12- Breaking Free from "Shoulding" in Your Fitness Journey

Episode Overview: Welcome to another episode of MilesFromHerView! In this episode, Kat from KatFit Strength dives deep into the concept of "shoulding," a term coined by Clayton Barbeau, and how it impacts our fitness journeys. Kat shares practical strategies to help you shift away from unrealistic expectations and unnecessary stress, fostering a healthier and more enjoyable approach to fitness.

Key Topics Discussed:

• Introduction to "Shoulding": Understanding the pressure we put on ourselves with thoughts like "I should be doing this" or "I shouldn't have done that."
• Impact on Fitness: How "shoulding" creates guilt and frustration, steering us away from a healthy, sustainable fitness routine.
• Strategies to Avoid "Shoulding":
  • Setting realistic goals that fit into a busy schedule
  • Celebrating small wins to maintain motivation
  • Listening to your body and adjusting workouts accordingly
  • Being kind to yourself and recognizing that setbacks are a normal part of the journey
• Conclusion: Emphasizing the importance of focusing on what you can do and what feels right for your body and lifestyle.

Takeaways:

• Replace "shoulding" with achievable and realistic fitness goals.
• Celebrate your progress, no matter how small.
• Listen to your body and give it the rest it needs.
• Be kind to yourself and remember that fitness is a journey, not a destination.

Listener Challenge: This week, we challenge you to identify one "should" thought in your fitness routine and replace it with a positive, realistic goal. Share your experience with us on social media using #MilesFromHerViewChallenge.

Thank you for tuning in to MilesFromHerView! Stay strong, stay positive, and let's make fitness a celebration, not a chore!

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Transcript

Kat: 0:00

Welcome to another episode of MilesFromHerView. I'm Kat, your host. And today we're diving into a topic that is crucial for our fitness journeys, the concept of shooting and how it impacts our health and wellbeing. Welcome to MilesFromHerView. The podcast where we dive deep into the unfiltered reality of fitness, strength training, and nutrition within womanhood and motherhood. I am your host, Kat, founder of Kat Fit Strength. I'm a career strength and conditioning coach, entrepreneur, lifelong athlete, and a mom of two active boys. In each episode, we explore the unique challenges and triumphs faced by women navigating the complexities of life. From juggling family and career to prioritizing self care, you. We dissect the systems and the habits that shape our health and wellness. Join us for real stories, authentic advice, and genuine conversations as we empower each other to embrace our journeys and find strength in vulnerability. Oh, we are in the thick of summer here in the Northeast and it has been a really hot summer. With that, I have been feeling a little bit disconnected and unproductive with my work and projects that I have going for KatFit. It is what happens, if you will, in the dog days of summer. with that, my kids are not on a routine or a schedule. You know, they have their swim team in the morning and then we have some mates and even that is starting to wind down before there's complete time off. Life as it does is becoming really lifey. There's been some other extra curveballs thrown at me, which is Adds to the chaos adds to more management to a schedule and which is already packed. That brings me to these thoughts of shooting for me. Most in particular, life gets very, very chaotic. Manic and a lot of extra things get thrown in what I find myself is detaching from the original plan of that day. I'm always adapting and moving, but when so many things start to get crammed in, I start to fall into the mental trap of shooting and let's dive into that. And maybe you can relate, maybe think about those times where you make those extra I should be statements or I shouldn't have. So shooting is a term that was coined by psychologist Clayton Barbeau, referring to the unnecessary pressure we put on ourselves with thoughts. Like I should be doing this or I shouldn't have done that. So in the context of fitness, this mindset leads to such unrealistic expectations and unnecessary stress. What it essentially does is it causes a cognitive distortion with what you think or the expectation should be rather than what the reality is. I often find this With myself as well as with clients, when we enter into a fitness routine or we've been involved in a fitness routine for a while that we start to say, I should be and name a point in your journey. I should have lost more weight by then I should be able to control myself around insert. whatever food I should be able to work out every day. These statements keep us in this lacking, in this I'm not enough. It prevents us from realizing and celebrating What we're actually doing. Oftentimes the these should statements derive from societal standards or in the, in today's world, with social media, everywhere we see follow a lot of fit bows or fitness influencers, or we see other friends who we are friends with, maybe no, in real life there are photos of them working out and maybe you're in a time in your life where. Working out may not be possible or maybe it's your rest day Maybe it's time or maybe you're on vacation and you don't have any workouts planned But watch those should statements creep in. Oh, I should be working out on vacation I should be working out on a rest day or maybe it's a surrounding food United States celebrated 4th of July. There was a lot of barbecues and family gatherings and stuff center of friend gatherings. There's a lot that happened. And so maybe it was, I shouldn't have eaten, or I shouldn't have had an insert, whatever item there. Ultimately what these statements do is they keep us. in this unrealistic expectation state of mind. And that builds up a lot of guilt and frustration. And when that gets to a certain point, that's where I find in the, over a decade, I've been doing this where clients tend to quit because they feel like they're never ever going to be good enough or that they're worthy of their goals or that it's even possible for them. It causes them to stop all the progress and all the brilliant things that they're doing takes us away from that sustainability with your fitness. It essentially keeps you in that perfection seeking like nothing will ever deter me. I should, here's the I should statement, be able to show up to my workouts no matter what happens in my life. I should be able to avoid all, I'm going to use this as a societal standard, bad foods like desserts and highly processed things. But when in reality. You are a human being who has thoughts and feelings and you are not a robot. Fitness industry paints this picture that one day you will achieve this elaborate goal where, like I said, you won't ever be tempted by a dessert or any other decadent non nutrient dense item. And you'll always have this abundance of motivation to work out. That is not true. That is not how you establish a sustainable relationship with your health and wellbeing. Now let's dive into breaking away from the shooting because it happens. And like I said, I am not immune to this. And I don't want you to think that if you employ these strategies that all of a sudden these should statements will disappear because. That is not realistic. What will happen is if you start to employ these strategies, you will build up tolerance and be able to switch those thoughts from shooting. You'll catch yourself because you will have that awareness and you will stop those thoughts. Thoughts to prevent the guilt and the shame and frustration from building up because you know how to shut that down and you will have a healthier. sustainable relationship with your fitness and these strategies and that shooting goes along with parenting shooting goes along with a lot of just human performance in life. The other thing is with these strategies, you have to adopt them and make them your own. I'm going to talk to them, talk to you about them in the relation of fitness, and then you can adapt them from there, wherever you feel you need them in your life. And again, I want to stress that It is not a overnight, apply them, one, two, three, boom, and it's all good. With anything you employ with strategies, there is a learning curve and it is okay. You have moments where the should statements prevail, but you catch that because we have to build these skills. They do not happen overnight. So the first strategy is setting realistic goals. When a client comes in, they know their ultimate goal. It may look like I want to work out consistently five times a week and I want to gain muscle so that when I look at myself in pictures, I can feel happy. Okay. So that is their ultimate goal. Okay. Well, there are so many steps that happened before that. And so many goals that need to be met before we can get to their ultimate goal. And if we don't have, whether you want to call it benchmark goals or other. areas where we can acknowledge, you're going to get really frustrated if your big ultimate goal is seemingly untangible because you're in a state, and I'm going to use an example, let's use that goal. So you want to work out five days a week and you want to be able to look at yourself in family photos, other photos, and be like, wow, I see My muscles. I feel happy when I look at myself versus upset or trying to hide or avoiding from photos. Okay. Taking a little bit deeper, flushing it out there, how to get there. So you're not always comparing yourself and how to get there is you're in a state of life where you have, um, littles or you're embarking on a fitness program in the summer where you maybe don't have full childcare and you're trying to work from home and your kids. I'm going to use myself. My kids are 10 and 13. pretty independent, but they still need you because you're still a parent. So now you're divided your attention. For me as a coach, I say, okay, awesome. You can totally achieve that. Cause I'm, I don't know what people can, and I know people are totally worthy. I see the potential. I know how to get them there. Okay. For now, we're going to focus on getting really good at doing one to two and we operate. ranges. We don't operate in. Okay, so that's your goal. So now you're going to go from doing zero workouts to doing five workouts a week when you don't have dependable childcare. You're going to get overwhelmed pretty quickly. What it will look like oftentimes is. Boom. You're awesome. The first week you're out there. You got this. Cause you're like, I am on a new kick high. This is amazing. I can sustain this second week. You know what? I'm feeling a little bit depleted, but you know what? I can keep showing up third week. Oh my goodness. You know, I got a big work project happening. You know what? One of my kids an ear infection happened or whatnot, and you have to scale back. Oh, I should have been able to handle this. I should be able to show up for five days a week. Well, no, no life happens. And we need to build ourselves up from that. Or if you were someone who wants to start out with five days a week of working out, you have to understand that there are going to be ranges. Know that it's, it's not a black and white situation. So we want to achieve, aim for achievable goals that fit into your busy schedule and it's okay if you don't work out every day. Consistency over time is what matters. So take that scenario. You want to start out with five days a week. Awesome. Okay. By week three, life is getting lifey. Well, don't just say, Oh, well, life happened. I'm not worthy for my goal. I didn't get five this week, but you showed up two times. That is consistency. You're still showing up that week to the workout. Maybe the next week you get sick and your other child is sick and work is just piling on and you work out one time and that workout is mobility and is not strength training or cardio or any of the other things that you wanted to set out to do. You are still showing up inconsistent, but then life clears, or let's say you go on vacation on the sixth week, life clears, you know what, you can still show back up. It's when we sit here and say, well, because I haven't consistently over the past four weeks shown up five times, well, therefore I cannot, or I should be able to do this and master this. No, our lives are complex and we have to be realistic. We have to have achievable goals. And this is where it comes into strategy number two. Celebrate small wins. And I hate to say small because they're not small. These are actually the big, big, big wins that keep you in the game. Big wins often are like, Whoa, I saw a huge drop on the scale and people celebrate that massively or those before and afters, or, you know, I had a huge lift where I was able to lift, you know, 10, 20 pounds or my mile time dropped by X, Y, Z. We tend to celebrate these things as like, those are the big, grandiose ones. I argue small wins are the massive wins that keep you in this game forever. for, for life and sustainable. And you have to acknowledge it and celebrate your progress, no matter how small, and it can look like this. So we're going to take that scenario, pretty easy ages of my kids or whatever ages you think about the ages of your kids and times when, you know, life is just so lifey and it's happening just so fast and work a lot projects, a lot of deadlines to me, meetings, et cetera, and your kids. Maybe one sick or they're home for the summer and you want to have you have a workout planned. Maybe a kid was up all night. Maybe you had to prioritize work in the morning before you got to said work time and you had to bump your workout and now the should statement start to creep in. Oh, I should have planned better. I should have done this. I should have did it. We shut those down and know that in the afternoon when you've carved out that time, even if that workout was supposed to be 45 minutes, an hour, 30 minutes, but you show up for 10 minutes before you get to that workout. If you acknowledge I was able to prioritize work this morning, get my kids needs done, still show up for myself all day. My job, my career. And now here I am. I am still showing up. You can also acknowledge, yes, I know I had a 40 minute or whatever duration if you had to shorten it on the schedule. But I didn't quit on myself or walk away or maybe you know what you were like I need to prioritize rest day. I am so fatigued and just taking time for myself That is a win. Even if you push off a workout because you need to address sitting outside In this awful heat, I have been there where that is what I've needed to do to help give back to me versus stressing myself out. And that is a huge win. This is positive reinforcement that will continue to encourage you to maintain that sustainable fitness routine. This takes you away from that perfection seeking that shooting of yourself and holding yourself out. up against unrealistic expectations. All right. So number three, the strategy, this one is tough and it segues in nicely from the celebrating. The wind is listen to your. This is hard when you become a mom. And also our society is so great at having us disconnect with what is really going on in your body. And when you're a mom, you are caring. You know exactly from the look, the sound, the way your child maybe greeted you in the morning. If they are going to get sick or if they were having a bad day. Now I want you to mom yourself. I want you to get back in tune with your body and know that, you know what? I had an off night sleep and no, okay. I know how to push myself or. This is the time when I need to back off. If you can do the same thing you do for your child and maybe even a partner or whoever you cohabitate with and you care for and you are know them inside and out, that's what you need to do for you. When you're a mom, let's face it. Sometimes there's not a lot of people giving back to you and you have to be the person who is Momming you and pointing out, Hey, we need a rest day today. Even if you have all the energy to show up to a workout, but life just prevents it. It's okay. Get that rest day. Last week I had a day where I needed to prioritize work first thing in the morning. I'm someone who typically works out in the morning. It works with my schedule. However, sometimes it needs to get pushed. No big deal. Last Thursday was a big day. I needed to prioritize work and then I had kid things I needed to prioritize and then client sessions and then a couple more work things. And before I knew it, there was time. But I also knew if I were to squeeze in this workout right here, that is going to cause a So much increased stress and busyness. And did I want that? The answer was such a struggle because should started to creep in. Well, you should have planned better. You know, if you were dedicated to your goal, you would have in the woods and shoulds and coulds also kind of are, are really close kissing cousins right there. The should, wouldn't good for me. I knew it wasn't the lack of dedication. It wasn't, You know, you name it. It wasn't that I just wanted to slack off. It wasn't that I didn't have motivation. It wasn't that I wasn't feeling poorly in my body and needed that rest day, but I needed to prioritize not doing that workout because of the mental busyness and stress it would have caused on me. My time is better served to just take a moment for myself and not overly push myself. And that is hard. That is doing hard things right there. And I had to celebrate that. And it was tough because I was like, you know what? I have the energy. And I'm like, well, at the end of the evening, I could probably still fit that workout in. And then I had to catch myself because I was like, no, no, no, no. because you need a great quality night's sleep. And surely, yeah, it would have been 9 p. m. and the workout would have taken 30 minutes. But it really, by the time I showered, got myself, you know, relaxed in a good state of rest for sleep, it would have been 11 30 midnight. And that alarm clock goes off at 5 to 5 30 every morning. Would that 30 minute workout serve me? It would perpetuate more exhaustion and take away from what I can bring into the next day. Final one is be kind to yourself. And it kind of loops into kind of that story I said, it's hard to be kind to yourself because we are in a highly pressurized society and moms, we carry a lot of weight. We care for our kids. We have a career, we have ourselves. We're trying to do. Best on all fronts. And that is awesome. And I want you to, and every time I see my clients, I mean, they are some of the most hardworking, incredible human beings doing incredible, amazing things. And I know they fight this cutting, shitting and wooding every single day and it's hard and I'm right there in the thick of it for them. But we have to understand. Leading with compassion with yourself is huge and it's speaking in a kind way. voice to yourself. Think about your children and how you speak to them and how you want them to feel loved and in a growth environment that they can succeed. And this doesn't mean taking away their struggles or their frustrations because that's part of how we learn. And it's the same thing for us as adults is there is going to be frustrations and struggles that are going to keep you from workouts or maybe you're, You have time to do a workout and you have to override that. Like, Ooh, I just want to sit on the couch when you know, you know what I can get up and I can do this workout. It's recognizing that fitness isn't just ticking off the boxes, or if I do a certain number of workouts over a certain amount of period, then all of a sudden, boom, results will come. It's about the journey and discovering and getting to know yourself and giving back to yourself in a compassionate way to fuel yourself through building strength, through building, you know, You know, better cardio capacity mobility so that you can do more outside the gym. It's recognizing that it's okay that there are setbacks because that is normal. Everybody has setbacks from the elite. Athletes all the way down to you and me who are looking to just build and feel better in our bodies and seize the day in our everyday life. It comes from being kind to yourself and knowing that compassion is, is where it's at. It's what's going to keep you into the game. Shifting away from shitting. You'll foster such a healthy relationship with fitness and it will become more enjoyable and it will start to become an integral part of your life. Remember, it's not about what you should be doing. It's about what you can do and what feels right for you. And I want to leave you with this. It's not an overnight process. Start to become aware of the times you start to should yourself and I don't want this process to be like, ah, I can't believe I'm doing that. No, but like listen to how you should yourself gain that awareness Look at what's happening in your life Like I shared earlier the shoulds for me tend to creep in when I have my days and scheduled and life starts to become lifey and it pulls me away from what I, here we go, should have gotten done that today. done that day, but either didn't or only did a portion of it. So what I do is stop those shoulds and really be intentional with celebrating all the things I do and recognizing the barriers that I overcame to get myself to do those things or to complete those tasks and show up for myself. Okay. Thank you for joining me today on miles from review podcast, stay strong, stay positive, and let's make fitness a celebration, not a chore. Thank you for joining me on another episode of miles from her view. Your support means the world to me, and I truly appreciate you being a part of our community. If you found today's episode helpful and want to stay informed about all things KatFit Strength, make sure to subscribe to our weekly newsletter. You'll receive exclusive insights, tips, and updates straight to your inbox. To sign up, simply visit the show notes or the subscription link. To discover more about MilesFromHerView Strength programs and how you can ignite your fitness journey, head over to our website at www. cat. fit. There you'll find everything you need. To invigorate your path to strength. Once again, thank you for tuning in and I can't wait to connect with you in our upcoming episodes. Take care and remember act to take the next step.