How to Stop Quitting Your Fitness Plan After a Mistake

Nikkiey: Yo, yo, yo, what's up, you guys? Welcome back to The WarriorBabe Show with Nikkiey Stott, co-founder of WarriorBabe. Here on this podcast, we talk about mindset, methodologies, and tactics that will help you lose body fat, build muscle, be strong, and feel insanely confident. I am your host, Nikkiey Stott, and welcome to episode number 31, where we're going to deep dive into talking about failure and seeking out failure. So many of us are so afraid to fail. And then when you do fail, you're less likely to pick up and get right back to it.

Failure runs the trajectory of your entire nutrition focus. If you're stuck in this hamster wheel, it is because failure is getting the best of you. So by the end of this podcast today, I hope to provide a different and more positive outlook towards failure for you all. I hope by the end of this podcast that I'm able to make failure your best friend, and that you seek failure in all of the new challenges that you're trying, whether it be macros, going to the gym, getting down a new routine, or getting to bed earlier. It's as simple as that.

Some of you who can't put that routine into place in the first couple of days stop trying altogether. And that's a form of failure to you. "I can't make myself go to bed earlier. I can't police myself to not hit the snooze button." And so you don't try. And the same goes for a lot of things, guys. So I just hope by the end of this podcast today, you seek failure and you understand that it's not an end-all be-all to your journey. It's not a means of quitting. You shouldn't quit because you're focusing on failure.

Before I dive into it, a lot of you have played sports in your life, growing up in school. And even if you didn't, it doesn't matter. You still had some type of failure that was taught to you as okay. You're going to fail over and over and over again. But somehow, some way through life, it's been conditioned that if you fail, you suck. I don't know where that comes from. I want to dive in and study it a little bit more. But for those of you who played sports, you had coaches telling you that you were going to fail. You got into the process of learning that you were going to fail and that it was okay. But somehow, some way, it changed throughout life, and maybe you became afraid to be judged because of failure.

And maybe that's another thing that needs to be unpacked. It's interesting. I would love to dive in to understand this kind of stuff. I was just listening to more of a mindset person, Lewis Howes. I don't know if you guys know of him, but he's amazing in the mindset space. The School of Greatness is his podcast. He just released a new book, and he talks about how people are so afraid of failing, and so they just go success after success after success, and they're still beating themselves up. They're still asking, why am I not where I want to be?

And a form of failure is also, "I don't want to be judged for the wrong thing, or for not doing the right thing, or not succeeding," right? In this case, you may not want to be judged in a bad way by your partner or your friend, like, "Oh, you didn't follow through yet on another program," right? So failure is definitely something that could be holding you back, in terms of you're not doing the dance with it. You're afraid of it. So again, by the end of this podcast, I just want you to seek failure.

I want you to be friends with failure. I want you to know that you are going to fail, and it's okay. It doesn't mean that you need to quit and stop and give up on what you're trying to go after. Okay? It's just a part of your journey. So let's dive into it a little bit more. I know I kind of just went off on a little rant there. But I need you all to know, I need you all to understand, and I need you all to be aware, as we go through the rest of this podcast, that big transformations demand a willingness to make mistakes.

If you want a big transformation with your body, if you want to build muscle, you want to change your body composition, think about those two phrases. That's a lot to unpack. And if you want to do that, you have to demand a willingness to make mistakes with yourself. And you have to be okay with that. If you screw up on macros the first few weeks, if you miss a workout because your day was poorly planned, that's okay. If you screw up on macros for the first couple of weeks when you're trying to learn this new thing, you know that the big transformation you want to make in your body composition and in learning about nutrition is going to demand a willingness to make mistakes, if you grab onto that phrase that I'm saying, right?

So if you screw up on macros for the first week, you know that you're going to make mistakes if you're going after this big transformation. If you miss a workout in your first couple of weeks because your day was poorly planned or your schedule was off or something happened, it's okay. You still go after your big transformation. You made a mistake, or something happened that was more of a priority than going to the gym.

So, an unwillingness to encounter defeat. If you are not willing to encounter this kind of screw-up, this kind of mistake, or run into problems, it eliminates the ability for that big transformation to happen. When you encounter defeat or you encounter a problem, you stop in your tracks and you stop going towards that big transformation. And it completely eliminates the ability for that big transformation to happen. So unless you allow yourself to make mistakes, to fail, you will never have the opportunity to test the limits of what you are truly capable of accomplishing with your body and with your own mindset.

Unless you allow yourself to make mistakes, unless you're okay with it and you get past it and you learn from it, the opportunity to test the limits of what you are truly capable of with your body and your mindset diminishes significantly. Okay? You have to realize this. At the beginning of your journey, what if you are experiencing no difficulties in understanding how to track macronutrients, or no problems nailing down your weekly schedule?

If at the beginning of your journey you're not experiencing any type of difficulty, and you are truly having no difficulties, it's like putting a kid who's never ridden a bike before on a bike without training wheels, and they fly down the street with no bumps, not falling off and not breaking a bone. Okay? If you are having truly no difficulties trying to learn something new, like working out or planning your macros, you're a fucking damn unicorn. Pat yourself on the back.

But for the majority of you, if at the beginning you're having no difficulties in understanding, no difficulties working your schedule to fit in your workouts, it's probably that you are having difficulties, but you aren't seeking or asking the right questions to try and understand. How you can better plan your day. How you can better learn macronutrients. How you can better plan ahead.

How you can learn what foods will help you to hit your numbers for the day. What is a protein? What is a carb? What is a fat? Right? If you're having no difficulties, but you have no idea about that, you probably are having difficulties at maybe not a conscious awareness level. Or you have these subtle questions inside, like, what about this? What about that? And you're brushing them off. Then you're not seeking to understand. You're tossing it out the door. And if you are doing that, you have completely leveled off your ability to experience growth and to understand what it takes to go after the achievement that you want.

If you are somebody who at the beginning has all of these questions and you're not asking them, you're leveling off your ability. If you're working with a coach and you have all of these questions at the beginning of your journey, but you're ignoring them, you're going to experience failure. You're going to experience a multitude of mistakes. Ask the questions. Ask and seek understanding so that you can experience growth so much faster. Experience understanding so much faster.

Experience getting after your goals so much faster. But you have to be the one to ask the right questions. You have to be the one to seek the understanding so that you can learn. That's what this journey is all about. If at the beginning you are failing and making mistakes, the flip side of that is that you're just learning. But you don't have to have as many failures and mistakes at the beginning of something if you ask, seek to understand, and learn. Okay? You're seeking understanding. You're seeking to achieve things. You ask questions.

What's a protein? What's a carb? What's a fat? How do I better plan my days in advance? How can I make my workout schedule work better? What are rest days? How can I take a rest day? How is that going to help me make progress?

Hey, hey. Just want to drop a huge appreciation to you guys listening to the show. It means a lot. I hope you're enjoying it, and there's so much more to come. If you are enjoying it, hit the subscribe button. I'd appreciate that tons. It would also help this podcast reach others who need to hear these messages too. Thanks so much, guys. Let's get back to the show.

Let's just use the example I'm on, macro tracking and planning your workouts. If this is your current level, and you aren't seeking to understand, seeking to ask questions, seeking to take enough action to where things are uncomfortable for you, that's a problem. If you're somebody who's afraid to ask your coach a question, stop. If that makes you uncomfortable, good. Get uncomfortable. If it makes you uncomfortable to pre-plan your meals, good. Get uncomfortable. If you aren't seeking enough understanding, asking enough questions, and taking enough action to where it's uncomfortable for you, growth is completely limited here.

Continued stagnation will happen. All of the things that you've been doing that have gotten you to this point with a lack of results are going to keep happening. And then what usually happens here is you're like, "This is too hard. I give up." Or, "Shit, I messed up this week. I give up. I don't understand all of this. This is so frustrating. This is so overwhelming. I give up."

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Y'all know you've been there. You've been there one too many times. So I hope this podcast makes failure your best friend, but also makes you willing to get comfortable being uncomfortable: seeking understanding, taking enough action, doing the things that are going to make you grow and get you to the accomplishments you want with building more muscle and changing your body composition. Because if not, growth is completely limited here. You have to be open to confusion, to failure, to mistakes. You have to be prepared for that to happen. That is a part of opening yourself up to a completely new system, a completely new process, a completely new methodology, a completely new identity.

Identity is deep. I talked about that in a previous podcast, three levels of change. Check it out. To bring it back to macros: if you're prepared to be open to this stuff, a part of opening yourself up is a new system. So let's use macronutrients, right? Macronutrients have the potential to deliver exponential performance gains and results in building muscle and changing your body composition. It's proven. There are thousands of people who follow macronutrients and get results changing their body composition.

So if you're okay with failing, if you're open to the concept of that, part of opening up to it is allowing a new system, a new process, a new methodology, aka macros, to give you everything it truly can, knowing you may fail along the way. I think it's safe to say that things at first get worse. They're harder before they get better or easier. Macros at the beginning of a journey, if you've never done it before, if you don't know what protein, fats, and carbs are, if you haven't focused on eating the right way, it's hard.

Point blank, it's hard. I was just talking to the WarriorBabe VIP community the other day, and I said you're bobbing around your kitchen like a bobblehead, getting the barcode scanner out and scanning all your food. It may take you an hour because you've never done it before. So expect that. It doesn't mean that you suck at it. You've never done it before, right? And the more you do it, the more you scan, the more you prepare, the more you do that bobblehead around your kitchen,

two weeks later, three weeks later, three months later, you're going to be doing it. It may take you an hour. Next thing you know, it's taking you half an hour. Next thing you know, it's taking you 10 minutes. Now me, eight years into my journey, I can do that shit with my eyes closed. I can do it in my head. Then at 4 p.m., I log all my meals and say, all right, this is where I need to hit for the rest of the day. I can do it in a matter of, I should time myself, maybe two minutes max. Okay? It gets easier. It gets better. It gets more enjoyable.

You have understanding. You get it. You know why you have to do this. So you do it, right? Be prepared for that sort of development to take place along your journey, no matter what level you are at. Be prepared for failure and mistakes at the beginning. Be prepared for failure and mistakes along the way. You are not perfect. You are human. You are imperfectly perfect. Be prepared. Even me, seven, eight years in, I still have roadblocks. I still make mistakes. No matter what level you are at, be prepared for that sort of development to take place.

Be prepared to have failures and mistakes along the way. Problems, mistakes, failures, they belong in the process. They are a part of the equation that produces the results that you want. They are not proof that you should give up. Okay? Think about this. There's a quote I saw on the internet a couple of years ago, and I loved it so much. If you send a rocket to the moon, about 90% of its course, it's off course.

So if you send a rocket to the moon, about 90% of the time it's off course. So basically, it fails its way to the moon by continually making mistakes and correcting them along the way. That is your journey with changing your body composition. That is your journey with ultimately getting the achievement and the results you want with your body, yourself, your confidence, everything. If a rocket to the moon is off course 90% of the time, you need to be okay with that.

You are going to fail your way to your body composition by making mistakes and correcting them along the way. Some of you at the beginning of your journey get so excited. I get it. I was there too. You're on cloud nine. You're like, I can do this. You've got this burst of motivation. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do all of the things. I'm going to change my body composition. You're on fucking cloud nine. You're so excited. And it's kind of this heady stuff, right? You're going to change. You're going for an outcome.

I talked about that in the episode on three levels of change. You're going for an outcome. Okay. And then it gets hard, and reality sets in, and problems and failures and mistakes happen and they slap you in the face. At this point, your uncertainties and your lack of belief in yourself can tempt you to turn on yourself. So please make sure you understand this is the most crucial point in the process. When this shit happens, when reality strikes you, when you get slapped in the face a couple of times, when you make mistakes,

and then you become uncertain, like, can I actually do this? Dude, that is the most crucial point of the process. Do not give up. Failure belongs here. It is a sign of progress. The stress that you may experience at that point of your journey, when you're getting slapped in the face, you have all these uncertainties, you're failing, you're messing up, you're making mistakes, that stress could easily, easily, easily, and you've probably experienced this,

put you right back into your comfort zone, back into the trap of all of the familiar things, back into stagnation, back into not getting the results that you want. So please just remember that failure does not mean you are defeated. The struggle you experience with failure, the struggle you experience in making mistakes, should give you strength. Think of it like this. It's like the soreness involved in developing and growing muscle.

The difficulties are just evidence that you are learning and you are progressing forward. So moving forward, don't interpret problems or breakdowns or failures or mistakes as proof that you should quit. Don't give up. Instead, take them as evidence of your growth and your improvement. Like, holy shit, here we are. I'm getting slapped in the face. I'm uncertain. But this is the point where Nikkiey said, do not give up. Do not give up.

It belongs right here. Look at a mistake you made like, dude, this is an opportunity to learn. Why did I make this mistake? What happened? Ask yourself those questions, because gold comes in the answers that way. And it's on you to choose to act on the thing that's going to support you. Why did you mess up tracking your macros? Because you didn't plan ahead. Well, you had a failure there. Why didn't you plan ahead? "Oh, I was too busy." You're not too busy. You didn't make it a priority. Okay, so you learned here that you have to make sure you plan ahead in order to hit your macros for the next day.

Right? So for the sake of this whole entire podcast today, please do not give up. Seek failure. Be friends with it. Befriend failure. It is a part of your journey. It's going to be there no matter what. And guys, if you fail on week one or day seven or day 58, don't wait for Monday to come back around or a new month to happen. Just pick it up tomorrow.

Get back on it within the next couple of hours. Stop waiting. Stop wishing, stop hoping, stop doing all of those things. When you have an opportunity to fix the problem or fix the failure or fix the situation where you made a mistake, make that happen. Change it in the moment. You have that ability. You have that choice. Don't wait for Monday. Don't wait for a new month or a new week. If you have any of these roadblocks, you have the opportunity to turn it around almost instantly. Okay? So know that this is just a part of the journey, and you need to be willing to make mistakes, because if you want a big transformation to happen within your physique, within your body, within your lifestyle, with all of the things, you need to demand a willingness to make mistakes, because big transformations take that.

Big transformations make that happen. All right? So I hope failure is your best friend now. If you enjoyed this podcast, I really appreciate y'all. If you screenshot it and put "making failure my best friend" or "doing the dance with failure" and put it up on Instagram, tag me, tag WarriorBabe. I love resharing that. I love seeing these podcasts hit home for you. I hope that after you get off this podcast, wherever you're at in your journey, maybe it helps you.

And you don't just listen to the podcast and do nothing about it. You do something about it. You know I've said this before: that's the only thing I hope you do with this podcast, with everything I'm sharing with you. This is free coaching that I'm giving you. This is the way I coach clients, the way our WarriorBabe coaches coach clients. I just hope that you take it and put it into action in some way that's going to support you, make you level up, and get you closer to your goals. And yeah, that's what I hope it does.

So share it on your story. Tag me, tag WarriorBabe, share this podcast with your friends. You guys make this thing grow. We don't run any ads. I'm not interrupting you with something to go find and buy. You listen to podcasts, there are ads on them. We don't run any ads on this. This is totally organic. So I just ask that you share this, rate it, review it, and that makes it grow. That's the way we're going to be able to impact more women who need to hear this type of message.

All right, you guys, appreciate y'all. I'll see you in the next episode.

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