Snowflake syndrome, we don’t realise we have it often but most of us do experience it at some time. So to use your example Katy just because you have talked about it, so your sister does all her training, you may, I am not saying you have, but you may in the past have said ‘she has all the time in the world to do it, she is much fitter than I am, that’s why she has done it in the time that she has. She is so much more, I am not a committed person, she is way more committed and dedicated’ and it is that thinking that she is different to you. I am sure she is different to you but also if she can do it, you can do it. So snowflake syndrome is thinking that we are so individual and we are so unique that actually what works for someone else won’t work for me, as ‘I am so different’. Do you get that? Have you done that in the past? You are probably thinking yes you have done that a lot.
So examples here of things people say to me when they come in to work with me here in the studio are ‘that won’t work for me as I work more hours than she does’. Or ‘I don’t have the money to afford a personal trainer like she does, or someone else does’. Or ‘I am older than she is’. People use age a lot of the time to justify why they are not going to achieve their goal or why they are not even going to start achieving their goal. Usually age, money and time are the 3 reasons that people give, but also I have kids so I can’t possibly do that because I have ids and I have to look after them. ‘I have had a problem so I can’t do high intensity exercise’. Yes there may be things that someone can’t do if they have had problems or an injury but there is always something else they can do, it’s just giving up easy, I can’t do that because I have health problems. Well there are still things you can do. There is always something that each one of those people whether they don’t have very much time or they have children at home, or they haven’t got much money, or whether they have some health concerns that we need to be aware of, there is always something that you can do. So snowflake syndrome can be pretty limiting sometimes.
On your Activity Sheet what I want you to do on Step 2, avoiding snowflake syndrome, is on that grid have a think about now some of the things where not necessarily not these thing on the board here, but some of the reasons that you have given to yourself, you might not have said it to me or anyone else but what reasons have stopped you in the past from achieving your goal, or even right now, you might be saying my goal is to run the half marathon in 2 hours but I just have too much work on at the moment. To you that may be a valid reason, to some of you it may be but right it down. If it is something you find yourself saying even just once or twice. If it comes up often it is the main one we need to work on. Think of some of those reasons why you can’t achieve your goals.