The life of a bodybuilder involves more than just lifting weights, eating every couple of hours, and ensuring enough rest is taken to heal and grow. Yes, there is an incredible amount of physicality to the entire process, but it’s the mindset of a bodybuilder that keeps us consistent with these habitual practices daily. It’s not easy forcing actions and behaviors upon ourselves that go against all-natural instincts and yet, here we are, carrying out these tasks regularly for years on end. To be able to sustain such a lifestyle, we need to be able to not only strengthen our body but our minds as well, and to do so, we have to adopt the muscular mindset necessary for continued progress as each training year passes. Keeping the following suggestions in focus will help you achieve this.
The Power of Positivity
When you can consistently look at the glass half full, with whatever you’re aiming to accomplish, things get much easier. You can’t get down on yourself and allow negative thoughts or the possibility of failure creep into your mind. If it does, and it could, your ability to swiftly remove those thoughts and feelings and replace them with a more positive outlook for the situation, will improve your overall approach to bodybuilding. So be happy with all that you have already accomplished. Keep looking forward to the possibility of what’s next. Get excited about your next training session. Find ways to enjoy your food. Train with other people who motivate and inspire you and always be accepting of who you are and know that you are in complete control of where you want to be with respect to your bodybuilding goals.
Patience is Key
Many people get into bodybuilding and enjoy it immediately. The feeling of being in control of the resistance that wants to force you down is a powerful one. Seeing strength gains week to week, feeling the pump within your muscles after having fueled up with DGC, BCAA 4500, and Micronized Creatine Monohydrate after having only completed one set, seems too easy and so rewarding that your rest time gets cut in half just so you can hit another set. However, with all of that said, there is an element of instant gratification, but in all reality, it is short-lived and only lasts a little while longer after the training has been completed. The real gains come only after weeks, months, and years of this stuff. You won’t be huge overnight, you won’t be able to max out all the machines in your gym within a few months of training, and getting shredded doesn’t occur after only a few weeks of dieting and a couple of cardio sessions. This whole bodybuilding thing takes time and patience and if you can just submit to that fact in your mind, you will be much better off for it.
Be Relentless
The final piece of the muscular mindset that is extremely important to develop is that you have to be relentless with everything you do. Over and over and over again with the same tasks, the same behaviors, and the same consistent approach to what you’re doing has to be the biggest undertaking of this entire venture. Do not stop, do not take a break, keep your foot on the gas and never let up. Take the time to build a proper program, make a plan, draw up the blueprint for your success, and never take your eyes off it. Never let anyone or anything get in your way, sidestep anything that is trying to prevent you from seeing success, eliminate the possibility of interference within your plan and fight for what you want every day and then wake up the next and do it all over again. If you’re passionate enough about what you’re trying to achieve, this won’t be as arduous as it sounds, but your relentless attack on achieving your goals may just prove to be the deciding factor in whether or not you see your success come to life.
Everything we do starts with a thought. Then it progresses to a plan, then action, and then what ultimately decides the outcome is our execution of it all. If you build upon your mindset and overall outlook on what you’re trying to achieve, then you’ll be as mentally muscular as you are physically; and that’s the key. The stronger you are in your thoughts, the stronger you will be everywhere else. Work on this as much as you work on your body and just watch how much better everything will be for you.
