Are you choosing to live a happy, fulfilled life?
That’s right, studies have proven that ninety percent of the factors that make the difference between a happy life and an unhappy life are factors within your control. One life hack proven to help unlock your best life is setting, pursuing, and achieving goals.
But you don’t have to take my word for it; many other people are proving this point every single day. They are setting goals, doing the work and building the life of their dreams.
Don’t Take My Word For It, a new Operation Melt blog series, shares how other people – people just like you – are choosing to achieve happiness through their goals.
Yes, you can choose a happy life, but don’t take my word for it!
Amuse-Bouche Before we jump into today's post, I offer you this "dad joke" as a light "amuse-bouche" to entertain your mind before we get serious. Like any other amuse-bouche, you may hate it, but it is worth every penny you paid for it, right? What do zombie bodybuilders crave? Gaaaaains….
Achieving Big Gains in Bodybuilding and Life – Secrets Exposed (Interview)
In this week’s Don’t Take My Word For It post, I am sharing a new Interview with a Goal-Crusher. In these interviews, I sit down with someone that is accomplishing big things by setting and achieving their goals to learn their secrets. Then I share those secrets with you. It’s like free mentoring from someone already on the road to success. Who doesn’t want that?!
In a prior Interview with a Goal-Crusher (see Building Strong Goal-Crushing Muscles, One Rep At A Time!), I explained how I joined The Fitness Loft (TFL) midway through my weight loss and that they became a key partner in my fitness journey. But this was just part of the story.
After achieving my weight-loss goal, I knew I wanted to go even further and continue losing weight while also building muscle and strength. Achieving success with my new goal wasn’t going to be easy, and I didn’t want to go it alone; I needed help. A few days later, I asked for help.
For several weeks, I noticed Teresa working out at TFL. She was very fit and strong, and the only word I could use to describe her workouts was fierce. After seeing her a few times, I learned she was a personal trainer who worked for TFL.
One morning, I approached Teresa and told her I thought her workouts were fierce. I explained that I was interested in working with a trainer and asked if she would take me on as a client. A few days after this conversation, and a week after reaching my weight loss milestone, I had my first session with Teresa. Five years later, I still work with Teresa nearly weekly, and we have become friends. We continue to support each other through life’s ups and downs.
In this week’s Interview with a Goal-Crusher, I am sharing an interview with Teresa and how she achieved one of her biggest goals. Proving just how fit and fierce she is, Teresa’s goal included becoming a competitive bodybuilder on one of the best-known fitness stages in the world.
Please introduce yourself and tell Operation Melt readers what you do.
I’m Teresa! I’m a Columbus native with a passion for all things wellness.
My formal education is in exercise science with a master’s degree in public health. Before my most recent role, I spent five years in Philadelphia, working in the pharmaceutical industry and living the east coast life. While there, I ran several marathons and started competing in bodybuilding competitions. During graduate school, I also transitioned to a completely vegan diet after I learned more about the environmental impact that animal agriculture has on our planet.
In 2017, lots of life changes brought me back to Columbus. I spent the last 6 years working in the fitness industry as the wellness director at The Fitness Loft. I recently (6 months ago!) gave birth to a beautiful, smiley girl named June. I’m married to my husband Rich, who I actually met at The Fitness Loft. Last month, I stepped down from my full-time role as wellness director to personal train part-time and spend more time at home with my daughter.
What motivated you to pursue competing at the Arnold Sports Festival? What was your vision? Can you share some/all of your story?
Most people from Columbus are familiar with “The Arnold.” For those who aren’t, The Arnold is a huge health and fitness competition and expo started by Arnold Schwarzenegger. It features tons of different sports competitions with everything from powerlifting to cheerleading to bodybuilding.
I had been attending the event for a long time as I competed there with my gymnastics team as I grew up. When I started competing in bodybuilding in 2016, there was one show at the top of my list. The Arnold Amateur (The Arnold Classic is for professional bodybuilders) differs from other bodybuilding shows as it is international, so you’ve got people from all over the world coming to Columbus to compete. Typically, bodybuilding shows are more localized or regional. Getting on stage at The Arnold meant achieving a goal I never thought possible!
After The Arnold, I competed at a regional show and placed first overall. Then I participated in a national show to take my shot at becoming a “pro.” While I didn’t place high enough at the national show to get my pro card, my experience at The Arnold gave me the confidence to try!
What were your biggest challenges in achieving your goal? How did you overcome them?
Bodybuilding is an all-or-nothing sport. You don’t get much free time when prepping for a bodybuilding show, and it can be an extremely isolating sport.
Most people think the workouts are how you change your body composition, but it’s mainly based on your diet. Yes, tailored weightlifting certain muscle groups definitely shapes them, but a lot of bodybuilding is done in the kitchen.
Most “preps” involve slowly decreasing your daily calories (while increasing your cardio) over several weeks or months to get to a desired body fat percentage (or “leanness”) acceptable for the stage. The other huge component of bodybuilding is posing. You are judged on certain poses required by each division (bikini, figure, physique). Posing takes a ton of practice. And this is an addition to workouts!
My typical day when prepping for a bodybuilding show would be a 5:00am wake up, then a 5:30am gym session for a 60-minute workout and X amount of cardio (this started at 30 minutes, then by the end of prep was close to 75 minutes). This was followed by 15-20 minutes of posing practice – so almost 2-3 hours at the gym, 6 days a week. I then worked 8 hours at my job, followed by evenings of meal prepping, cooking, and weighing my food into portions for the next day.
This schedule obviously didn’t allow for much flexibility or much of a social calendar. Additionally, being vegan meant I really had to dial in how I was meeting my protein needs. This lifestyle put me in a social rut for a while, as it’s not all that fun to bring your own food to a restaurant or drink water at a bar.
Honestly, it was a lot of just putting my head down and getting it done. There were days when I was so exhausted I would close my eyes while weightlifting (I do not recommend this, ha!). However, when I look back, these 6 or 7 months spent were well worth it to get on that stage!
What goal success tips and techniques have worked well for you (in this situation and beyond) that you would like to share with my readers?
Working in the fitness industry, I get many requests for help to lose weight. My first question to people is always, WHY. Why do you want to achieve this weight loss goal? Is it because you are truly at an unhealthy weight, and your doctor recommended it? Is it because you want to lose 5 pounds before an event? Whether the goal is weight loss or something else, I think it’s so important to make sure you know why you’re setting out to do what you’re trying to do.
I’ve found that when my why is only half there, so is my effort. I tried to prep for bodybuilding shows in the past that my heart was not completely set on, and I gave up. Not because I couldn’t do it, but because I didn’t want to do it!
Your heart has to want it.
What else would you like my Operation Melt readers to know about you or about goal success in general?
If bodybuilding taught me anything, it’s about trusting the process. To reach most goals in life, It’s truly a marathon, not a sprint (running marathons also helps with this analogy, HA!). Some goals take weeks, some take months, and others take years. I think it’s important to not rush the process and take it day-by-day or even hour-by-hour.
How can people learn more about you?
My Instagram is @moorete, where I’m somewhat active 🙂 I mostly share pictures of my baby and dog with some fitness stuff sprinkled in.
Maintaining a fit and healthy body requires hard work. Building a competitively fit body, competing at The Arnold and taking first place in a regional bodybuilding competition takes this hard work to an entirely new level. That’s just what Teresa did through lots of hard work and a few proven goal-success techniques.
Let’s review some of the goal-crushing best practices that helped Teresa achieve her big gains:
- Commit to a SMART goal: Teresa had a goal and focused on the R (relevant) portion of the SMART acronym – she had a “why” that helped her commit.
- Build a plan that works for you: while it was far from easy, Teresa developed a plan that worked with her life and used it to achieve her goal. Her plan included prioritizing and accepting the trade-offs necessary to achieve success.
- Be courageous and try: Teresa didn’t know if she could achieve her goal but pushed through her fear and tried.
- Trust the process: Teresa knew the process, trusted the process and pursued her goal one day at a time.
No matter your goal, these techniques make you more likely to accomplish it.
Need a little help finding the best strategy to turn your dream into a reality? I am a certified Master Life Coach, and Operation Melt coaching can help you create attainable goals, build plans to accomplish them and gain the momentum to carry you to the finish line. Let’s work together.
I believe in you; let me help YOU believe in you!
Meet Coach Tony
My name is Coach Tony, and I am a coach, author and project manager on a mission. I am working to build a world where no goal ever dies of loneliness.
I almost allowed one of my biggest life goals to die without ever being attempted for forty years. My goal almost died, not of failure but of loneliness. But, I took a risk and leveraged a simple, logical process that helped me wildly exceed my goal.
I transformed my life, and you can do the same with the help of Operation Melt.
Operation Melt provides engaging, practical content and hands-on coaching to inspire, motivate and equip project managers and other left-brained high-achievers to pursue and accomplish their biggest goals.
Breathe new life into your goals
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Tony Weaver
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