Best Mistakes of 2021

You have undoubtedly lived through a tough year filled with struggles and mistakes this last year. Regardless of the pandemic, any lifestyle in which a person is trying to grow, it’s important to recognize there were likely mistakes made and therefore opportunities for growth.

Think about these mistakes now.

Did you have ones that make you cringe?

Did you have ones that made you angry at yourself?

Did you have ones that make you feel incredibly frustrated? Left feeling stupid? Or weak?

Good. These are the really important ones to reflect on.

It is so important for you to embrace these memories. If you were looking back at your year and none of these were relatable to you – this could only happen in two ways:

1) You were in a coma doing nothing.

2) You may be a narcissist that struggles with self-awareness

Humans need to make mistakes to grow and become better people.

I want to be very open with you and express my biggest mistakes of the last year.

1) Bulking

Without going into too much detail, as I have a whole blog about the problems with the ‘dirty’ bulking that happens this time of year, the main thing I can summarize is I let myself eat too much and get unnecessarily fat.

Although this was intentional to gain weight – I highly overestimated the calories needed to have a successful weight gain. With that, I also didn’t realize I shouldn’t be doing much for bulking until I properly understand how to maintain a leaner physique.

This plays into both my long habit of bingeing and not being able to maintain a physique. I no longer see the need to worry about ‘bulking’ until I have mastered maintenance first.

2) Cutting

With the initial prospect of a body building show in the spring, I had planned on doing a slow, healthy cut. This had SO MANY mistakes, ups and downs within it, but you can check out my Strong Ambition Podcast episode titled, “Story of a Wannabe Bodybuilder” to hear a lot of what I’m going to summarize.

The idea of cutting for 3-4 months straight without any diet breaks gives you the power to cut without any grasp of sustainability. When I was getting the fastest weight loss, I was doing 40 minutes of cardio in the morning, 60-minute strength training, and 40 minutes of cardio at night.

It worked, but as you can imagine, not very sustainably.

In this new year I will again be trying to lose body fat, but I have changed my language from cutting to specifically saying I want to lose body fat and keep it off. I’m not in a body building show that has an end date. I want the physique improvement to last.

This means it should be slower and include periods of maintenance calories to keep the metabolism from slowing down too aggressively.

3) Metabolism

For years I have had mixed understandings of what metabolism is or how it works. I started to fall into believing in these vague descriptions so many influencers state on how metabolism works.

I had heard someone talking about getting ‘metabolically healthy’ and they described it as being something I could build up and get healthier if I ate enough food consistently for a while.

Now, there is some truth to the idea that you can build more muscle when you can increase your calorie requirement, but this system isn’t magic as it is being described.

Your metabolism is made up of your RMR (resting metabolic rate), Thermal effect of food, Exercise, and Non-exercise activity. None of these are drastically modifiable long term. However, if you make them all consistent, you OWN that is your metabolism, meaning if get use to consuming the RIGHT number of calories, some clarity can come into the picture.

No more confusion about ‘boosting’ your metabolism or fixing it. You metabolism is simply you habits in summary giving you a result of weight gain, weight loss, or maintenance based on your actions and food intake.

Now I take that responsibility and know what I can control and what I need to keep consistent. On top of that, I feel more entitled to call Bull $#!@ on the claims around how the metabolism works.

(For details about what the metabolism includes see Strong Ambition Podcast episode 20)

4) Speeding Up Strength

Whenever I would get close to a new 100lbs mark (i.e. going from 485lbs to 500lbs), I would rush to get to that new threshold because it sounded better.

With so many missed attempts, I learned quickly to play the long game. I would keep saying that to myself anytime I had a number I wanted to do vs. a number I knew I should do.

Now I’m crushing PRs more than ever and I fully respect the patience it takes to develop strength as a skill, rather than just thinking you’ll get use to intensity (how much of load you have)

Think about that for a second. Your lifting ability is a SKILL, not just an intense thing you do. Focus on becoming as efficient as possible with the exact path the weight should be on and you’ll continue to get over strength plateaus.

5) Working without Accountability and Support

This is for both business and fitness.

Within business, I worked with a wonderful mastermind group for over a year, and it gave me my online blueprint. Once we finished our year, I found myself feeling unsure of how to grow.

I had some systems there to help but I could tell there wasn’t the same fire and certainty I needed to grow.

This is because I had no accountability or support to know I was on the right path. Then in the fall I invested more money than I’ve ever spent on anything, and you better believe it lit an absolute fire under my ass and I feel so pumped to make waves in 2022.

This same principle has been lacking for my body composition goals.

 I haven’t lacked motivation for training since my mid-twenties when I had a girl break up with me, and I was forever hooked on training. However, my ability to be consistent with food, as I keep mentioning, has been my biggest challenge my whole life.

Now going into 2022, I have started a Transformation group with my members. I can honestly say I am so looking forward to this next year, as I realized I hadn’t been trying to share this with my clients like I should.

Most of my biggest body composition changes came with accountability and support. Knowing you have someone either sharing it or helping you know you’re on the right track.

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There were so many other mistakes I made this past year, but I hope this blog shows you the importance of reflecting on your past year.

Mistakes are GOOD and they should be a huge part of looking back at your past year.

The other thing I must mention, as it’s helped me out so much, is the mindset that you can’t be afraid to ask for help.

 I finished with my first business coach in September, and I wondered on my own for 2 months before I found a new coach.  I wish I would have jumped in sooner, because I could have been moving ahead that much faster.

If you’re even just a bit curious about what our Transformation group is about, and how you can stop wasting your time going down the wrong path, reach out for a call today.