Finding Your Why

Hey Fp Sydney doers, Mark Labib here.

From your team at Functional Patterns Sydney, we hope that you all had a wonderful break with your friends and family and are feeling rested and ready to take on the New Year. 

This year, we are planning to do monthly emails for our active members to help support you on your Functional Patterns journey for the continual pursuit of pain free movement and optimal living. FP Headquarters have multiple blogs on their website which we’ll be referencing here plus we’ll be adding in more information that we think is relevant to you and your fitness journey. We’ll be covering a range of topics such as diet, sleep, light environment, stress, biomechanics and much more. If there’s something that you’d like us to talk about please let us know, we want this to be a space that serves you in your FP journey.

I thought I would get the ball rolling with a topic that has really been resonating with me lately; the idea of finding the reason why we make changes rather than relying on the feeling of motivation to get us through, which is often short-lived. You all know what I’m talking about, right? A couple of weeks ago we felt the freshness of the new year and all its promise and envisioned the “new year, new me.” It’s a fun and exciting prospect at the start, but, as we hit mid to late January, the wheels start to come off.  Usually people are riding off the dopamine of feeling motivated but the problem with that is that emotional state is going to change, so once the dopamine wears off and the motivation is gone then people stop being disciplined with what they are doing.

I recently listened to a well-known Ted Talk by Simon Sinek called ‘’The Golden Circle’’ (which, although is meant to be about coaching business leaders, is a great listen and well applied here too!) and he talks about the importance of WHY we do the things we do. Understanding the importance of WHY we do things will drive our actions and behaviours rather than relying on motivation which is temporary.  

I’d like to encourage all of you to rather than be motivated when setting your goals to more think about the behaviours that you do will just become part of your life.  When you wake up in the morning, you don’t need ‘’motivation’’ to brush your teeth, you do it because you know if you don’t your teeth will rot and start to decay. You want to find your WHY when it comes to your health. WHY are you doing the things that you're doing? WHY did you seek out FP training in the first place?

The most common reason most clients seek us out is to become and stay pain free. I then ask WHY do you want to stay pain free? Maybe because it feels better to be pain free. Maybe because your mental health is much better and clearer when your body feels better. Or maybe it’s because you want to be able to run around and keep up with your kids and your body not falling apart. 

The WHY is important to understand as it will help you stay disciplined and focused towards your goal, especially when your emotions and tendencies start to take over which drifts you away from the path. Once you know your WHY then you can set your goal with your practitioners. It doesn’t have to be specific, it can be as a general as to ‘’move better’’ or ‘’move without pain.’’ Or can be specific like ‘’play a game of tennis with no pain’’

Now we focus on HOW we get there. I’d like you all to look at what you currently do well and what you might be able to do better. Start off with 1 or 2 behaviours that you can adopt that you currently are not doing to help you towards your goal. And it can take up to 28 days for a habit to stick so be patient with yourself.

Here are some examples of things you might adopt

• Spending time on your own to work on your biomechanics (10 week course or homework your practitioner has given you)

• Buying the 10 week online course as a compliment to your training with your practitioner

• Get the morning sun for at least 5-10 minutes 

• Grounding for 10-15 minutes per day

• Drink 2-3 Litres of water per day. (The ratio is 1 L per 30 kgs of what you weigh)

• Downloading the D minder app and get more sun in general

• Eliminating grains, nuts and seed oils

• Getting off the phone (screens) when the sun goes down

• Sitting still for at least 5 minutes per day with no stimulus

To help you guys get started I will share with you guys the reasons WHY I do the things I do and some of the behaviours that I will try to implement to help me get to my goal.

The reason I do the things I do is because I know if my physical and mental health is compromised in anyway not only will it affect myself but it will also affect the people around me. If my body is in pain or injured, I will struggle to help out around the house which in turn will put more pressure on my family. Some people think by them putting other people first and putting themselves second is selfless, and some ways it is but in another ways they make it harder for everyone else around them. I know by staying pain free and having more energy I can be there alot more for the people around me. I can wrestle with my step son, go for long walks with my family and do yard work with little stress on my body

.I also want to be an example to show the endless possibilities of when you prioritise your health particularly through the methods that functional patterns preaches. I want to show everyone who is watching that I can look better and move better as I get older and show other people that through the right kind of hard work you can achieve a lot more than what you think is possible.

One of the things I want to work on is how much time I spend on my phone, I use it a lot for work and get sucked into a lot of social media particularly YouTube political commentary about the culture war between the right and left. My brain has become addicted to the drama where at times some of the information is interesting and important, a lot of it is repeated discussion and heated drama that I don’t need to listen to. 

So I plan to be stricter with getting off my phone when the sun goes down (I started this end of last year and noticed I got better Oura ring scores but got lax in the break) and secondly will find 5 minutes per day to sit and have no stimulation. I believe this will give me better productivity for my work and myself to be healthier. 

I hope this helps with understanding your WHY and setting your goals

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Over the coming months we will go in more depth about each of these topics so all of you are better informed and understand a bit more in depth the science and the reasons behind each of these behaviours, which will help you optimise your health and achieve results. 

Functional Patterns prides itself on the results it delivers and the changes that we can get with our clients. We understand that there is a lot of information out there particularly in the health and fitness industry and we always come back to have they been able to deliver results. We believe that if our clients follow the protocols we recommend that they will feel the best and healthiest version of themselves. 

I look forward to following all of you on your health journey this year, 

Mark

FP Sydney