How Regular Framing Helps You Reach Your Life Goals
September marks back to school season for all of us and is a fantastic time to re-evaluate what you truly want out of the next four months of 2022 – and no, it’s not trying to find out what really happened on the set of Don’t Worry Darling. Instead, we’re taking a moment to reflect, pause and plan our aims for the latter half of the year. So, in this month’s blog, we’ve enlisted the help of avid Framer and self-development coach Lisa McLoughlin to share how regular exercise can help you reach your goals and build long-term habits. Take it away Lisa. When you want to expand and improve your personal development you often turn to things like books, TikTok, courses, and coaches like me. But what if I told you there’s one thing you’re already doing that is aiding your self-improvement? That one thing… is exercise. Working out is a powerful tool that can work wonders for your personal growth and is an underestimated habit that triggers widespread change that feeds into all areas of your life. See it as the ultimate domino effect. Don’t believe me? Here’s a rundown of how your workouts improve self-esteem, worth, confidence and beyond.1. Builds Confidence
Look, we all like to channel our inner Sasha Fierce whether it’s at work, with dating, or even picking up a Tesco Meal Deal at lunch but sometimes it can feel like an absolute slog digging deep to find that inner self-esteem when your cup runneth empty.
And when you find yourself at that point, grab your trainers and get exercising ASAP. Hear me out here.
Working out does wonders for building and maintaining confidence – no, not just your physical appearance – but it aids an authentic confidence that comes from succeeding despite your fears. Perhaps those fears are lifting a heavier kettlebell, upping that treadmill incline, or successfully putting your feet into the reformer’s Pilates bed loops without hesitation.
By shattering your comfort zone time and time again you learn to be comfortable with discomfort, helping you to push through the limits you’ve put on yourself and recognise your strength within.
In doing so, you reinforce the foundations of your confidence with unwavering belief and steely determination.
2. Betters Focus
“No sleep! Bus, club, another club, another club, plane, next place. No sleep” – if reading Lady Gaga’s words already exhausts you then you can probably agree that we live in a world that forces us to constantly be on the go.
While it might not be a “bus, club, another club”, we’re bombarded by distractions; notifications, texts, emails, calls, that continually pull our attention away and make it harder to focus on what we need to do.
By scheduling in time for a class like dance cardio or box train, you are giving yourself room to concentrate on a singular task away from the noise. Think about it, when you’re punching that boxing bag, you have to concentrate on your technique, manage your energy, and your pace – you can’t let your mind wander nor do you have time to worry about anyone else’s performance.
Focus is vital to getting results both inside and outside the studio so as you improve your ability to be “in the moment” during your 45 minutes at Frame, you’ll learn how to apply that same concentration to better other areas of your life too.
3. Helps Create Lifelong Habits
Show of virtual hands, who wants to get better at building habits? I’m going to take it that everyone’s hands are up. Well, did you know that committing to a class is an excellent exercise in habit building?
Say your goal is to be able to place both your heels down in downward facing dog, to successfully do so, you’ll need to break that down into a set of actionable steps or habits. This could mean, committing to a Wake Up and Flow Yoga livestream once a week alongside your usual Yin Yoga class for six weeks, one you’ve reached that target, you’ll probably reassess what you want to achieve next and apply the same framework to another fitness goal.
Learning how to design habits and follow them will help you in countless areas of life. So, if you want to grow your career for example, adopt the same mentality you’ve applied to your fitness goal and think about the habits that will help you get there.
Planning the route means when you fall off the path, you know exactly where to get back on again without frustration, overwhelm or soul-crushing self-criticism.
4. Improves Your Goal-Setting Mindset
Setting goals is a massive part of your fitness journey and planning your Frame classes for the week ahead is an important clog in achieving that goal. After all, failing to prepare, preparing to fail really does ring true in this aspect of personal development.
And much like planning your classes to reach your target, life follows the same pattern. Unsurprisingly, improving yourself doesn’t happen overnight, instead it takes time, patience, and humility, to break those old habits and build new ones.
If you do this enough, you prove to yourself that you can do anything you set your mind to – even adding an extra spring to your reformer Pilates’s bed during an upper body workout. If you know, you know.
5. Aids Resilience
At one time or another, you’ve probably had to deal with a setback with your workout goals – whether it’s combatting post-work fatigue, a lack of motivation, busy schedules, or injury.
However, setbacks aren’t confined to just your fitness goals as you well know, everyone deals with disappointment in different areas of life.
It might not seem like it but a class at Frame really does help you train your brain to overcome tough times when faced with adversity.
Imagine you’re in the middle of your Frame Barre class and you don’t think you can squeeze that red ball between your thighs much longer, but somehow you dig deep to keep pushing through the burn, knowing the outcome is worth it.
And that grit you’ve shown to hold on is the key to overcoming adversity in life, training your brain to carry on and stay consistent when times get tough means you’ll beat any obstacle in your path – and in this case, gain buns of steel.
If you want to learn more about self-development follow Lisa’s Instagram here.