There’s only three things that really improve your health; effort, consistency, and attitude.
If you can get these three things in place, then you’ll reach success in your health and fitness goals. Effort is by far the least enjoyable but most satisfying one. That’s my job: to make you work hard when you show up and leave feeling better for doing it. It’s always going to suck while you’re doing it, it hurts, and anyone who says it doesn’t is lying or confusing fitness with mindfulness exercise.
Consistency is hard. It involves building habits and breaking old ones. It takes time, forward planning, and thinking. Many questions need answering if one is going to be consistent: Who’s going to look after the kids? How will the weekly shop look going forward? What will happen to your friendships as your lifestyle starts to change and your friends’ and family’s do not? These are questions that coaches are there to help you navigate through.
But by far the hardest is the attitude towards exercise, health, and everything in between. Once you’re comfortable accepting the first two on this list, you’re ready to change your attitude. Attitude is the way you look at exercise; it’s not a summer holiday or a few kilos lost because the doctor said you’re borderline diabetic. These are wake-up calls that turn into short-term goals. Attitude towards health, exercise, and wellbeing can be seen in the old guy in the pool who’s been a member at the gym for 20 years, going up and down doing length after length because he loves swimming, or the old lady who walks by your house every day with what’s now her fourth dog because you’ve seen her taking the same 3-mile route day in and day out for the last 20 years. It could be the next-door neighbor that constantly sends aromas over the garden fence of their freshly made meals every day that involve whole foods made from scratch while you’re constantly wondering where they get the time and ideas to make these meals.
These are people who have adopted a very rare attitude towards exercise, health, and wellbeing. I say rare because it’s very easy to think these people could be you, but what it actually takes to do these things without thinking about it is very rare.
