Creating a deadline to get things done Part I – what I learned from my first muscle photoshoot

As some of you might know, I had a muscle photoshoot recently. I just got my foot in the fitness industry after achieving a body transformation, so it was time I needed a website. This website was the motivation to eventually reach my goal. Through this journey, I realized that I would never otherwise get this lean without the photoshoot deadline.

What did I learn?

1. Now I understand why I needed a deadline to get this done and why successful people keep preaching this. This applies to everything else in life. I hate deadlines at times, but things only get done when there are deadlines.

2. It makes me a better trainer and wellness professional. When clients come to me, they come for a change. But even more importantly than the route is that they (and I) need to know where the finish line is. It doesn’t matter how good the workouts or the diets are if there are no way of tracking the outcomes, goals and deadlines.

So now when someone comes to me for a change, I first ask them to define their endpoints and priorities.

3. It was much easier to turn down treats and postpone irrelevant things when there was an end point because I could wait to have those after the shoots. Diets are not supposed to last forever, after all.

4. Without the deadline, I was much more likely to cheat on the diet, miss the workouts and go into vicious guilt-self punishment cycles. It is also important to have a maintenance plan to fit in “normal life” after all the hype fade away.

5. I am finally a representative of what I want to provide.

6. It’s life changing. As soon as I uploaded my photos on facebook, they garnered numerous likes within an hour. Friends from as far as back in Bangkok congratulated me and asked me for advice. (Of course there was this glorious feeling.)

7. From these correspondence I also learned the kind of misunderstandings people have about achieving a body transformation, which make for hilarious blog posts [later].

8. I came to terms with things. I have never been leaner and stronger in my entire life but I am still imperfect. That is soul-crushing after all these hard works I am still quite soft and a few parts are still wiggly. The funny thing is that, I am the only person who notices it because I am the only person who looks for it.

 Do you notice I am chiseled but not absolutely shredded? My ultimate goal is to change people’s lives, not to compete in a bodybuilding competition. So I thought, I would just be myself and not photoshop a single imperfection out of my photos. I am proud of my body this way.

9. At no other times do I feel happier to move on and work on other things (like this website and school). I am sooo… motivated to work on those after the shoots. The honeymoon phase to a change has its positive effects. Fitness-wise, I also start experimenting with different styles of training and intermittent fasting. Now is time for the fun stuff.

How did I get here? I religiously followed Flavia del Monte‘s Curvalicious workout programs, which also came with diet plans and photoshoot prep protocols. The program was fabulous and fun, although really tough. And, like I keep saying in many posts, I had a hard time believing that my abs is showing. That was the last push that led me to plan this photoshoot.

I also bought the personal email coaching add-on which turned out to be invaluable because I had so many questions. Flavia replied to all of my emails even when she was on vacation (!). I am so so happy and thankful.

Later this week in Part II I’m gonna write a post in details about how SMART goal setting was critical to achieving a body transformation goal, and then Part III about what was involved in my first fitness photoshoot. [PS It was an adventure.] I will also include the pictures taken at different time points just to demonstrate.