Have you ever struggled to reach your fitness goals? Do you ever wonder why some people get fit when others don’t? Most people struggle with becoming fit at some point, but they eventually get things figured out. For too many, however, there always seems to be something holding them back.
We can unknowingly give ourselves reasons why we haven’t done something we actually wish to do. Those reasons are commonly not true and are often simply the stories we tell ourselves which can prevent us from being successful. We can tell ourselves these stories so many times that true or not, they become beliefs. We identify with them so strongly that we define ourselves by them. If those beliefs are negative they can become limiting. We can wind up living down to our own thoughts and feelings. In fitness, as in life, those limiting beliefs can easily limit our success.
The stories we tell ourselves about what we can and cannot do become real to us. Those stories can become excuses, the reasons why we believe things didn’t work out the way we wanted them to. Once we recognize this we can get rid of those limiting beliefs or stories, and replace them with new stories that allow us to go in the direction we truly want.
“Change your story, change your life!” – Tony Robbins
The top 10 reasons that most people use to explain why they are not able to get fit are primarily stories that can be rewritten to work in their favor. Once you replace those limiting beliefs with a state of determined focus, that will go a long way towards helping you to finally find fitness success.
1) I Don’t Have The Time: We all only have so much time in a day, and yes, some of us can have an extremely challenging schedule. But if you truly understand how important being fit and healthy is and the impact it can have on your entire life, then you know that investing in yourself to “make” the time is critical. It’s really just a matter of prioritizing something that is too critical to ignore. We don’t get fit because we have the time, we get fit because we make the time!
2) I Don’t Know What To Do: While this can be true to a degree there is an overwhelming amount of fitness information available to everyone, much of it free. It’s really only by choice that a person doesn’t know enough to at least get started and be able to make significant progress.
3) I Don’t Have The Energy: It’s a bit of a catch-22. If you aren’t fit you won’t feel energized. If you don’t feel energetic you don’t want to exercise to be fit. But energy is often a state of mind and comes from having a sense of positive purpose. It requires action and motion. It compounds as it is nurtured. Proper sleep, adequate nutrition, and a positive attitude will all contribute. But sometimes energy feeds itself. Just get started moving and do what you can as best as you can. You will find that your energy will continue to grow and your body will amplify it through improved fitness.
4) I Can’t Stay On My Diet: Proper nutrition is a huge contributor to fitness success. If you’re trying to lose weight, dietary compliance may be the biggest factor in your success. But a lot of people really don’t understand how to diet properly. They often embrace an extreme approach that is either too aggressive and therefore not sustainable or is only intended to be a short-term strategy to what needs to be a long-term commitment.
You may only need is to get on a more ideal diet or nutrition program that is more sustainable and will also support improving your fitness and health. It could be as simple as taking a more gradual approach and allowing your body the time to change as opposed to embracing an extreme option and trying to force your body into trying to change too fast.
5) I’m Just Not A Fitness Person: Many people see others who are fit and assume that they were always that way or that it was easy for them. In most cases, nothing could be further from the truth. Yes, there are those who have practically been fit from day one. But in a lot of cases, even including top fitness influencers and personalities, fitness was a journey that they had to undertake just like everyone else. Their journey was filled with twists, turns, and obstacles that they found a way to overcome. What they gained from that is a knowledge and understanding of what is possible and a passion for sharing how much more can be gained from pursuing a fitness lifestyle than they ever would have guessed when they first started.
If you want to be fit, if you want to be a “fitness person” then you have every opportunity to do so and there are many people who now enjoy extreme levels of fitness whose starting point would not have predicted where they would wind up.
6) I Can’t Seem To Get Started: This is a huge problem for a lot of people. There’s a simple solution. You have to develop an understanding of how critically important fitness is to your health and life. You will never become your best self without the energy, vitality, confidence, longevity, improved health, decreased stress, increased mental clarity, etc. that you will gain from just pursuing your fitness goals let alone achieving them. Fitness is important because YOU are important. Once you learn to truly value yourself and how taking care of yourself will have a positive impact on everyone and everything you care about, it will be a lot easier for you to make fitness a priority in your life and take the steps you need to take to get yourself started!
7) I Start But I Keep Stopping: This is a pretty common story for too many people. They simply don’t stay with their program long enough to get the results they want. Here are a couple of tips. Don’t start off too aggressively. You don’t need to go from not doing anything to doing everything. This will only cause you to burn out. Plus the body can only change so fast so more isn’t necessarily better. Also, try to find some fitness activity that you enjoy or at least that you don’t hate. Any new thing you do will be somewhat of a challenge and come with a learning curve. That’s fine. If you stay with it long enough, you will get better, it will feel better, and the results you start to see will inspire you to keep going.
8) I’ve Already Tried Everything: No, you haven’t. Maybe you’ve tried the same or similar things that were not right for you and therefore didn’t work. But there are many effective fitness strategies that you can do that will work. If you need help to figure that, that’s OK, then get help. But you definitely haven’t made the right changes or adjustments that can really make a difference for you. You can do this!
9) I Don’t Like Gyms: You can easily train at home with a minimal amount of equipment and still get great results. You can also explore different gyms or health clubs until you find one that you do like. Between home weight equipment, resistance bands, bodyweight workouts, health clubs, online training, etc. there are plenty of options and answers available for you to find a good fit.
10) I Can’t Afford A Trainer: Speaking as a trainer who understands how valuable personal training can be, you don’t actually NEED one! What you do need to know is what to do and how to do it. Yes, a trainer can be a great option for this. But you can also learn from a knowledgeable friend, a quality book, fitness app, online education course, various internet sources, etc. There is literally too much information and navigating through all of it can be overwhelming and confusing. But if you can’t afford to have someone do it for you, you can still certainly do enough research to figure out how to make a positive fitness difference.
Conclusion: The words we tell ourselves about ourselves are truly powerful. They can push us to new heights or keep us from ever getting started. By confronting those limiting beliefs and reasons you may have about your fitness goals, then deciding that you can and will succeed, you can finally take the actions you need to get the results that you want!
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