What is “Code Phrase”? Why are “Code Phrases” used in everyday conversation?

Firstly, do you know what a “Code Phrase” is?

I bet you have never heard of it before, right?

Wrong, in fact, you’ve heard of these code phrases all the time, particularly in everyday conversation with people.

So what is a “Code Phrase”?

At ArtSHINE, we refer to code phrases as those phrases we use to camouflage or to cover up actions or habits. Or, to put it harshly, you are making excuses to justify your actions by blaming others or events around you.

Let’s look as these examples:

Imagine you ask someone at a social hangout if they do exercise at all to keep fit, they will respond in code phrase like this:

“No, who has time these days? I work long hours” or, “I’m just too busy right now and have no time for the gym or exercise.”

So what do you think these code phrases are really telling us?

Have you noticed they use ‘time’ as an excuse to qualify and ‘busy’ as another external factor to justify their actions?

Do you know why we would use these code phrases in this situation? Because it is not cool to say to someone at a party that you are not into working out to keep fit. That not socially acceptable and you do want to sound like a loser either, so we use code phrases to cover up what we won’t do.

In the example above whether it is a cover up or excuse, the real deal is coming down to your HABITS & MINDSET.

If you do work out when you young or single, it unlikely and somewhat difficult for you to pick up an exercise habit after years of being non active. As the years move on you become older, you might be in a relationship, a new family, a stressful job, and it will become even harder to get yourself into the exercise routine. So in reality it quite delusional to expect a dramatic change to your life habit.

Do get me wrong, it is possible, but you need to put lots of hard work to change your habit and reset your mindset. It will be extremely challenging, and it will take time gradually to work toward it.

In truth, life gets busier, and it’s not about the time spending on workouts — it about your habits and your mindset.

It Now or Never!

So what should you do?

Apply the 1% improvement Strategy

Too many of us get overwhelmed thinking to keep fit and healthy we need to get result fast, which leads us to do nothing at all. This could be in a worse situation for people who aim for perfection like “I want to get that hard abs now”. Perfectionists only do it if things will turn out perfect. So they end up doing nothing. That why the easiest way to start exercise is to take it one step at a time, and not worry about being perfect and doing the quickest way to reach perfection.

At ArtSHINE, we rather act and aim for a 1%+ improvement every single day rather than do nothing.

That’s right! I am sure you can all agree that a 1%+ improvement is something we are all capable of doing. Wouldn’t you agree?

Well, the power of this is that if you do this every single day, then you will completely transform your health and lifestyle to where you want to be in less than 1 year.

Before                                                After

March 2013                                       June 2013

These are the pictures of me I took of my fitness progress from March 2013 & June 2013. It is amazing if you really want to achieve something you’ll find a way and if you don’t, you’ll find  excuses.As for me I’ve found a way.  I have to admit, it took me almost 10 years to decide that I want to stay fit and healthy.

So nothing is too late, you need to decide that you want to do and commit to it and never give up until you reach your desire goal. In my next post I will share my Healthy LifeStyle journey  from the start to today. So stay tune.

Think about it: 1%+ improvement every day is far better than 0%. Once you get into the exercise routine and a build up a positive mindset as you progress, doing exercise and keeping yourself fit will become a part of your lifestyle and not a chore.

Do you know what‘s the hardest part of keeping healthy and fit?

It’s not the exercise; It’s YOU. It’s because you can’t find a real purpose, the reason why you want to do it. So you never take that first step.

In one of our previous posts, we talked about “The only two ways to create change in your life”. The reason for this is that you underestimate your mind and action. This is due to having unclear goals when your internal and external thoughts do not align. For example, you say ‘I want to lose 5kg this year”, but internally you underestimate your commitment because losing weight will take lots of discipline by eating healthy, and getting lots of exercise. So your head chatter talks you out of doing it because you are dreading of the hard work that required. Setting clear goals with real purpose will give you less chance to slack off, and make it easier to stick to you plan.

You be surprised once you found the real purpose you get right into it. By tackling that now, even just start with walking for 20 minutes every day, this will build momentum and very soon, you will overcome the hardest part at the later stage. So by applying 1% + improvement strategy you will gradually increase the amount exercise and time into your lifestyle, and you soon reach your fitness goal.

Let’s put it another way, the dreamers wait for perfection. However, the doers execute by starting off simple, then top it up as time progresses because the hardest part is not perfecting the exercise routine or system — it about just getting started.

So what code phrases do you use to rationalise your behaviour?

Think about how you talk about doing something “one day” in the future — and how much you could get more work done by just doing 1%+ improvement every day, then fine tuning your behaviour.

It’s better get 1% improvement than to dream about 100% and get 0%.

Find out more.

It’s as simple as 1… 2… 3…