10 Things you need to know to stay fit for life #5

 

 I am 61 years old and I look better than you. I am more fit, more flexible, more virile and stronger than 99% of the people in America over 40 years of age. How did I get that way? How can you get that way and more importantly; how can you stay in great shape for 61 years? How do you stay Fit For Life?

 

I believe that lifetime fitness is a multifaceted program that has 10 key components. In the next few weeks I will be discussing the 10 secrets you need to know to stay fit for life.

 

 

# 5 Mental Conditioning

 

I can not overemphasize the importance your mental conditioning plays in staying fit for life. If you are not obsessed with getting fit and staying fit for life you will not put in the effort, do the work, allocate the time for your exercise program that will allow you to become fit and stay fit for your entire life.

 

If you are relying on “feeling good” about working out, you won’t work out when you don’t “feel good” and that is about 25% of the time. That in turn will lead you to not work out “when you don’t feel motivated to exercise”. That is another 25% of the time, and finally you will not be motivated to work out when its too hot, too cold. When its too nice outside. When you are too busy, or  too tired. When you have an upset stomach, aches and pains, or a headache, when you have work problems, or games or activities that are more important, and even a tv show you just can’t miss. That will take care of the other 50% and that will effectively stop your lifetime fitness program.

 

In the first tip for this series of articles I discussed my book OMA (Obsessive Mental Attitude) and I now want to go into more detail about OMA, what it is and how it can help you achieve anything you want in life. Let’s begin by looking at the mental conditioning or programming that is used by 80% of the people in the World. I say 80% because according to the “bell shaped curve” 20% of the people in any organization, company, school, or activity will do 80% of the work. So these 80% will only do 20% of the work. The top 20% have figured out the mental conditioning that is necessary to succeed and I want to share that with you.

Most people rely on “feeling’s” to do anything in life. If they don’t feel like it, they don’t do it. If it doesn’t feel good, they don’t do it. If it makes them feel bad, they don’t do it. If it makes them feel good, even though it is harming them, they do it. If it makes them feel good even though it doesn’t work, has never worked and will never work in the future, they continue to do it and expect it to work. That is what is wrong with so many of the social programs in the US and the World. The public school system doesn’t work, but it makes people feel good when they pour more money into the schools without doing the stuff that would make the children and teachers feel bad (like homework, and tutoring). The welfare system doesn’t work; people have been on welfare for 5 generations. But it makes people feel good to keep pouring money into a failed system, and people don’t want the people on welfare to feel bad, like they would if they had to go to work, so nothing gets done and the welfare system keeps eating money and failing. All because people want to feel good and don’t want other people to feel bad.

 

When you are relying on feelings to achieve anything great in your life, like staying fit for life, you are not going to succeed. Your feelings change daily with the weather. You can not rely on feeling good about exercising as the motivation you intend to use to actually go out and do the exercises and work required for a lifetime of fitness. You can not rely of feeling good to eat the right foods and lift the heavy weights. It won’t work, it doesn’t work, but it is the most prevalent and pervasive form of mental conditioning utilized today for all aspects of society.

 

In science if you want to know if something works you do a study and have a controlled situation where you can determine exactly if the product , drug, or theory works. If you give everyone the same drug to prevent measles and no one gets measles, then you conclude it works and put it on the market. If you give everyone the same course in school to solve a problem and they can solve the problem, you conclude the course is successful and put into textbooks. But that is not the way it works in the World of mental conditioning.

 

The business World uses “feelings” to get things done. It tries to motivate their sales force to feel good, to be positive, to get pumped up, to get psyched up and get it done. They send their sales force to PMA (Positive Mental Attitude) classes. They send them to motivations seminars. They hire motivational speakers to give inspiring speeches to get their people psyched up and feel good about their job and selling. It works for about 10 minutes and then the 80% of the sales force is back in the doldrums and back to feeling negative and not getting anything done. Why, because PMA doesn’t’ work as a life long motivational factor. PMA never has worked, if it did why can’t you stay positive for 10 hours straight? PMA and the other feel good mental conditioning programs will never motivate someone to greatness. It is a failed system but just like the feel good public school system and the feel good welfare system it is continuing to be utilized because no one wants their sales staff to feel bad. So they keep buying the PMA books, going to the motivational seminars, and hiring motivational speakers, so they can continue to feel good. If you have ever read a book on PMA, or a feel good book that was intended to motivate you and 2 days after reading the book you didn’t feel good anymore and might actually feel worse, would you consider the book a failure or yourself a failure? 99% of the people consider the problem to be their selves, not the book. They simply refuse to believe that a book, a lecture, a seminar on “feeling good” to get things done won’t work. I think it is because they have been conditioned to rely on feelings instead of hard work to get things done. I do not rely on “feelings” about my exercise program, I use a mental conditioning program that works.

 

So what kind of mental conditioning does work? That works every time and can not fail because the person using it would rather die than fail? An Obsession, OMA, Obsessive Mental Attitude works every time it is used because the person who is obsessed must posses that with which they are obsessed. Let’s relate it to something you can understand. Drugs, no person feels worse about being a drug addict than the drug addict. No one hates himself more than the “coke head”. No one realizes more that they are destroying their lives and their body with their drugs, and there is nothing they can do about it. The threat of jail, the loss of job, the loss of family, even the loss of their lives will not motivate them to get off their drugs. They are obsessed with their drugs. They will do whatever it takes to get their next hit. The mental conditioning they use works, works so well, they destroy their lives using it.

 

Now imagine if you had this power to motivate you to exercise, to get fit and stay fit for life. Well you do. God gave every one the power to form Obsessions. And when you get an obsession you will get it for life. When you become obsessed with getting fit and staying fit for life, you will look forward to going to the health club as much as the junkie looks forward to his next hit. When you are obsessed with eating right, you would not even think about the pie, candy or cakes you used to love. Because your obsession with being fit and staying fit will dominate your mind and body with an overpowering force that can not and will not be stopped by feelings, you no longer will be subject to having to feel good to exercise You will exercise, you will get fit, you will stay fit for life because it is an obsession, a lifetime obsession that will give you a lifetime of wonderful rewards..

 

 

 

For more info: Grandmaster Ted Gambordella is the author of 42 books and 24 DVD’s. For more info see his website www.blackbeltinabox.com