Sometimes the toughest part of any challenge isn’t the physical demand you face, but the mental one. In fact, your mental health is just as important as your physical health in many ways, including weight management. How strong is yours?
Something to consider is “fitness for your thoughts.” This simple concept is about exercising your brain to respond to certain triggers in a healthy way. This can mean changing how you think about food, stress, sleep, physical activity, grief, etc.
Why You Need Mental Endurance
Mental endurance is built when training your brain becomes habit. Your goal is to respond constructively to stress, burnout, confusion, worry and other rough emotions.
These emotions are common with weight management. Your journey with weight is a long and winding road that you will take step by step. You will go uphill and downhill, forward and back. A lot of barriers will get in the way. Mental endurance gets you to the finish line!
6 Endurance-boosting Tips
Are you facing mental battles that are causing you to stop or slow down? Consider these tips:
Prepare for Challenges
Accept now that not every effort you make will be easy. You will likely experience a range of obstacles and frustrations. However, you’re not alone. Everyone faces battles. The deciding factor in success is who will stick-out the challenge.
Practice Your Patience
Not everything will happen as quickly as you want it to. Long-term change requires enough time to make new habits and see their results. Practice making decisions with peace and clarity when things don’t go at your pace.
Don’t Compromise
If you want to reach a specific goal, don’t compromise when easier options appear. You owe it to yourself to learn from challenges. Do you have a goal weight? Don’t do something unhealthy or unsustainable to reach it. Take the harder route by working with a healthcare provider to see your treatment options and make lifestyle changes where necessary.
Shoot for Balance
If your brain is getting a workout in mental endurance, kudos to you! But if you start to get fatigued or discouraged, it’s okay to pause. Maybe you need to change course or adjust something. Use this time to rest, clear your head and tackle the challenge with renewed energy.
Visualize Your Success
When you are stressed or discouraged, your goals don’t always feel like they are in reach. So, you start to stop thinking about them. Well, stop that! You SHOULD think about them. In fact, you should turn your goals into mental pictures and/or videos that will inspire you.
Find the Right Company
Success is helped by having supportive people in your circle who:
- Understand you
- Encourage you
- Guide and equip you
- Keep you accountable
Someone who isn’t doing this isn’t helpful to your journey. You deserve to spend your time with people who value your health and want to help you meet your goals.
Conclusion
There are similarities in building both physical and mental endurance. That is because your body and mind are more connected than you might think! Strengthening them requires a lot of work and time. You need endurance to walk that extra step, go that extra mile or walk through the thick of the fire. The end result, however, is worth it to your health and happiness.
