What I want to share in this post is a difficult concept to accept in today’s society in my opinion. We live in a world where we can get anything we want instantly: Google lets us find an answer to anything and everything, YouTube can teach us anything we want to learn, Two-day shipping wasn’t fast enough now there’s one-day shipping. When everything else can be obtained so easily and quickly can’t we obtain the health & body we want RIGHT NOW? With all the claims of must eat super-foods, best fat-shredding exercises, the top supplements, and more, we kind of buy into such belief! Unfortunately, being a trainer has taught me that there really is no shortcut but must be earned over time.
One of many of my mentors, Dan Garner, always points out that “losing weight isn’t the hard part but keeping the weight off is” or something close to that. What I think he is ultimately saying is that we all can make a short-term change but the long-lasting change is the tough part…and I think we all would agree with that statement. Being a trainer, I’m witnessing the reality of this statement constantly in not only my clients’ but as well as my personal development & growth.
While listening to a podcast this past week, I was reminded of the marshmallow experiment. Here is the summary of the experiment by Wikipedia: “a child was offered a choice between one small reward provided immediately or two small rewards (i.e., a larger later reward) if they waited for a short period, approximately 15 minutes, during which the tester left the room and then returned. (The reward was sometimes a marshmallow, but often a cookie or a pretzel.) In follow-up studies, the researchers found that children who were able to wait longer for the preferred rewards tended to have better life outcomes, as measured by SAT scores,[2] educational attainment,[3] body mass index (BMI),[4] and other life measures.[5]”
The evidence of instant gratification is everywhere, not just in the health & fitness industry. However, I’m reminded of it every day and helps me to be more conscious of my actions and ultimately be patient with the outcomes.
There are probably thousands of quotes I could use related to this topic but since I’m currently reading the book, Grit by Angela Duckworth, I’ll end this post with a quote from her:
“There are no shortcuts to true excellence.”
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