There is a principle in martial arts taught to me by my Sensei. This

principle is called Nishin. The word is made up of two Chinese

characters:

　　　　　　　日新

The first character is the character for day. The second one is the

character for new. The meaning of this word is that with each new

day you have a chance to improve yourself even a little bit and

strive to become that little bit better than the you of yesterday.

These little daily improvements add up to huge gains over time.

 

   A related concept that makes this idea powerful is to put the

point  of focus on what we would call the gain, as opposed to the

gap. The gap is the point from where you are, to where you want to

be. Focusing on this leads to demotivation and sometimes despair. 

You are continually telling yourself you are a failure because you

aren`t where you want to be. However, the gain is the difference

from where youstarted out to where you are now. By focusing on

this you can raise your motivation, continually strive to achieve 

little wins to increase this distance, and maybe even reach your

goals without even realizing it.

 

Please remember that the power of Nishin, is that everyday is a

new day and a chance to improve YOURSELF. The focus should be

on you as an individual. The new day is a gift to you to improve on

yourself, not to compare your rate of improvement, or your level  

of improvement, to others.

 

Nishin, applied to fitness, would mean to take each new day as that

gift, and not worry about slip-ups that may have happened the day

before to focus on today.

 

If your trying to lose weight, simply focusing on being in a slight

calorie deficit for that day means that you are that many calories

closer to your goal weight.

 

If you are trying to gain muscle or strength, then doing that one

extra rep, or even the same amount but with a little better form,

you are also a bit closer to your goal. These little wins are what

some people don’t push for, but they add up to huge results.

 

 

Everyday is a new day, for better or worse. It`s a chance to better

yourself, but it also means that the record is reset to zero. It

doesn`t matter that you ate well yesterday, what have you done to  

proceed toward your goals today.

 

Make that gain as big as you can and before you know it that gap

will disappear.

For those who need more help with making your way through the maze of nutritional information, personal coaching options are available. Check out the coaching page or send an email to mitch@bodyoptimizedcoaching.com for any questions.