Many people, whether they know it or not, make their long-term health and fitness conditional.
What do I mean?
They would eat healthy and exercise regularly:
- unless they are busy are work
- unless they have to travel
- if the classes in the gym were on at a different time
- if only the gym opened a bit earlier
- They had more energy
Of course, there are a million other “conditions” that could be inserted here so feel free to insert your own.
The best way for me to explain how flawed this mindset is, is simply to explain how it differs from the mindset of our most consistent clients who have gotten the results that they wanted.
Now these aren’t elite level athletes who’s lives revolve around training, so you can’t use that as a valid reason why your situation is different.
These are:
- busy parents with school runs, after school activities, collections and juggling a million other “To-do’s”
- business owners- stress, managing people, find it hard to switch off, etc
- people who do shift work
- people who have to travel a lot with work
- people with medical conditions
You know, regular people who just want to be fit, healthy and in decent shape so they can enjoy life- just like your probably looking to do.
They too have to work around challenging lifestyles to succeed in being healthy and fit when so many people fail. It can be a challenge but only at the start. Like most thing in life, it gets so much easier the more you do it. They come up against brick walls and either go around them or go through them.
So here the difference between them and the “if only conditions were perfect” gang.
The people who succeed with their health and fitness have accepted it as a normal part of their life that, 90% of the time, isn’t affected by what else is going on.
I say 90% of the time because, for all of us, it should be expected that there will be a few situations that will set us back from time to time- sickness, minor accidents, etc.
I hope you understand that I’m not talking about big incidents like deaths, major accidents, etc.
They have accepted that they must accept the whole health & fitness lifestyle, to a decent level, on a consistent basis. If they are busy with work, have hectic family schedules or are feeling the stress of work and daily life, they still get it done.
It has become a part of who they are. Not something that depends on all these other conditions being perfect.
Because here’s the kicker- these conditions will never, ever, ever, ever be perfect.
So if you’re waiting for conditions to be perfect before you drop the crappy junk weight, get fit, fight back against diabetes by exercising, stop smoking, eat better or reagin the energy to enjoy quality time with your kids, guess what- YOU”LL BE WAITING FOREVER.
And this what fit, healthy people understand and have accepted. You get fit and healthy in spite of these things being present, not in their absence- BECAUSE THEY WILL NEVER BE 100% ABSENT
Here’s a few examples.
Right now I’m looking out my office window and one of my coaches is training a super busy mother. She recently started a new part time job and she recently worked two 7 day weeks. Yet she still, some how, kept her exercise and nutrition on track.
In the session with her is one of our newer clients who works for himself and has a super busy work and family schedule. 3 times a week he manages to squeeze in 3 sessions with us and as a result he told me he bounces out of bed in the morning and his ability to manage stress has massively improved. If he waited until conditions were perfect he’d still be waiting.
As I’m typing this more clients are arriving so I’ll keep going.
Another busy mother of 3 is just getting going. She told me recently that when she first started she was so busy that she couldn’t wait for her initial 6 week program to end so she could call it a day. She was too busy to exercise twice a week and had only done it to give her sister some support. 3 years later she’s still training Every, single week and has somehow found the time to add an extra day in. If conditions needed to be perfect I would have forgotten her name by now.
Training next to her is a 70 year old client who plays tennis, goes horse riding twice a week for 3 hours (how cool is that!!!), sails, swims and trains with us twice a week. And no, he’s not retired- he runs a very busy company but he makes time to keep himself fit and active.
Wait till you read this next one.
Just got a message asking to book a client in for a session on Thursday. He works in the Sahara Dessert every month and his new born baby is due on Thursday!!! Obviously he might have to change that if all goes to plan but you can’t say he’s not working around some very challenging conditions.
This isn’t me just saying this stuff so you can’t say “great in theory Steve but not in real life”. These are real life examples from our current clients and how they go about working around challenging conditions to maintain a decent level of health and fitness.
They just don’t accept feeling like shit as a normal part of life- and neither should you.
So guys, if you are serious about living a healthy and active lifestyle, and I really hope you are, you need to sit yourself down, accept that it can’t be conditional and just get started.
Work on making it a normal part of your life- just like shopping or going to work. I take it that you don’t wait for conditions to be perfect before you do these.
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