Awareness is the single most important ‘muscle’ you have.
It’s what tells you not to eat another serving when you’re already full
It’s what helps you take a deep breath and calm down before yelling at your partner
It’s what saves you from going for a PR and hurting yourself when your body feels like shit (story on this later)
The more aware you can be of yourself when you’re working out, eating, or doing anything else - the faster you’ll see results because you’ll be able to recognize what does well for you, what works, and what doesn’t.
You are your own greatest coach and no one will ever know you like you do .
But if you don’t become aware of how your body responds to things, you’ll always be looking for answers externally.
This is the single biggest thing I try to teach clients as a trainer. The more aware you are of yourself, the better your results will be.
How to Develop Your Awareness
There are a ton of ways to actively work on improving your awareness. Some of my favorites include:
Daily Meditation
Journaling
Going to therapy
Silent Walks
Most importantly though - just pay attention to how you’re feeling consistently, in a physical, mental and emotional sense.
The more you pay attention, the more you’ll learn about what works best for you.
For example - if you have a couple beers before bed, you probably won’t feel great when you wake up. So you notice this, and decide to not drink the following day.
Similarly, if you eat something that makes you feel terrible, you should notice this and decide not to eat that food again. Your body is sending you a message by feeling awful - listen to it.
A Lesson Learned Through Pain
When I was in high school, I got an evulsion fracture in my femur my junior year during football season. I was sidelined doing PT and walking on crutches for several months.
In the spring, I was cleared to get back into practice. So one day I went to a 5am workout, and was feeling pretty stiff (I mean of course, it’s fuckin 5am). One of our warm-ups was a forward fall into a short burst sprint.
Thinking I was good to go - I took off and immediately felt a pop.
The exact same injury had just happened again.
This was an early lesson in awareness of my own body and how the way I’m feeling should directly correlate with how I train. Had I known what I do now, I would have started my warm-ups off much more gently and at a lower intensity before I tried to push that hard.
This is also important with how you handle nutrition. Everyone’s body processes foods differently, there is no one size fits all for a healthy diet.
So if you eat red meat and you feel bloated, sweaty and terrible an hour later - you should pay attention to that. Try eating red meat from somewhere else (direct from a farm if you can) or try cutting it out and replacing it entirely.
You are your own greatest coach and no one will ever know you like you do.
disclaimer: I love red meat and do great with it but I hear this one a lot, along with gluten and dairy.
Recap
Being strong, healthy and fit is a lifelong game - and building your awareness is how you choose to participate in it. Some people decide to start playing early, some start later than others, and some never really start at all.
But the thing is - you’re in the game whether you want to be or not. So you can choose to be an active player, or you can let the game happen to you.
In my experience - people who just let things happen to them typically tend to be a lot less happy and victimize themselves.
Alright, so I’m guessing if you’re here you’ve chosen to start playing the game.
Awareness is step 1 of this. It’s you noticing that you have things to work on - that you need to move and exercise to stay fit, you need to sleep well to function better, you need to cut etc.
So start paying more attention.