It’s always up for debate of whether exercise or diet is more of an important aspect in whether you reach your health and fitness goals. For all the people who debate over this question I will throw a third option into the mix. My opinion this choice is the one that trumps both diet and exercise. This has to do with your mental state. Now I’m not talking about if you’re an expert at meditation or if you could solve a calculus problem, but what I mean most of all when I say mental is your DISCIPLINE.

Discipline is what is going to make or break you when it comes to your health and fitness goals being reached. Those who have it are usually healthy. Those who lack discipline usually are unhealthy. Now don’t get me wrong an individual can have discipline in certain aspects of their life and the lack discipline in others. In general what I have seen is that those individuals who show extreme discipline tend to be healthier than their counterparts.

I break down discipline into a couple avenues that are all interconnected. The first part of discipline is being able to PLAN. Being able to have a goal and to see the end result before you’ve reached it is a skill. I love hanging around young people because they dream big. However, dreaming isn’t a goal. You need to further develop that dream and break it down into actual achievable steps. The skill to map out a plan to reach a high goal can be developed. However, the development process is easy as it’s just a matter of knowing yourself. Are you a person who needs to see a mapped out plan on pen and paper daily? Can you follow the digital calendar on your iPhone? Do you need an accountability partner or someone to bounce ideas off of? Knowing yourself and how you optimally plan is key to the development of a well thought out achievable plan.

After you mapped out your plan and have a good idea what it will take to get to your goal you need to PREP yourself so you can have the highest likelihood to succeed and reach that goal. Prep work can be as basic as making sure you set aside the proper amount of time needed or that you set up the proper environment around you to succeed.

Now I don’t want to downplay the first two steps in discipline that I just laid out. BUT you can over plan and over prep. Sometimes you just need ACTION. Action is by far the most important step. Pencils have erasers, but there will never be anything to erase if you don’t start writing. You can always go back to the planning board or start a different way to prep once you started the actual action towards your goal. When in doubt ACT.

With these aspects of discipline you must accept the fact you are going to fail. Hell, even plan for failure. Failure is good. You now know what doesn’t work and you can eliminate that from your planning, prep, and action. This ties into RESULTS. Results aren’t always going to be what you expect. Be like water and flow with it . Make the changes you need and repeat the process of discipline over and over again until you reach the ultimate goal you originally set out for.

To Your Health,

Mark Radio

Plan Prep Action Results