In a world where we define our lifestyle mostly by things we own, what we can afford to do and our personal preferences – true, true and true – it is only through a PerformanceLifestyle that we can build a mindset and the skill sets we need to live in balance, with vibrant health and peace of mind. These skills all function as our core lifestyle while enhancing our ability to achieve even our most ambitious goals – all without sacrificing our quality of life. This is the mission of living a PerformanceLifestyle.

I acknowledge the tall order of living this mission, but your lifestyle is what drives and serves you as a foundation that enables your capacity for achievement – and so I ask you now – why not think bigger, smarter and with a more proactive perspective?

This perspective shift can also begin answering practical questions that we all want answers to – such as “how do I live at or near my ideal weight all year round!”

Having a firm grasp on “your style” of eating, thinking and living enables you take a much greater, proactive stance on improving your life each day. By addressing you life from a PerformanceLifestyle perspective, you are improving your whole life – not simply living one more day on the latest “program” or having information change you that does not provide any real practical context.

When you truly understand your lifestyle, you will have something tangible to work from, develop and improve. Without understanding your lifestyle, the word itself is nothing more than an abstract concept. Even though your mind may be filled with motivational and insightful ideas, it ultimately has nothing to attach any new insights too in any organized way so any long-term advancement becomes almost impossible.

The more you align your life, your lifestyle (choices) and your goals – which ultimately ARE your mindset – the better you can achieve your goals and maintain a quality of life you want and desire or aspire to live.

We never use the term “mindset” and “skill set” loosely in PerformanceLifestyle training and coaching. We take lifestyle design seriously and understand the difference between life structure, style and goals.

A fundamental question is whether your personal “mind set” in your own lifestyle works for you or against you? Remember your lifestyle – no matter how you decide to address it, manage it or modify it – is inherently yours. Our exclusive PerformanceLifestyle training and coaching helps you identify your lifestyle and begin a process to live better.

So with that in mind, here are 10 predictions for the coming decade:

1) Our fast-paced and demanding performance culture has become inadequate to support self care, personal energy management, health maintenance and physical fitness. We will inevitably begin to develop and adapt to a new lifestyle structure, mindset and skill set that protects us from being overwhelmed, exhausted, over weight and riddled with health complications. We will begin a culture that learns how to thrive!

2) People will come to the conclusion that they don’t have the time, focus or energy to have to deal with year in and year out weight loss and lifestyle-induced health complications. We will learn how to live the healthiest lifestyle possible so that we can function and perform at our best at or near our ideal weight range all year round.

3) People will realize that 95% of all health problems – from diabetes to heart disease – are lifestyle induced and avoidable! As a result they will begin improving their own lifestyle – how they eat, think and live, every day.

4) Quality of Life will be the new measurement of success, and bragging rights; not money, power or influence alone. Lifestyle will no longer be seen simply as what you own, what you can afford or your personal preferences. Nor will it be defined by how much you sleep, eat or how much you exercise. Your Life at the next level will be the alignment of how you’ve structured all aspects of your life around the goals you aim to achieve and the quality of life experiences you desire. The most important characteristic of your new lifestyle will be the energy levels you can sustain over time.

5) Personal Energy Management becomes the new big thing and we all begin to realize that managing personal energy is tied into making all our life decisions – from psychological and emotional decisions to what foods we eat and how we train, work, focus etc. Everything we do and experience will consciously depend on how well we manage our personal energy.

6) We will become less and less “creatures of habit” with positive change being seen as a tangible reality. We will develop a greater understanding of our life “Style” and how to adapt effectively even in shifting circumstances. Our personal lifestyle will be seen as the missing link between health and success and we will learn how to change our lifestyles with proficiency in the skills we learn and integrate on a daily basis.

7) People will eventually stop outsourcing their lifestyles to rigid programs and rather learn from those who have identified proven and successful principles, practices and lifestyle strategies. We will incorporate and adapt them to “My Lifestyle” and we will begin to challenge ourselves to improve regularly. This transition will free us from the burdens of constantly “sticking to a program” as our way of life, to making our healthy lifestyle our way to a better life.

8.) People will begin to live their lives more like athletes do in the performance culture we live in. We will become far more discerning about how we drive ourselves, how we manage, spend and recuperate our own energy and the quality of the food we choose to eat as well as understanding how our lifestyle works with achieving our goals.

9) It will become very un-popular to ignore your own wellness and your body and your lifestyle will be held accountable to whether or not it supports the environment. People will begin to change to “save face” as we push to save our planet. What you eat over a lifetime, could save a town’s size piece of land from being ravaged and depleted.

10) We will rise and change the world for the better not by looking towards any outside entity to change so that we can change but by changing ourselves first. “Be the change“is what comes to mind and it starts from wherever you are right now and the lifestyle choice you make!

I hope these predictions provide some insight for improving your own lifestyle and inspire you to begin making changes today. You can live at a new level.

Too many times I see people who put themselves through extremely hard workouts and yet still find a way to waste it with their lifestyles. They think that by working out hard, this gives them a justification for eating and drinking whatever they want throughout the rest of the day and the days that follow until the next workout.

The crazy aspect is they expect to see results at the same time. Now this philosophy may work for a small percentage of people in this world that are very lean and that can pretty much eat whatever they want (who are probably not reading this article), but for the majority of people that continually battle with their jeans from 5 years ago, this is not the thought process that needs to occur in order to see results from their workouts.

The alternative solution (if this person is you) is to think ‘Don’t waste your workout’! Whether your goal is weight-loss, rehabilitation, or sports performance, your lifestyle outside the gym is just as (if not maybe even more) important than the workout itself. The average fitness enthusiast spends about 1 hour 3 times per week working towards his or her goal by performing cardio-respiratory training, strength training, or a combination of both each week. This means that out of a possible 168 hours in a week, a workout totaling 3 hours is less than 2% of the total hours available for that week.

I’m not the smartest person in the world but I know I wouldn’t expect to see any results doing something only 2% of the time. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t expect clients to have the ability to commit more than 3 hours per week to their workouts but what I do expect is for individuals to make the most out of those workouts and don’t be counter-productive with the lifestyle outside the gym (see my next article entitled The Performance Lifestyle Model.

‘Don’t waste your workout’ is the quickest but most precise way for me to get my clients to understand that it’s not only the workout that matters but what they do after that might make or break their results. When I say ‘Don’t waste your workout’, I mean the following:

* Following properly advised nutritional guidelines
* Getting the proper amount of sleep to aid in recovery
* Limiting the amount of empty calories (pop, alcohol, sports drinks)
* Being more active in your daily life (sitting less and being more upright)

Just following these tips will definitely help aid in faster and more desirable results. I know these may be elementary to most of us but just seeing them written down sometimes helps one to focus better. Now go kill yourself in your respective workout but keep in mind ‘Don’t waste your workout’ to see those results that you most definitely deserve.

*Andrew Wallen is the president/CEO of Integrated Movement. He has a Master’s Degree in Exercise Science while holding numerous professional certifications. Integrated Movement is a personal training and sports performance training studio located in Valparaiso, IN. Integrated Movement strives to achieve success through science. Here’s a link to another great article by Andrew (Dude, Where’s My Core?) where he says… “Your performance lifestyle (nutrition, sleep, workouts & supplementation) plays the most important role in getting those wash-board abs.”