We are what we repeatedly do.

I chose the name of my blog after reading what Aristotle had to say about human excellence. He’s been dead for quite some time now, so I don’t think he’d mind me pinching his idea. According to his writings, excellence is something we DO, not something we are:

“Excellence is an art won by training and habituation: we do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have these because we have acted rightly.”

In other words, our behaviours make us who we are. If we have the habits and we live the life of a fit person, we ARE a fit person. However, we won’t become that way by trying it out for a month or two. We have to become that person to become that person.

So many people, myself included, know exactly what they need to do to lose weight and to get fit. But all the knowledge in the world is useless if we don’t put it into action. Have a think about your habits. What do they say about you? Fit and healthy people are not that way by accident. Do you really believe they eat what you eat, exercise how you exercise, think how you think?

We can have all the knowledge in the world, but unless we start walking the walk we’re not going to get very far at all.

I had to break some deeply-ingrained habits to lose the weight I have lost. Probably the most valuable change was swapping sitting on the couch, eating in front of the TV to hopping on the exercise bike in front of the TV. I didn’t even go very hard (at first), but simply the fact that I was spending calories, not banking them, made a HUGE difference.

So, what habits are holding you back from your goals? How can you change them? What do they mean to you – what will you gain from breaking them, and what will you lose?

Live the life and form the habits of a healthy and fit person, and you cannot fail to become one. You may feel like a fraud for now, and maybe for the foreseeable future, but your body and mind will catch up, I promise!