Becoming Process Focussed, Not Outcome Focussed

I want to share with you the difference between a Process Focussed attitude and an Outcome Focussed attitude. Because when you can give yourself a little tap on the shoulder and remind yourself of the process then the outcome will eventually happen. I promise.

It All Needs A Process

I am so, so good at this in the gym with myself and my clients. I focus entirely on the process. That is my job. It’s what I am trained and disciplined in. But outside of the gym I have goals that I want now…right this second! And in frustration of not being able to get them right now means that the process gets crumpled up and torn like a handy pocket road map that has been stomped on during my tantrums. Had I kept a level head, the road map would still be intact and it would be easier to follow. The tap on the shoulder from myself, a professional, a partner or a friend can work wonders in working out the process for anything. A career move, a life skill, family life and health and fitness goals. It all needs a process.

Sometimes we just see a 10k run, a dress size, a one rep max or a weight loss target. The finer details of how we are getting there is the real key.

In football, the skill isn’t knowing that you need to score more goals than the opposition, it is how you’re going to do it. You can give any sporting example of this and it remains the same. The process needs to be the focus. The outcome harbours great rewards, but without the process you won’t get there.

Frustrations Of The Outcome Focus

So I’m not getting on my high horse here and telling you that I do everything perfectly and you need to step up. You might be able to help me find my process in other aspects of life with your skills. But I’m here to talk about fitness goals. And I’ve been prompted to give it a mention because the gym is full of outcome focussed people. They press, lift, run and jump without any attention to their process. They just want the results. And this can lead to frustration and in many cases injury.

And when you figure out a process for one thing, other parts of your life can begin to take shape too. Have you ever experienced getting a promotion in your career and found that your relationships in your private life improved? You have followed a process and met deadlines, hit targets, gave your colleagues morale boosts or took them under your wing and you got rewarded in your promotion. This made you feel good in other aspects of your life too.

It’s the same in your fitness goals. Once you begin a process in your fitness goals then you begin to focus on your day to day tasks that make up the little wins. And it’s not just about doing this in a gym. Imagine going for a walk with a friend or a partner away from the daily grind. Here you can discuss your ambitions, your feelings or put the world to rights. You feel great and you’ve managed a few thousand steps as well. Make this a regular exercise and you have started the process for your mental and physical health.

Becoming process focussed takes away the big issue that seems, at times, unobtainable…the outcome. To grow muscle you can’t just lift heavy stuff a lot. To lose weight healthily you can’t just eat less. To get a job promotion you can’t just turn up to an interview. To make a relationship work you can’t just add them as a Facebook friend. You need to work hard at a process that works to get the things that you want.

Small Victories Are Important

Focussing on the outcome will keep us bitter and when we have no way of getting there we give up. In my Coaching App it’s exactly what I do for hundreds of people. I’m the tap on the shoulder that reminds them of the process and enables people to reach their goals without even realising. That’s because they have enjoyed a journey that took them way beyond the anxieties of ‘ needing to lose a couple of stone’. They did that, but also found that they were in control of their life much more than when they had no direction. It became a foundation for their success. Focus and celebrate the small victories. It’s those that become the big ones.

Thank you for reading my article. If you need further advice on where to begin with your fitness process then do get in touch. I might be able to help.

5 Minutes

We aren’t going to go through life faultless. If I could give my younger self any advice it would be this. We make mistakes, but the biggest mistake of all would be not to use that lesson and improve on what we have learned from it.

I missed so many opportunities to learn.

Being guided by experience shouldn’t be a case of dwelling on your past though. Looking back for too long can give you neck ache. And although looking to the future can be helpful, trying to plan your next 10 years can often be a hindrance too.

Sometimes, just knowing what you are going to do in the next 5 minutes is enough. A positive 5 minutes can lead to another positive 5 minutes, and so on.

Just seeing the end game doesn’t allow us to create a strategy on how to get there. The next 5 minutes is your pawn. The right moves along the way allow us to make check mate.

No matter who you believe to be your enemy aren’t really the ones holding you back. You are your own opponent. You are the only person who is capable of defeating yourself.

And yet within just 5 minutes you can draw on your experiences to create a better, clearer outlook. Not perfect. Never perfect. But clearer.

You don’t have to be perfect. Trying to be perfect is boring. Actually being perfect, well, I’ve never ever known such a thing. But that sounds pretty boring too.

We need these imperfections to challenge us and grow as we experience the many different aspects of life that will undoubtedly provide moments of difficulty.

So, your next 5 minutes can be a positive experience or a negative experience.

It’s your move.

10,000 Kicks

It’s coming up to 50 years since the release of the Bruce Lee movie Enter The Dragon. It was one of my all time favourite films growing up. I’d watch it many times with my dad and it sparks good memories when I watch it now to this day. Bruce Lee was a hero of mine growing up. His quotes resonated with me too. These are some of my favourites…

“I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times”

This can be used as an analogy for many different circumstances in our lives. In fitness, I see this as the biggest stumbling block to people’s goals. We try to be good at everything, but in doing so, we often end up being good at nothing. We give up as we see failure as a conclusion rather than a pathway. We chop and change our routines until our bodies are confused about what we are asking it to do.

“Defeat is a state of mind. No-one is ever defeated until defeat has been accepted as reality.”

If you have found what activities that you enjoy then stick to it. Practice 10,000 times and more. Do you think that every one of your kicks will be perfect? Do you think that by quitting you will reach your goals? Practicing is hard. Quitting is hard. Choose your hard.

Keep practicing your kick and you will sometimes fail. Stop practicing your kick and you have always failed.

Your last kick is neither your best kick nor your worst kick. It just provides a platform for your next kick. Practice dealing with the good efforts and the failures. Both will see you hit your goals in time.

“It is like a finger pointing away to the moon. Don’t concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory.”

I have talked about your ‘why’ previously. Your why is what gets you out of bed each day and enables you to focus. Your why is the moon. Your ultimate goal. The finger merely provides an instant direction. From there you just have to focus on your goal and be certain of your path towards it. Focus on the finger for too long and you lose your goal. It is just a finger. The moon cannot be observed anymore.

Don’t forget the focus on your why.

The Dose Makes The Poison

You might have heard the term, “It is the dose that makes the poison” before. It is referencing the basic principles of toxicology and is credited to Swiss Physician, Paracelsus.

This is a term that springs to my mind when I am choosing my own meals, helping my children with their dietary needs and supporting my clients with their eating habits. I am thinking about the ingredients found in these foods that are known to have a detrimental effect on our health.

From just 5 minutes research, here are some of the ingredients that I found to be the leading protagonists in the ‘bad for you’ foods…

* Monosodium Glutamate (MSG)

MSG is found in fast foods, takeaways, snacks, canned and processed foods. This additive is said to enhance and preserve the flavour of savoury food.

* High Fructose Corn Syrup

Found in sweets, breakfast cereals and juice, this is a sweetener made from corn and is used to replace sugar.

* Artificial Sweeteners

Another sugar replacement to heighten the sweetness of a food whilst keeping the calorie content low.

* Carrageenan

Derived from red seaweed, this is used in many vegan foods as a thickener and preservative. Along with dairy free products it is also found in cottege cheese, ice cream and coffee creamers.

* Trans Fats

A trans fat is an unsaturated fat that is hydrogenated to keep the shelf life of products such as biscuits, baked goods and margarine.

All of the above have very similar health risks associated with them according to research. Weight gain, headache, heart desease, cancer, inflammation of the cells and diabetes. So, does this mean that we avoid them at all costs? Do we start throwing out the ginger nuts and the box of frosties in a state of panic? No. Not if you enjoy them.

So here’s the thing. Unless you are on a totally ‘clean’ diet then I can guarantee that you have put at least one of these ingredients inside of your body today. And by clean I mean plucked that sucker out of the ground yourself or you’ve raised and slaughtered your own chicken. Other than that, when you enter the food industry for your meals, you will consume trans fats, preservatives, sugar or it’s alternatives in your food. The food industry is massive. The sugar industry alone is worth a 100 billion US dollars. This has been hit with the word getting out that sugar might actually be bad for us, so as to not lose out they develope alternative sweeteners as stated on the list above. Either way, the manufacturers will make sure that they don’t miss out.

In the UK, the found and drink industry is the largest manufacturing sector contributing £30 billion to the economy annually and rising year upon year. Despite the nation’s health problems relating to our diets it will not stop them from creating this kind of economical growth. If it sells, they will make it.

But let’s take this discussion back to real life. Life in our daily lives and our homes. You are not overweight because you eat crisps. You will not get diabetes from the can of coke. You will not die of heart desease or get cancer from eating a takeaway.

What will cause ill health is the amount of crisps, cans of coke and takeaways that you have. The dose, as Paracelsus stated, makes the poison.

The reason that we keep going back to these foods is because it triggers something in our brain that makes us feel better while we eat it. Perhaps sometimes we feel guilty for over eating these foods afterwards but that instant hit whilst we are eating it overides any negative outcomes. Depression, low self esteem and failure kicks in as you feel the disappointment that, in some way, you’ve let yourself down.

But you don’t have to. You don’t have to stop eating what you enjoy and you don’t have to go through the pain of feeling anxious about food or the guilt that comes with eating it. Not if you begin each day with the mantra ‘The dose makes the poison.’ No food or drink is bad for you. The amount of it that you eat and drink can be.

I am currently helping many people become confident about their eating habits on my fitness platform. Please get in touch for any enquiries and remember…

It is the dose that makes the poison. You are in total control of that dose.

A Habit Loop

Although you can take a Habit Loop situation into any aspect of your life, seeing as I am a fitness coach I will apply this to your fitness journey for the sake of this article. A Habit Loop consists of a Cue, Routine and Reward.

But before we get to your fitness journey, I will initially point out an of example of a habit loop in my recent experience.

My 8 year old son is learning a set of 10 words each week at school for a spelling test. Studies show that he will have to read out these words around 30 times before each word will stay with him.

Cue… We encourage that he reads and writes these words for just a short time each day, usually after dinner.

Routine… He acknowledges that this will happen every day and he is prepared for this task.

Reward… He is encouraged by his spelling test results at the end of each week. By Monday, with a new set of words, he will be happy to begin the loop again.

But it is important to note. He might not get 10/10 in his test. He sometimes gets 8 or 9. It is his job and that of his parents and teachers to focus on the 8 new words he has learnt rather than the two he got wrong. He needs to praise and reward himself for his achievements, as does his guardians. This will connect the loop much easier.

We have to be able to accept that we will not always be perfect in what we set out to achieve. 10/10 will happen often, but it is the 8’s and 9’s that can make us stronger if we channel it into our loop correctly.

A Habit Loop must be formed when you are committing to a fitness goal. Ask yourself, ‘what is my cue?’

Your cue needs to be that first step. Joining a gym, buying the trainers and joggers, finding nutritious recipes to try, dusting off the kettlebells if your cue is to exercise at home, employing a coach or asking a friend to join you. These are all really good starting points.

Once you have taken that first step you need to develope your routine and plan when and where you will carry this out. Meeting a friend for a jog every Tuesday and Friday, booking gym sessions in advance or setting aside 30 minutes each evening to cook a nutritious meal are examples of your routine beginning to take shape.

Then you need to reflect on your work. You can do this daily or at the end of each week. How has your cue and your new routine made you feel? You might feel a little lighter and fitter, more energised, confident and pleased with yourself. Focus on your wins. Any failures don’t matter. Once you start the loop again you have many opportunities to put them right.

Forming new habits is difficult. In doing so, you are trying break old habits that aren’t working for you. And these old habits might have been festering for years. I ask my clients to reward themselves after a workout or at the end of each week. This doesn’t have to be anything materialistic or indulgent. It could be just reflecting on their performance and being proud of themselves.

Think about how to start your loop today. What will your cue be?

https://www.trainerize.me/profile/nevergiveup2/?planGUI

About My Online PT Challenges

Kudos to the Personal Trainers out there that had to change their entire business plans and jump on the Online PT idea when the first lockdown hit in 2020.

I’m late to the party and, as always, I’m going to be totally honest as to why I was late…and explain why I have no regrets.

When the gyms closed due to the first lockdown, PT’s had to make a decision if they wanted to remain in the profession. They could continue via zoom video calls, use a fitness platform or freeze their clients payments until they could see see their clients in person again.

I didn’t want to do zoom and here is my brutal honesty. I saw lots of videos online of PT’s doing exercise routines and the links weren’t great, the sound was unclear and they looked uncomfortable, which was understandable, they wanted to keep earning money and had to leave their comfort zone. I didn’t do it because my house is where I was home schooling and entertaining the kids and there was somebody doing it better than anybody for free on YouTube. Joe Wicks smashed it during the first lockdown.

I had a fitness app long before the first lockdown, but I was never happy or confident with it. I’m not great with technology, but it felt clunky and bland to me. It would’ve been a poor replacement for my 1-1 clients had I put them on the app.

So I decided to freeze their payments and wait until we were able to meet in a park or on the beach. I stayed in touch through regular messages and phone calls if necessary, but I took no payments until I could meet them in person again. There were times where my wife and I worried as our savings dwindled down, but we didn’t really care about that. Our children needed us to guide them through the craziest of times and we needed to keep our heads in the game too if we were to succeed in giving them a positive experience. So I have no regrets about my decision.

Rather than rushing into becoming an online coach I dipped my toe into the world of technology and try out a few different fitness platforms on trial periods over the course of a few months. I knew that, to develop my business and be able to reach out to more people I had to go online. My previous gym that I trained at, based in the centre of Leeds, had 6,000 members. But when we moved to Scarborough the biggest gym had 2,500 members which is where I began training. It has been clear for some time that my reach had to be much greater and I love training people! I want a hundred happy people training with me at affordable prices rather than just a few who can afford it. I needed to give the masses a challenge!

I have currently got a number of challenges set on my fitness app that are being enjoyed by my clients. My newest one, which I have developed this month, is one that I know all about from my own experience. I’ve called it the 60 Day Dad Challenge.

I understand that having residence in a gym might give me an advantage in enabling me to work out and ‘keep fit’. After all, I’m not booked solid with back to back appointments. I have gaps in which to train myself. Most people don’t have that luxury. This is why I can develop any type of workout for any particular goals. This can be done at home, in an office or at the park and time needn’t be an issue. A workout can last just 20 minutes a day if it is designed and executed correctly.

Our lives don’t suddenly get any easier or slow down and when we become parents our one year old learning to walk is suddenly scoring top bins in his under 8’s football team. Where did that time go? It’s easy to forget that you have your own life too. I became daddy. I wasn’t a PT at the time and my own fitness was the last thing on my mind. I just wanted a decent nights sleep and, to make our lives easier, a takeaway for tea. I had always been active. From being a teenager I would regularly go to the gym. My physique and mental health massively improved because of it. But becoming a dad at 34 made me forget about myself and my own needs. It was fine for the most part. Hearing their first laugh and just cherishing their every move makes up for any sacrifices we make as parents.

But, for me, there was a moment of panic. My jeans started to not fit so well. I hated passing a mirror and if I did I’d breathe in. Getting up and down the stairs seemed a little tougher. My worry was that, if this is me now when my kids are toddlers, what will my fitness be like when they start school, become teenagers or become adults? It started to get me down.

I guess it scared me so much that it prompted me to not only get to the gym but become a Personal Trainer too! Obviously not all dads will take my path, but I designed a 60 day challenge so they don’t have to. He can work hard, give his love and support to his partner and children and feel great about himself without it having to take over his life. Dads can have support too. Dads can look good. Dads don’t have to worry about playing football in the park with their kids. Dads can be fitter and stronger than they were before they were dads, not just from when they were knackered being up half the night with baby.

I enjoy meeting my clients face to face, but I have come to love my online work equally. I still see their results. We can celebrate the wins and tweak the bits that need to change just the same as working with them 1-1.

Let the new challenge commence!

Meditation And Me

Sat alone or in good company in a safe space can be a perfect time to think, contemplate, dream, breath…

(sigh) I need to breath. When the weight becomes too unbearable to carry, my breathing makes it lighter. Every single breath. Inhale deeply my hope . Exhale sharply my worries.

I meditate to let it all go and bring in new challenges and restored belief to my life. To keep me grounded. To allow a vision into my future with past thoughts disabled and to think of my mortality.

My wife has just come back from a weekend retreat to the Madhyamaka Meditation Center near York which was, by all accounts, a great way to reset the mind. I’m hoping to go soon so I will tell you of my experiences when I return. Although this is Buddhist practices I am happy to engage with this type of meditation. I’m not religious. I’m very much an atheist and a weekend retreat to any religious facility won’t change that. However, there are many rules, practices and beliefs that an atheist humanist will live by that run parallel to many religions. Being kind to one another, being charitable, treating everyone equally, not focussing on materialistic things should all be stuff that we live by, religious or not. And meditating, perhaps something similar to prayer, is another that I choose to do.

The Madhyamaka Buddhist Center

Yet, my meditation is not asking anyone else or anything for help or advice. I’m asking myself for strength, clarity, a direction and sometimes closure.

When we lived in Leeds most of our friends where we lived were Christians. I guess as we became friends with one couple with a child of the same age it opened it up to begin friendships with their circle of friends too. I was often left a little jealous at what a great community they had formed with family gatherings, fêtes and trips. We were often invited and we attended some events so my envy didn’t stem from exclusion. It was simply that they had a bond and a belief together that was mightier than what we had with them. In my mind we would always be the outsiders.

As a kid I would pray for my family to live forever, or to do well in an exam, or for Charlotte who sat at the front of my class in Maths to at least look at me. I remember praying for Liverpool to win the Premier League too. Perhaps if God does exist he thinks that I did wrong so he put Pep Guardiola in the Premier League to punish me.

But that was my only experience of praying to a God and, just like with the bond that our friends had, there were slight envy towards those who prayed and felt reassured by it.

But I can’t pretend to believe in a God and my ‘spirituality’ only extends as far as science can offer an explanation. Whilst many religions believe in some sort of afterlife or reincarnation, my intrigue lies with the physicists who claim that our ‘energy’ continues after death. And if we are to believe the first law of thermodynamics then energy cannot be created nor destroyed. Energy can be transformed from one form to another or from one place to another but the total energy will remain unchanged. Therefore, every bit of heat, vibration and every wave of particle belonging to each and every one of us will be a part of the universe forever.

My method of meditation calls upon this energy. Sometimes I need to ask myself to find this energy to find the strength at certain times in my life. Perhaps this is how people feel in prayer? As a theist believes that there is a God out there to give them strength, I believe that there is energy and my moments of meditation is a chance for me to find it.

Traditionally, mine and many others methods to meditate will be to find a quiet place and focus on breathing. This is how I was first taught to meditate. Yet over the years I have found that the gym is also a perfect place. This might seem absurd to people. After all, we think of peaceful environments, not listening to grunting men and Dua Lipa blasting out of the speakers. But there are similarities to meditation and training. And the term ‘training’ is important here, as when we workout we are training our body to breathe correctly as well as the mechanical movements that we ask of it. We repeat the process over and over. The same motions, time under tension and our breathing techniques are practiced to give you change, strength and confidence in ourselves. To master it you need to practice for years. Training the body works alongside training the mind. Therefore I often train in a half meditative state. That is my focus. Oh, and in no way do I think I’m superior when I say ‘to master it you need to practice for years’. I’m not a master despite my experience. I’m a student and probably always will be.

The only times I truly appreciate my breathing is during training and meditation. Which is crazy when you think that this important function keeps me alive!

Whatever your beliefs, I think that we can all agree that finding your space and your time away from the daily grind is important. It might be in a church during prayer, in the gym or a quiet room at home. Moments of calm can give us a little bit of energy to find our strength to carry on. It becomes YOUR time. And if your life seems out of control sometimes, I’d schedule it in to your diary as a very important appointment. An appointment that you cannot afford to miss.

Are Meal Plans Any Good?

I don’t know anybody who doesn’t have moments of sadness, anxiety, general pissed offness or, in many cases, depression. At some level, we all suffer from these emotions.

Out of all of the people that I have ever known to be in either a low mood or in the full depths of depression around 99% of these people will, to some extent, lose control of their eating habits. A busy lifestyle, work, family stuff, bills, illness, body image and the curve ball that everyday life throws at us can all contribute to that.

And this is the one reason why I don’t understand prescribed meal plans created by Personal Trainers to their clients. These meal plans can range from £50 to thousands of pounds in my experience. I’m open to hear from anybody who has had a positive experience with a meal plan that somebody else has created for you. I don’t want to dismiss it completely. I just don’t get it. How can anybody fully comply with a meal plan?! Unless you’re an elite athlete and it is your job, I don’t see how you can.

https://www.trainerize.me/profile/nevergiveup2/?planGUI

Here are my top concerns with meal plans and non compliance…

1. Your friends decide to go out for a meal and invite you. Will the restaurant’s menu include the delightful Baked chicken tenders with five cherry tomatoes, a quarter cup of diced cucumber and one teaspoon of light French dressing which is what your PT has told you to eat tonight? You think not, so you decline their offer.

2. You’ve been to the gym early this morning and worked hard in your job up to lunch time. You’re hungry as you have used up a lot of energy. Yet the one large pear followed by the one large boiled egg worth 210 calories in your lunch box doesn’t really appeal to you. You eat it but your belly is left rumbling for the rest of your shift.

3. You take your fourth Jacket potato of the week out of the oven and think, ‘I just can’t face another one!’ And the tuna with light mayonnaise is becoming a chore too.

Each scenario adds to a little bit more resentment and, ultimately, lack of compliance. You keep crashing. You feel demoralised. You begin to wonder what the point of the whole process is. You’re unhappier than before.

I have found that to reach weight loss goals we have to identify why it is that we think a meal plan needs to be put in place. I haven’t met anybody who is overweight not know that an apple is better for them than a bag of crisps. Or a spinach salad with light dressing  is better than a pizza. I believe that we over eat or choose  less nutritionally dense foods due to our emotions. The strongest food cravings often hit at our weakest point emotionally. We can find comfort in food several times a day, consciously or sub consciously.

And without doubt the fast food chains and endless promotions on low nutritional food are always on hand to give us a little ‘pick me up’. The temptations are everywhere, but will they go away just because Zoe from TeknoGym wrote you a meal plan? If I’m entirely honest I’d be more inclined to get a pizza slice from Greggs than face another open face waffle sandwich, just to piss Zoe off.

You need to stop labelling foods good, bad, treat or syn. Your relationship with food will only end up being a negative one. And rather than having a fixed meal plan written by someone else, you can start developing a plan that works for you. Batch cook some of your favourite sauces, make a list of the nutritious foods that you should be enjoying often but make sure that you are still allowing yourself the foods that you can enjoy less often. Identify your triggers. If you know that a stressful incident at work or at home is followed by eating a family sized bar of chocolate then replace it from your cupboards or desk drawer with either something sweet but smaller or, if you’re feeling ready, replace it with carrot sticks, fruit, nuts or seeds.

Little changes make a big difference. These little changes are far more effective that one massive overhaul of your diet. You don’t need the perfect diet. You want the one that works for you in the long term.

Magnifying Glass

Have you ever walked into a fitness class and wanted to just turn around and go home again? The participants all looked keen, fit and ready for an hour of Burpees. Have you ever felt out of your depth going into a fitness class?

I have…and I was the bloody instructor!

In my early days as an instructor I would walk up to the class hall repeating in my head,”I’m the instructor. I’m the man! I know what I’m doing!”

And of course, I did know what I was doing but it didn’t stop the nerves. It didn’t stop me from scanning the room and thinking, ‘Most of these are younger than me, they look fitter, they all know each other.’ Lots of fitness class attendees are hardcore who book their classes early, stand in the same place with their equipment at their feet, ready for the instructor to enter. My first class felt like I was walking into a western saloon bar. The doors creaked open, the music paused, everyone stopped talking and looked towards me. Only it was nothing like that. It was my own anxieties playing out a completely different story.

I have learned to take away the magnifying glass when I teach a fitness class now and I no longer have these insecurities. The nerves will always be there. If the adrenaline stops I might as well as look for a different job. I need the participants to feel my adrenaline. That’s the exciting bit.

But this magnifying glass was something that was with me in every aspect of my life. Everybody else had a better life than me. They were happier, better dressed, had better jobs, more money. And when social media came along and I looked up my old pals from previous jobs and school…you guessed it, they were all more successful.

I had to do something about how I felt about myself. If I were going to be a success without comparing myself to anybody else then I needed to address this magnifying glass. And by success I mean a good dad and husband, a job I enjoyed and somewhere to live and prosper. Success is not a jet set life to me. If our potatoes grow in the garden this year that is a success story!

Our magnifying glass makes anything appear amplified. I often saw everything in anxiousness and fear but now I look for hope, happiness and confidence.

Poet Alexander Pope wrote, “The greatest magnifying glasses in the world are a man’s own eyes when they look upon his own person.”

I stopped looking at everyone else and looked at me. My own dreams, my own aspirations, my own successes and my own life. The magnifying glass is always there, I just need to know where to direct it.

If you are apprehensive about entering the gym or going to a fitness class for the first time, put the magnifying glass firmly on yourself and focus on how fabulous YOU are.

https://www.trainerize.me/profile/nevergiveup2/?planGUI