if/when shit happens?

It’s raining, so maybe wear an outfit you still feel great in that provides protection from the drizzles.

Favorite bar crowded and ex hounding you? Maybe bar hop, or even try a new place altogether cause fun, no matter where, is the outcome here.

So, when outcomes beyond your control rear their ugly head and get in the way of your wedding health and fitness goals.

Like getting stuck at work,

Kids getting sick, or

You getting sick.

Think of the behaviors you can control and marry them to help you smash your wedding health and fitness goals.

2.) Bouquet Toss All or Nothing and perfectionism

If you’ve ever tried to do the exercise and eat better dance for weight loss, you might’ve taken on the “all or nothing” approach.

You know the deal.

1. “Be really good” and resist any and all things that even resemble an indulgence, and
2. Go super hard in the gym every day, pounding your body to the pavement.

But what happens when this incredibly high standard can’t be sustained?

Say, you have a cake tasting during when you normally go to the gym and by the time it’s over, the gym closes before you got your workout in.

Or, say you’re on an engagement shoot that went a little longer than anticipated and afterwords you get hungry and eat out at a nearby restaurant.

If you’ve done this dance, these very real events could’ve just derailed you and knocked you off your groove.

You didn’t get to the gym, “so you failed.”

Or you ate out when it wasn’t in the plan “so you failed”

In the end, you think that because you weren’t perfect, you “failed.”

Time to bouquet toss that all or nothing, perfectionist mentality to smash your wedding health and fitness goals.

Did you catch something interesting about those two scenarios?

Yeah, those are outcomes.

The gym closing and the shoot going longer than anticipated were beyond your control.

yet another reason why marrying behaviors and leaving outcomes at the altar is better for smashing your wedding health and fitness goals.

You already know what happens when you go into a goal expecting perfection.

You inevitably eat something that doesn’t support your goals or you miss a workout and feel like you blew it.

But here’s some good news.

You don’t need to be perfect to smash your wedding health and fitness goals

When you go into a goal without expecting perfection, you inherently give up the all or nothing mentality so when an obstacle does come up, you don’t feel shame that makes you want to quit.

You simply adjust and choose a behavior that you can do when life throws a curveball.

When you bouquet toss all or nothing and perfectionism, you release so much pressure from yourself because who’s perfect?

You’re not a bad person or a failure if you miss a workout or have dessert.

In fact, in many cases, they’re great to incorporate and are actually two pillars of The Best Badass Bride Blueprint.

Skipping a workout is practicing Majestic Movement, and allows for your body to recover and rest(so you can continue seeing results).

Enjoying a treat(and then moving on) is practicing Nourishing Nutrition because you should be allowed to indulgence if you have a particular hankering without feeling guilt or shame.

Imperfection doesn’t make you a failure, it makes you human and allows you to move toward your wedding health and fitness goals more easily because you’re not setting yourself up for a fall.

3.) Break Goals down to skills, practices, and actions

Now that you know behaviors give you control and share what you’re willing to do, let’s make sense of how you can add this into your life.

Remember that Outcome Based Goals lack the “how to” and actions you need to take to accomplish them.

So let’s fikiki break it down

via GIPHY

Your goal is ultimately what you want, we get that. But have you ever broken it down further?

Say your goal is;

Losing weight for your wedding, 

Improving confidence for your wedding, or

Learning how to eat better for your wedding so you can improve your health.

You need to determine what skills, or what abilities you need to accomplish your goal.

Maybe you need food shopping and meal prep skills to eat healthier?

Perhaps you need time management skills so you can allot specific time to moving during the week.

Get the picture?

Cool, but we ain’t done.

After you know what you wanna move toward(the goal,)

and know what you need to get good at to accomplish the goal(the skill,)

you need to add practices to build the skill.

Using the same skills above, let’s drill down to practices that may help build the skill.

A practice for food shopping would be to take inventory of what you already have cause you don’t need to buy another damn bottle of vinegar, you already have like three….

A time management practice can be to actually make time to move, instead of just saying “I need to go to the gym” and hope the motivation fairy dropkicks you out the door.

Goals are met when you break them to skills that are broken to practices that you consistently act on, which, brings us to the last part.

Actions are the “doing” to form the practice that build the skill(s) necessary for your goal.

The thing about actions are, they don’t have to be this ginormous, intimidating, scary, audacious thing to drive progress.

It’s actually better if they’re small, and able to be done on a daily basis.

So like, do that.

Actions to practice building the skill of time management so you can lose weight for your wedding could be;

• doing audits of your time,
• actually putting movement into your schedule(cause the motivation fairy ain’t comin), and/or
• keeping a time diary/journal..

Gonna skew off a bit cause I’ve been super serious for a couple of paragraphs… I’m someone where if I see a word that reminds me of a song, I bust out into singing so I’m now obligated to sing Alicia Keys’ song “Diary” cause I won’t tell your time secrets…. Your time secrets are safe with meEEeeeEEEeeeeee”

Actions to practice building the skill of food shopping so you can eat in a way that improves your health for your wedding could be;

• go in with an actual plan/grocery list, and/or
• buy nutrient dense food option

Pick what’s easy and that you can do, consistently.

Also note that these actions, are also behaviors, meaning, you control them.

These actions, when done consistently become habits.

These habits, when done consistently, help you smash your wedding health and fitness goals.

*Did you notice how consistently I mentioned consistently?*

4.) Follow The Three Pillars of The Best Badass Bride

The pillars of the Best Badass Bride is my way of helping Overwhelmed Brides-To-Be ditch dieting, enjoy empowering exercise and bust body image issues so you can confidently enjoy your wedding day happier, healthier and more excited than ever(by making choices you feel good about.)

Following the pillars will allow you to smash any of your wedding health and fitness goals in a way that’s in alignment with you, your values and priorities so you can feel your most empowered, authentic self on your wedding day.

How I look at it, when it comes to your wedding health and fitness goals, they;

• need to be realistic,
• doable, and
• something that you can follow consistently(there it is again).

Without consistency, nothing else matters.

This is why;

starting with actions, to

then build habits for your practices, that

become skills

will help you smash your wedding health and fitness goals.

Didn’t do any of this before? That’s probably why this whole things feels so damn hard.

See why it’s just that much more effective than outcome based goals when you follow this 4 step formula?

So, let’s recap…

Marry your behaviors, leave outcomes at the altar

because no matter how much you may try,  you can’t control outcomes….

Bouquet Toss All or Nothing and Perfectionism

They’re not required to help you get to your goal(s), plus, operating that way makes you feel shitty, full of shame, and wanting to quit. Why sign up for that?

Break Goals Down

A goal on its own isn’t enough. It doesn’t tell you anything more than what your target is, but when you can adopt the skills, practices and actions that make the goal a reality, you have your steps to take.

Follow The Three Pillars of The Best Badass Bride

If you’re having trouble knowing what actions, practices and skills are required to help you smash your wedding health and fitness goals, you can follow the curriculum of The Best Badass Bride Blueprint.

Here’s to you smashing your wedding health and fitness goals!