The Fountain of Youth: Ch 12 Your Goals Are Better than Mine

Ch 12 Your Goals Are Better than Mine

More About Buff Bosses and Presenteeism

In the last chapter we talked about bosses--how important they are especially if they're right beside us on the treadmill or doing a workout at a time which everyone knows about.Their presence is constant reassurance that we're OK for doing our workouts instead of looking busy at our desks --probably little more than "presenteeism," anyway.

"Presenteeism" is a newly coined term for being at work even when sick. We've all done this either to avoid using up sick leave or keep from missing a day at the office. The implication here is that "presenteeism" can include a lot more--not being at 100% of potential at all times. Perhaps this is better called going through the motions. We're all guilty of this from time to time, employees and executives alike. This can be due to distraction from psychological issues, possibly the result of problems at home. It can also be due to little more than boredom. Then too, it can be that we are simply coming down with something that we're hoping will run it's course. The important thing however, is that we don't want our routines interfered with--we want to be at work, just not wholly into it.

While some may take umbrage with the implication that they're not hitting on all eight cylinders for every minute of an eight hour day, others will admit that they probably would want to, if only they felt more like it. We all want those great feelings of being unstoppable at what we do, always putting out--exceeding yesterday's top end. But the drive to do that is just not there all the time--maybe not as much as we wish. Those who would like to be hitting on all eight more often are the perfect candidates for a fitness routine.

Fitness cleans out the cobwebs in one's head, decreases the onset of actual illness (especially in conjunction with various supplements such as the very inexpensive, but effective mega dose of Vitamin C,) increases energy, decreases everything from minor discomfort to migraines. It makes all of us work more efficiently. It's the cure-all for the humdrum existence.

The employee who has a knowledgeable boss (one who can admit to periods of less than one hundred percent involvement at work) is fortunate. That very human higher-up will be doing the best thing possible to make this problem vanish on a corporate scale. Namely, they will be living a fitness lifestyle--not only for themselves, but for their employees as well. They will be setting a good example just by keeping their own house in order. And, as a sideline, they will be liked all the more for it--something which will go a long way to incurring employee loyalty and retention.

How Does Fitness Eliminate Presenteeism?

Cardio-time on the treadmill or exer-cycle is the perfect opportunity to go through internal "mulling," our personal problems, with the intent of keeping these away from doing something important, such as the month-end report. This may even be the primary reason that our bosses work out. (They have things like month-end reports too.) Doing so really does make problems either go away or convert themselves into solutions.Too, being in better condition will in fact cause many of these problems to never occur in the first place; but that's not easily measured. In fact, the belief that one will make far better use of time following a workout is not easily measured either. Nevertheless, anyone who has been into fitness for at least a year knows this is true.

People into fitness are in better shape, do more, complain less, make fewer mistakes, close more sales, treat co-workers better, get into less arguments with their bosses. They like themselves more, and others like them as well. Consequently, they would never think of coming to work without having first done their workout. Nor would they ever overeat, eat the wrong foods, or miss their supplements. All of these work together to make living more enjoyable and productive.

Their management counterparts are this way as well. They were probably the most instrumental in getting your new fitness program into place to begin with. Yet, clearly, not all bosses in an organization are like this. There are some who are still skeptical, trusting more in the keep their nose to the grind stone approach. Perhaps this will change in time, but fitness is still perceived as "just fun time" by some.

The Most Important Person Is You

These people, the bosses--the pro- and not so pro-fitness ones, are not end and all of everything when it comes to your workout, your diet, your supplements. The most important person is you. Yes, having a boss who works out too is helpful, but it's not essential. You are still number one. But to effectively be that, you've got to have a personal goal-- one just for you -- something which you find exciting--one which you know you can achieve within a reasonable period of time. For right now, let's call this six months. For most people, let's say it's going to be all about weight loss.

People often look to folks like corporate fitness directors for the step-by-step guide to losing weight. Those who say they want to lose weight often expect drill sergeant-like supervision along with a biggest loser contest, having cash reward for dropping pounds. How nice if this would have a chance of working. Corporate America could invest relative pennies to save millions. But, the biggest loser approach with the daily tallies of "who did what" almost never does; or, if it does, the contestants are right back to being fat not long after. To put it mildly, expecting this is like demanding a crutch instead of expressing a sincere interest in how to walk on your own two feet.

A lot of people say that they want to lose weight. That's legitimate, and that's a goal to be sure; but it doesn't say anything about how they want to make that happen. In fact, the thought of coming up with their own plan may even be a bewildering. It may give rise to the objection If I knew that already I would have done it. As nine-tenths of getting into fitness is really about sustained motivation, this is almost never at all on the mark. Yet, a suggestion or two may prove helpful. That is, it may help to get the ball rolling.

An easy catch-all recommendation is losing one pound per week until the desired weight is obtained. That's a relatively easy thing to do. It just requires eliminating about five hundred calories per day and committing to a half hour walk. (A quick and dirty suggestion is to simply eliminate all butter and one piece of bread, never missing a brisk stroll on your lunch hour.) That will drop the weight in a comfortable and safe manner. You can even check first with your doctor,to see if that's right for you, assuming you really think it's worth the co-pay. Yet, it's not all that simple.

For this to work, you first really need to know how much you eat per day, everyday. The question is "Do you?" Do you even remember what you ate yesterday? Do you think that there may be a set quantity of food that you always consume whether you're aware of it or not? Are you aware of what makes you eat more often? Answering these questions with the resolve to make the necessary adjustments is where the real results begin.

The challenge for both you and the fitness director is to find what will work for you to get you where you want to go in a reasonable period of time. It starts small and works up. Mostly, it's about asking the right questions and then never failing to act upon the right answers. Over enough time that will result in a day in day out never missed hour long workout and a completely satisfying, tasty, nutritional, supplement-enhanced diet. Most people would think of all that as synonymous with being their own fitness-person. Everyone can get to this point.

What is Goal Setting All About?

There are some very good schools of thought which say that all you need is a standard workout routine, never going above two thousand calories, always taking your multis. It's all kind of like brushing your teeth--something everybody does in pretty much the same way every morning. That may not sound very exciting. Perhaps it sounds more like doing a boring routine than coming up with an exciting goal. But this most likely is more than you are doing right now. If so, it would be good to make that your long range goal for seven days a week. The important point is that this in itself is a goal. You can come up with other more fun ones once that one's been mastered.

Some people reading this will immediately be discouraged from ever trying to get into fitness because it sounds like a "forever proposition." It sounds like going from Sacramento to New York, never getting a chance to see the sites once we've made it. Yet, this works, and does lead to bigger and better things. Once we get there, we find a way to improve upon the supposed boredom, and we enjoy doing so. But a goal like this is simply too far off for most. Something far more immediate is required, such as perfect gym attendance for the first month. Grade school as that may sound, that really works. But why does it?

Always striving for something more (even if it's just perfect attendance) is simply how we're set up as human beings. We are never satisfied with ourselves for just what is OK right now. That's true of everything, and it's especially true for fitness. There's always something more that we can be better at or do more of. We can always do the reps more strictly on the machines. We can always go beyond the current plateau of rpms on the stationary bike. We can always cut a calorie or two. But those should be down the road, after we've got a few more basic milestones attained. The good news is that this all becomes easier the more it's done.

However, there are times when making improvements seems impossible. It's as if we are at a point beyond which nothing will ever happen. This is known as hitting a plateau. It's nothing more than the body regrouping itself for the next natural upward spurt. It's a natural phenomenon.The most important thing to realize about it is that it should never be a reason to quit. Of course, it can cause us to feel like giving up. If what we're doing just does not get us to the point we think we should be at, in the amount of time we think that it should take, we tend to get discouraged. Possibly we are doing something wrong. Possibly we don't have enough growth gene, or GH factor, as is so much in vogue to talk about today. If only we did our exercises differently, or followed a certain new diet, then we would start looking like our favorite movie stars, possibly starting tomorrow.

There is nothing more absurd than this type of thinking unless we've really been living a set fitness lifestyle without deviation for a two year period. Indeed, even that might not even be long enough. No one starting out even for the tenth time has ever been at their fitness lifestyle for that long. The typical amount of time is about three months, having turned over a leaf after the first of the year only to decide that it again isn't working right after tax season. This type of thinking, if it can be called that, has got to be anticipated beforehand and ignored when tax time comes around. How is that possible?

Small Frequent Goals are Best

The first thing that a corporate trainer should get from someone starting out is an agreed upon goal (preferably in writing.) Most people think that this should be losing twenty pounds by June first, or something similar. When starting out, this is doing little more than setting oneself up for failure. That's why a goal of staying at it two weeks after April Fifteenth is superior.

Not everybody responds in the same way to supposedly tried and true procedures or products. The wonder apparatus and miracle pill manufacturers know this. That's why every new wonder product that hits the market has a disclaimer which says individual results may vary. (To those who believe that none of these products ever do what they claim, this may be the only true assertion on the label.) That's because : 1.) we all have different places that we're coming from; 2.) we are different sizes; 3.) we all do different things to get us where we want to go; and 4.) we all have different body chemistry.

However, there is a way address the problem the same for everyone. It has to do with the right mental image. Getting fit should be seen as a cross country journey from California to New York, always spending the night in a new city a long the way. That is drastically different than seeing it as a jet ride which is like an overnight makeover into magazine cover model (the kind of thinking our overnight everything culture gets us into.)

If you think of getting into fitness as a cross-country trip in a car, you can easily see that getting to the first city by nightfall's the most reasonable thing to do. Yet for some that might even be a lot. They may actually have trouble just getting to get to the third tier suburb of their hometown by lunchtime . If so, that's OK. The decision to leave home with the intent of getting to the first destination is all that matters.

The point is that fitness neither comes overnight nor does it comes from going after the impossible. Everyone knows this in theory, but few live as if it were true. Instead, we go from one routine to another, one diet to another as if going out of our way to hit cities that are not even close to being in straight line between home in California and our end target in New York. What could be more confusing, exhausting and self defeating? Can't we see that planning the route beforehand, resting at each city along the way, and then going from there the next morning is the only sure way to get to our destination?

For the sake of argument, though, we can take a jet from LA to NY. This is like getting into an extreme makeover program. In other words, we really can go to a clinic, do everything they say, and turn out to be someone completely different in under sixty days. If we can afford do this, without insurance coverage, perhaps it should be given a shot. But where will we be without the 24/7 guidance of your makeover team once we've come back to the real world?

There may be one in a thousand who will immediately get into a never-stop ninety minute a day routine, a proper diet and adequate supplementation to maintain the newly acquired magazine cover look. The question is "Is that really going to happen?" Is anyone who has only been introduced to a crash course in appearances really able, on their own, to do what the movie stars regularly do to maintain themselves?

It's doubtful.

Stops Along the Way and Presenteeism

This chapter started out talking about presenteeism, which might better be called "going through the motions." This what a robot does. It gets turned on by someone else, and then mindlessly does the job that its operator wants it to do. That's what we've all been about in fitness whenever we started at the first of the year finding that we are no longer interested in doing anything by tax season. It's what we did when got into the last biggest loser program.

But why didn't this work? After all, it should have. Doesn't every company (even ones without a brand new gym) have one of these from time to time?

It didn't work because afterward we rebelled against being robotic. We're people, not machines. But we can get into being mindless! Thus, we've got to resist the temptation to act like a robot.

The best way to not be a robot is to simply be a car owner--a person who sets up a road map from California to New York, and then stays on course. What could be simpler? That's something we all know we can do. We can drive to a motel not that far away, and then start out again after a good night's rest. We can do that in our own cars, at our own pace. All we need is the resources to make it from one motel to the next (taking it one day at a time.)

With a few short term destinations and a long term one in mind, everything changes. It makes us "with it" in thought feeling and action. That is the first step to getting where we want to go. Humble as it may well be, it's the only real game in town. In a way, it's like Rocky going from a one mile run to a five, maybe from pounding the side of beef from ten minutes to an hour. We didn't see that in the movie, but that is how it is in real life. Just like him, we can do the things we can --knowing that these will lead to others, and that those in turn will lead us to the big time.

That's where we all have to be from hour to hour, week to week. Fitness takes time : it doesn't come overnight.

Where's Your Buff Boss Along the Way?
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Your buff boss is always en route to the city of his or her choice. Same goes for your buff, or not so buff, peers. Some folks think that shouldn't really matter, but it does. That's just how we are as human beings. So, instead of trying to act like lone wolf Rocky, we'd all be better off exchanging emails and texts along the way. That's kind of like never missing group meetings--something that really will make a much more enjoyable cross-country journey for everyone.

TEAM-- Together Everyone Achieve More.

For further thought on how to become fit while working at a job order my e-book "Think and Grow Fit."

Posted by mark clemens at 1/14/2012 2:19 PM