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When it comes to building physical stamina and staying focused on fitness and body-building goals, there are no better examples out there than professional athletes. And even if you’re not competing at the tracks but only looking to lose weight, an “athlete’s mindset” will ensure that those 30 difficult pounds melt away long before your motivation does. Wake up your `inner-athlete’ with these 5 tips that will keep you in competition with yourself until you have achieved your fitness goal.

Set Goals Like An Athlete

• Break up lofty, long-term fitness goals into a series of realistic, short-term ones. Seeing success with short-term goals keep you motivated to stay on course with your fitness program. For example, don’t focus on your outcome goal of 30 lbs weight loss all the time. Instead, aim to lose maybe 2 lbs a week, and celebrate the loss of every 2 lbs with an increased feeling of self-confidence.

Make `Process’ Plans Like An Athlete

• Outcome goals will merely be ideas unless you have a process plan in place about how to make them a reality. Set up daily/weekly workout timetables, nutrition charts etc. and keep a logbook to record your progress.

Visualize Success Like An Athlete

• Did you know that most successful athletes have received their dream trophy a thousand times before they actually won it? They have visualized their victory so often and in such great detail, their subconscious mind has come to expect this outcome as a guarantee, without a shred of apprehension or self-doubt. Adopt this winner’s habit of doing daily visualizations of your own fitness goal. See yourself in the physical condition you want to be in. Feel what you would feel once you have lost those 30 lbs. Know your target outcome to already be a reality.

Find Role Models Like An Athlete

• Your role model doesn’t even have to be a major sporting celebrity. It could well be a PeeWee3696 on Instagram with 2.7 million slavish followers who’re mad about her glamorous selfies, or a random bunch of people you found in Google Images with the body shape you’re hoping to achieve. Look at their pictures frequently, and feel an instant charge of happy hormones firing your motivation.

Be `Coachable’ Like An Athlete

• Take your ego out of the equation and accept all the knowledge and practical advise you can get as you push your fitness threshold every day. The moment you let your ego get in the way, you’ll find hundreds of reasons to fall back, lose momentum and finally give up. It’s compliance – not defiance – that prepares an athlete. Be that way.

Compartmentalize Emotions Like An Athlete

• Emotions, both positive and negative, is par for the course for athletes too. They suffer from episodes of anxiety, fear and unease like the rest of us. The big difference is that athletes know how to compartmentalize their emotions. When they step into the game, they leave their daily concerns behind and focus only on performance. Same way, you have to leave your negative emotions in the locker room when you go in to train. If home life is not going smooth or problems at work are gnawing at your mind, you will quickly lose handle on your goal.

Appreciate The Value Of R&R Like An Athlete

• A professional athlete always incorporates periods of rest and relaxation into their training schedule. However much you are focused on outcome goals, unless you are balancing training with mandatory periods of rest, you will quickly burn out and quit.

Recover From Setbacks And Failures Like An Athlete

• If you’re adopting the athlete mindset, tell your inner-athlete this: there is no such thing as giving up. There will be days when you’re not on your A game, and there will be times when you’re failing miserably with your short-term goals. No matter. Treat these setbacks as learning experiences, and move on. Stop now, and you risk stopping forever.