Finally like what you see in the mirror.
Learn to embrace who you are, as you are while building your forever active lifestyle. Start here.
Learn to embrace who you are, as you are while building your forever active lifestyle. Start here.
The key to being successful with your goals AND maintaining the results is building your approach to achievement from the ground up. There’s a good chance you have never been taught how to do this. That’s okay, The the Your Level Framework can help. It was created for anyone working on living inside/out, on a fitness or weight loss journey but can also be adapted for anything else you’re working on.
The first decision to make is choosing the mindset you’re going to have. Choosing to genuinely believe in yourself and your capabilities from the beginning allows you to adopt a calm, deliberate approach to the actions your about to take. You then will use the actions you’re taking as reinforcement of the belief you’ve decided on.
Most people do the opposite. They hope that by taking action that eventually they will believe in themselves and their capabilities. This is how we fall into the impostor syndrome trap, where we never feel like we can do enough to be THAT person…we’ve ALL been there by the way.
Deciding you’re the type of person that is taking this type of action, right before you take the action lays the mental foundation that will take you further than you’ve been, down the path you truly want to go down. Now let’s talk about taking action and putting a system around it that gets results.
MDA's take what you think you're capable of doing now and scale it back to something that seems so embarrassingly easy, you'd feel sheepish telling someone you couldn't go beyond it. In practice, these daily actions would look something like this:
Exercise for at least 15 minutes, when you usually feel willing and able to do 30.
Journal for 5 minutes a day when you can normally fit in 10.
If these look too easy for you - that's the idea :) If not? scale them back further. Make your actions so specific you can look at them and answer how you're doing with them with a "yes" or "no". Remember: In order to get you on the path of becoming comfortable in your own skin and starting to live an inside/out life these MDA’s are the recommended starting point for anyone new to The YLF Philosophy.
Once you have the actions down, it's time to tie them to weekly goals.
Even though MDA's are setup to be easy to exceed, there's still going to be times where you can't hit them. That's why setting weekly goals with enough wiggle room is so important. Just commit to hitting each MDA goal at least a certain number of times per week.
Four is a great number, it gives plenty of slack and you'll start thinking of yourself as the fitness dynamo you are after exceeding your weekly goals every week for a couple months. What happens if you're not exceeding your goals? That's right! Scale them back a bit. Let’s talk about planning, executing and adjusting from week-to-week.
Weekly Look Ahead: Every Sunday you have a chance to look at how you’ve been executing, along with what you have coming up in the new week and set action focused goals for what you’re working on.
Midweek Adjustments: Wednesday is the perfect time to make any adjustments necessary to your follow through or goal setting based on how the week has gone so far, what’s coming up and what you know you’re willing to commit to to exceed each goal. Think of this as your halftime period that is giving you the opportunity to adjust and finish strong for the week. Ideally, you’ll get so in-tune with yourself, your goals and your execution that most weeks you won’t have to adjust anything.
Weekly Look Back: On Saturday it’s time to observe and note how your week as a whole went. It’s important to just observe your performance with as little emotion as possible. For anything you fall short on, these observations will show you where you can adjust the goal or your follow through plan tomorrow when you plan for the next week. For anything you exceeded, it’s equally important to celebrate in your head for at least five minutes what you were able to accomplish this week…nice job!!
It’s so easy to get caught up with concepts and content in the development space that you’re distracted from actually working on anything. That’s why I dedicate both daily podcasts “The Your Level Fitness Podcast & The Daryl Perry Podcast”, along with The Daily Email to this planning structure on the days mentioned above each week. Make sure you subscribe to both pods and sign up for the email.
It’s important to also have a systematic approach to regularly check-in with yourself and collect data points so that you can see the progress your making. Remember: the amount of change between one progress update to the next isn’t nearly as important as how things are trending over the course of months and years. Since the framework has fitness roots let’s talk about those updates first…
Every two or four weeks "you decide which" take a waist measurement, progress photos and get on the scale. Do all three so that one isn't being seen as more important than the others. Here's the "why" for each:
Waist Measurement: This is where most people carry their extra weight. If yours is elsewhere, measure that area instead.
Progress Photos: Take a front, side and back view picture, in your workout clothes.
Get on the Scale: I'd prefer you not use the scale to determine progress, but this would be the time to do it if you are. :)
Jot down and keep this info. After 3-4 progress sessions you should have enough information to tell how well you're doing on your program. Evaluate those results and adjust where necessary.
If you’re working on connecting with, appreciating and loving yourself from and at every stage of life “aka living an inside/out life”, you’re going to have to journal. How you record your thoughts is up to you. I personally use the Day One app. I’m not sponsored or affiliated with them, just love that I can voice memo, voice-to-text or write out entrees then easily organize them with hashtags.
A monthly check-in with how you’re feeling about yourself in all areas, then tagging it as #monthlycheckin in your journal is a great way to document your mindset in the moment, then see how things have been trending over the months and years. Anywhere between a couple of sentences and a couple paragraphs is plenty.
Personally, I check-in with myself often about a number of things when journaling but I find a monthly, overall check-in beneficial.
Most other self-development plans have their own progress updates structure. If the one you’re working on doesn’t, I’d journal about how things are going weekly, then writee a little longer update monthly.
Try this framework with any fitness goal, following any plan you wish. Keep trying your best and focusing on what's within your control. Your results will take care of themselves.
Hey there. When most people start a fitness journey, they focus on the tactics. What workout should I do? What foods should I eat? How many steps should I take each day? Those are all valid questions, but the longer I’ve been doing this, the more I’ve realized that the thought process driving those tactics “the personal philosophy behind them” is what really shapes long-term success.
Hey there. It’s taken me a long time to accept that some people just won’t like me. Not because I did anything wrong. Not because I’m a bad person. But simply because of who I am and how I live. That used to bother me a lot. I would replay conversations in my head and wonder what I could’ve said differently or how I could’ve presented myself in a way that made them like me more. But no matter how hard I tried, there were always going to be people who didn’t see me the way I saw myself.
Hey there. For a long time, I thought strength meant keeping a wall up. I told myself that if someone hurt me, the best way to deal with it was to show them I didn’t care or to find a way to make them feel what I felt. But the truth is, that kind of reaction never healed anything. It only made the pain louder inside me.
Hey there. There was a point where I thought the next achievement would finally make me feel enough. The next goal weight, the next PR in the gym, the next work milestone, the next version of myself that somehow felt more acceptable. But no matter how many boxes I checked, that feeling never came the way I expected. It wasn’t because I wasn’t progressing. It was because I was trying to earn something that had always been mine.
Hey there. There are moments when I catch myself getting lost in the details of progress. How much work have I done this week? How close am I to the next goal? How many steps did I get in today? These questions matter, but lately, I’ve been reminding myself to take a step back and just appreciate the fact that I can move. That I get to show up. That I get another day.
Hey there. I see it all the time and I know you do too. Social media is a story. At best, it props up the best elements of our life. At worst, it is a fake, surface level depiction of something that does not reflect reality. If you spend your time comparing your life to what you see scrolling through your feed, you are going to miss out on what is right in front of you. And eventually, you will be miserable.
Hey there. I used to think that if I just kept moving, kept distracting myself, and kept piling on new goals, I could outrun the feelings that made me uncomfortable. What I’ve learned over the years is that you cannot outrun yourself. If you are not calm on the inside, the chaos always finds a way to catch up. It might take years, even decades, but eventually that inner noise demands your attention.
Hey there. One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is that you can do anything you want in life. You are your own main character. That means you get to decide the plot twists, the direction, and the way you show up every single day. The people you worry are watching and judging? Most of them are too busy focusing on their own story to care about yours. And if they are spending time worrying about you, it usually comes from a place where their self-esteem is so low that it really doesn’t hold any weight in your life.
Hey there. There’s something I’ve learned after years of working with people “in fitness and other areas”. I don’t try to convince anyone to change.
