My friends would perhaps describe my football managerial skills as more Bobby Ball than the great Bobby Robson, but as I paced the touchline of my son’s under 9’s match like a semi final at Italia 90 I spotted a leaf. Upon it sat a lady bug. I was compelled to take a picture.
Of course, my phone camera is always out on match day in the event of catching a left foot volley. That would have been lovely to see too, but this morning the lady bug was just the tonic.
I felt a bit low this morning. No particular reason. I know that seasonal adjustment symptoms seem to kick in around this time of year. It could be that. Or it could be a simple matter of it being two episodes away from completing the full 6 series of Better Call Saul. Quite possibly the best TV series I’ve ever seen. What will we watch after that?! Whatever caused my sadness this morning, it was a lady bug that cheered me up.
We tend to dream too big too quickly. We want to see the end goal with a click of the fingers. The problem is we miss the small matters that knit things together. It’s the little things that make the big dreams happen. It’s easy to forget.
And this morning I had forgotten that. Wind swept, cold and damp in a field when I’d had a rotten night’s sleep made me grumpy. Sure, watching my son play football always cheers me up and that adds to one of the little pieces that eventually creates a bigger picture. But for that moment in time it was the lady bug that caught my attention and made me smile.
The universe can be cruel yet deliver us with such beauty too. And that beauty that kept me grounded today was a lady bug. Not even a left foot volley would have beaten it.
For 8 years I’ve been training people in helping them towards their fitness goals. Here’s what I’ve learned so far…
1. It’s the hardest job I’ve ever had. Sure, it sounds cool. Training people in something that I’m passionate about is fantastic and I get to hang around gyms and talk about football and train myself. But I also need to stay business minded. It’s about getting clients and keeping them. Keeping them by setting goals and working towards them. Their results represent my abilities as a PT and my own performance, whether with a client or training myself, will be watched by everyone else. It’s intense.
2. What a client achieves physically isn’t even 50% of their goal completed. They might think it. Great! They’ve lost half a stone. That’s good work. But how do they keep it off? And, now that they have achieved a weight loss target, do they actually respect themselves any more? Do they like themselves? Fitness is more than a PB, a marathon run or a weight loss goal. It’s how we begin to perceive ourselves. It’s respecting yourself enough to WANT to eat nutritious foods, not just because you have to. I have to make people believe that they’re worth hitting their goal, otherwise it’s just going through the motions. And eventually, motion without emotion comes to an end.
3. Chain gyms don’t care about their freelance PT’s. Ok, let me explain this one. The floor managers of these gyms might, but if you think anyone sat in Pure Gym Towers cares about a PT then think again. And why should they? If you are a newbie freelance PT the sooner that you can get into your head that you are now a business person the better. You are a contractor on their premises. It’s tough at times. You pay them rent and they can still call the shots on your business. If you leave then they’ll just replace you. But the sooner you understand that the sooner that you will either a) learn to suck it up or b) find a niche at an independent gym, online or in your own premises.
4. I needed to stay relevant to people. Over the years and with a change of gym in a new town with a pandemic to deal with, I stagnated. So in the past couple of years I started doing different courses to become equipped with reinventing my PT work. Now, armed with new qualifications, knowledge, an online training app and new business ideas I have kept myself and my business fresh.
5. I have to stay grounded. If I believe that I am the oracle of fitness then I’ll look silly. I’m not. Nobody is. If I don’t know the answer to a question then I’ll be honest and do my research on finding the answer out. People respect that.
And the most important thing that I have learned is that respect goes a long way.
The term ‘false choice’ is used to describe a situation where we believe that we only have two options to get the answer.
Examples of this include…
Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
If you want to protect the environment, you must want the economy to crash.
If you support Utd, you must hate City.
If you are proud of your nation, you must be xenophobic towards all other countries.
You like horror movies? So you don’t like comedies?
Marmite. You either love it or hate it.
All of the above gives us very little option. It is an either/or dilemma. Which is not very helpful.
And it is not very helpful when it comes to fitness goals. We often restrict ourselves to two categories. Our pigeon holes are…
A. I don’t go to the gym therefore it doesn’t matter what I eat so much because I haven’t got any time to make fitness goals.
B. I often workout therefore I restrict my diet to look and feel my best in order to reach my goals.
These two extremities are unhelpful when it comes to planning your health, wellbeing, nutrition and quality of life. It doesn’t have to be down to choosing between two options.
As much as lots of people begin their exercise routines in September and start a particular diet in time for looking their best for Christmas parties, there are more people that decide on leaving it until January when they will make it a New Year’s Resolution. Yet both options often lead to disappointment.
The September starter will find that they have hit the gym hard, restricted their calories too much and still run out of time to reach their (usually) unachievable goal.
The January starter finds it even harder. They procrastinated back in September for a reason and it’s because they don’t like exercise or they have never been shown any exercise or food that they like to sustain it. So they decide to leave it until after the summer. Then decide to wait until January where they can make a New Year’s Resolution. The cycle continues.
So what if I told you that there were multiple choices? Options that were all shades of grey and not just a black or white view. A consistent, sensible lifestyle approach that didn’t leave you with anxiety about your body and your health.
You don’t need a program that you would expect to see from an Olympian. You don’t need to spend hours each week in the gym. In fact, for most fitness goals you don’t even need a gym. And you never have to quit your favourite snacks.
When you enter a false choice scenario, it is easy to reach a dead end. The all or nothing method can leave us unfulfilled, demoralised and either ends up in quitting or never getting started.
The chicken and the egg question is a prime example of a puzzle that only becomes a puzzle because of how the question is posed. Whilst both options are correct, the only way of explaining the conclusion to this is by exploring the grey areas. This is because the original question is poorly delivered.
We ask ourselves poorly delivered questions all the time. Would I prefer the chocolate cake or the spinach smoothie tonight? If this was my only choice, then the chocolate cake would win every time. But again, if you were to explore the possibilities you would find that a small portion of chocolate cake would be great and you can have the smoothie too!
Should you begin an exercise routine for weight loss or not? Once again, this question is poor. If you find yourself motivated in that specific moment, you might answer yes. Tomorrow, you might feel differently.
To get your answers, first you need to discover why you should exercise more and why choosing nutritional meals is important to you.
My answer is easy. I don’t want my kids to have to bury me when they’re just young men and if I do live to be a ripe old age I want to be as independent as possible. I want a certain quality of life. So yes, I do want to exercise and I do want to choose healthier options.
However, I don’t want this to dictate my life. I enjoy not moving too. I enjoy laying on the sofa watching four episodes of Better Call Saul back to back with a glass of wine. But I can rest easy knowing that I walked the kids to school instead of driving, or I took the stairs instead of the elevator, or I went to the gym or… whatever I did, I moved. I had an active day and I made sure that I had nutritional meals.
I’m not training to run a marathon or for a bodybuilding competition. The only event I’m training for is in the event of old age I can get in and out of a chair, that I can play football with my grandkids, that I can get to the toilet in time. That doesn’t require me to hammer the gym for two hours a day.
Your false choices will kill your goals if you let them. If you look closer, you have many options to choose from. You just need to start answering them honestly.
Perhaps there is a shift happening in the UK regarding attitudes towards mental health, mindfulness and our well being. Only today I heard a report saying that more employers are offering their staff the opportunity to participate in yoga sessions during working hours. It is found that destressing in this way can make for better production of the work force.
Those opposing such a scheme say that it is time and money consuming and it is pandering to the ‘woke briggade’ (whatever that is).
Yet we were all fine with cigarette breaks and, in fact, these breaks were often seen as our right to a quick ciggy if we were stressed. People also commented on how productive a group of colleagues were during their cig breaks and how they would bond. Funny, cig breaks that I remember would be a time for people to slag somebody off behind their back.
It is hard to criticize yoga. I practice it a bit at home with the kids but, I must admit, I’m no expert. Meditation, however, is a passion. And this should also be something considered in the workplace.
How can working on our breathing to calming music be a detriment to an employee? How can focussing on positive thoughts and visualising happy outcomes not help an employee in their work life, thus making them a very productive team member?
Depending on where you are reading this, there will be something unsettling going on in your town, city or country. Whether it be war, political divide, Covid or, as it is currently in the UK, a real concern about the cost of living and energy bills. Perhaps since most of us were restricted in who we could see and limited in how long we could be out of our homes for during the pandemic, we have become a little bit more angry or disillusioned at life. The figures suggest that we are. Depression is at an all time high in the UK. For one reason or another, we are just not coping. And if the adults aren’t, I can bet the children aren’t either.
And this is where my wife and I felt that we could help. It’s a small way but we aim to make this work and hopefully grow when we receive our feedback. Our new project will be to provide schools with mindfulness and meditation sessions to their children. Indeed, schools are already finding that children’s mental well-being is becoming a priority. As I mentioned in my example of an adult’s productivity, a child too can thrive in their development if they are shown how to be more mindful.
I’ve been preoccupied recently, which in part is the reason for me writing less blogs. My wife and I have been arranging meetings, developing session plans and meditation scripts. Along with our regular work, it has become quite a commitment. But one worth making.
Soon we will be conducting two focus groups so that we can test our work so far with a view to begin in our first school in January. We want to be in every school in Scarborough within two years.
School and education is important, just like the workplace and production. But if we don’t respond to our future worker’s needs now then how productive will our society be?
“Speak to your children as if they are the wisest, kindest most beautiful and magical humans on Earth. For what they believe, they will become.”
Jonas is an 8 year old boy. He lives with his younger brother Finlay, who is 6, and mum and dad. He lives in a house with a garden so he can play football, which he does often, and he has his own bedroom. His mum and dad work and have their own businesses, which can give them a little bit of freedom regarding setting their appointments around spending time as a family. It is considered a safe and loving environment.
Jonas is a quiet, timid boy. Yet this is perhaps not always recognized by adults that meet him for the first time. His smiley face and big curly hair can give the impression of a confident child. Plus, as a talented footballer, he can play with quite a swagger. It is easy to think of him as a relaxed, calm little boy.
For as long as his parents can remember, Jonas has always shown empathy to others. This can lead him to worry or to become concerned over matters out of his control. Since learning about events in the Bible, he gets very upset for Jesus at Easter time. And he won’t watch Home Alone at Christmas as he gets fearful of the bad men attacking the little boy. This has been a cause for poor nights sleep at times.
And then, just a few months after he turned six, Covid happened. The lockdowns turned this little boy’s world upside down. For the natural worrier, this event was a major setback. His parents too, like so many people, had to find ways to overcome this crisis that had never been encountered before. Unable to work, bills still arriving, concerned for elderly loved ones and with two children unable to see their friends, Jonas’ parents had to dig deep within their resources. They were, however, determined to keep some amount of stability in the most uncertain of times. As a family they would do the Joe Wicks morning workouts, watch BBC Bytesize to help with their children’s schoolwork and go for regular local walks.
But Jonas stopped responding to these daily tasks. He would take himself away for hours at a time to watch TV on his own. He wouldn’t talk about his feelings. A walk was met with a groan and even playing football in the garden rarely happened. His brother, Finlay, also became less motivated but, perhaps because of his younger age, he didn’t understand the magnitude of what he was living through. Jonas did. He overheard many times about ‘death counts’ on the news. Something that his parents would try to hide or mute, but being in the house together for months at a time it wasn’t always easy to keep the news and the daily updates and announcements away from listening ears. And as the laws kept changing in regards to bubbles and the like, his parents had to keep on top of the latest developments.
Eventually, Jonas developed a number of ticks that he couldn’t control. The one with the most impact was a throat clearing tick. He struggled to complete sentences due to his need to clear his throat and his sleep suffered further. This continued when he went back to school and his parents informed his teachers. Jonas’school has been amazing in dealing with the children’s anxieties. His parents are thankful for the school’s ongoing support. Jonas’ ticks still exist, but take on many different forms. His latest one, which is to smell his hand, is less intrusive to him and his classmates.
As has been outlined, Jonas is a very clever and thoughtful boy. He is very aware of his surroundings and the world in which he lives. Since the last lockdown, world events such as the trouble in Afghanistan and the problems in the Ukraine are concerning to him. He has welcomed lots of refugee children and he and his brother also volunteered at a Christian charity to sort out clothes for them. But these unsettling events have led to Jonas believing that any aircraft flying overhead might be going to war or are here to drop bombs. Armed forces day was a particularly tough day for him.
But his parents have always offered reassurance and allow Jonas to express his concerns. His parents are both in the health and wellbeing industry and understand the importance of talking about how we feel. Recently, they introduced meditation to their children. This seems to be a very successful tool for Jonas. Now, almost every night, Jonas requests a meditation guide before going to sleep. His parents have observed that his sleep has never been so good and he can now relax much easier throughout the day.
Jonas remains a little distant from his friends. He didn’t want to do Zoom calls during lockdowns, for example, and perhaps while his friends were still building on their relationships through staying in touch in this way, Jonas might have lost some ground in this area of development. He does seem, however, to be a well liked boy and doesn’t appear to have issues with any other child.
Jonas’ appetite for meditation comes from the empowering nature of the process. During his guided visualizations he has travelled on a cloud, rode on the back of a giant white bird, went to the moon on a space ship and played at the play park with his favourite teddies. Which child wouldn’t want to imagine these lovely thoughts? This process puts them as the central character of this wonderful story that they can develop themselves. They are in control and in a world where some of our children might feel that they have no control, or might feel sad or have worries, empowering them when we can might play a significantly positive part in their mental health, their character development and in their learning as it is for Jonas.
For those of you who are unaware, Jonas is my son. Jonas and Finlay are the most beautiful boys who are two well behaved children. Yes, they bicker, they don’t always tidy up after themselves, they don’t always follow instructions and they do all of the naughty things that you’d expect from 6 and 8 year olds. But they have good hearts and are very kind people.
Now is the time to start recognising our children’s needs. Sometimes we might just need to listen to them. Perhaps they just need a kind word of encouragement. But most of all we must provide a safe place, a sanctuary, in which they are able to open up and allow them to explore their feelings and emotions without them simmering deep inside. As with adults, blocking our emotions can be damaging. Imagine what a child goes through without their maturity to deal with perspective or a clear thought process to channel their feelings.
All of our children deserve to be given every opportunity to be happy. To live without constant fear. To have a safe environment in which to develop and learn. Jonas comes from a safe and stable home, but many children don’t. If we can give them just a small piece of tranquility, shouldn’t we do it?
I dread the day that my car goes in for its MOT. It’s the day I get to find out how much more out of pocket I’m going to be. However, the grand old Juke seems to have a bit of life left in it yet! It got the all clear.
But this isn’t an article about my car. Although, I wish that I was as prepared to get myself checked out as regularly as I do my car. The difference is, the car legally needs to be checked for road worthiness, but I can continue my life blissfully unaware without being stopped and penalised for not going to the doctors. That is until I break down. And then the penalties for my ignorance could, in fact, be my life.
The journalist, Bill Turnbull, adds to the long list of well known people who were diagnosed with a terminal illness who came out and said that they wished that they’d gone to the doctors earlier. This week he lost his fight. In a 2018 interview he said that he felt his bones ache and had pain in his hips which he put down to old age instead of going to the doctors. He left it too late, but he would speak out until his death about others going for their regular check ups so that they didn’t make the same mistake.
In the UK, the NHS Health Check is for people turning 40 and it is advised that we have one every 5 years. At 43 I’m still yet to have one. Indeed, I can’t even remember my last doctor’s appointment. I can blame Covid restrictions, sure, it has had an impact on health appointments.
But if I’m being honest, the older I get the more reluctant I am to see a doctor.
No. Let me rephrase that last sentence…
Being a dad of two beautiful little boys, I am reluctant to face the thought of being told that I might not see them grow up or that they and my wife have to go through the grief of losing me.
I know there’s no logic to it. If anything was discovered where I had to act on my health regarding treatment, the earlier the problem is found the better. But fear doesn’t always appear with common sense or rationale. It just bites and we act in whatever way we can. Usually to sweep it under the carpet.
This morning I booked my Health Check and I’m relieved now to have the appointment. I feel healthy. Sure, I don’t live a totally clean lifestyle in today’s definition of ‘clean’. But I exercise regularly and eat with an 80/20 rule where 80% of my diet is of nutritional value.
This, however, gives us no certainties. I might be giving myself a better chance to not just live longer, but to have a better quality of life. It doesn’t earn me guaranteed immunity though.
If I could, I would urge everyone who reads this and who has procrastinated in making their doctors check up appointments to do it today. I know that it isn’t as easy to get an appointment these days in some parts of the UK, but your appointment will take even longer if you don’t attempt to make one.
We would be quick to book our car’s MOT or service. But we have a vehicle that we own for life. Make sure you look after your body.
Up and down the country parents are dealing with consoling their children who have just received their GCSE results today. There’s going to be some very happy households too. Many kids will have made their grades and will be able to put their plan A into place.
But for the kids that were like me at 16 it will feel like a lonely experience. Embarrassing too. Friends, cousins and jubilated kids on the news waving their bit of paper in the air all seemed to do better than me. I felt like a failure.
I even remember what I wore that day. It was my grunge stage at 16. Long hair, ripped jeans and an orange REM t-shirt from the Monster album. Grunge symbolised the anger, frustration and angst of those years. Listening to bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden became much more appealing than revising for exams.
I will never know how those exam results changed my life. Not really. I never felt like I wanted to go to University, so top grades never appealed to me anyway. The problem was that I didn’t know what I wanted to do at 16.
But what I do know now is that those results didn’t define me. I thought they did at the time. And it used to annoy me that If I were to fill out a job application form it would ask for my GCSE results. 27 years later, is my knowledge of GCSE algebra of any importance to any potential employer? My knowledge of algebra does not define me!
I didn’t know it then, but I learnt a great lesson that day. I learnt how to deal with disappointment. And not just the sort of disappointment you get when you open up the takeaway bag to find that they’ve missed out the salt and pepper spare ribs, as crushing as that is. No. The disappointment that you feel when you don’t even want to be on the planet anymore. You don’t know why you exist.
And looking back throughout my life I managed to discover lots of failures. I fail often. Only now, I absolutely love it!
Due to knowledge, experience, a good track record and plenty of recommendations I seemed to have stumbled into becoming a weight management specialist within my coaching. And I call it weight management because as much as the large percentage of people want to lose weight, I also work with those who need to gain weight. So specialising in weight loss wouldn’t do what I do any justice.
What I find is that many people go through the same emotions as I have. Not so much in them having the same experiences, but in how they feel about themselves after failure. Not hitting a weight target, not managing to complete an exercise routine or feeling like they’ve eaten too much or too little. Anxiety and resentment can take over.
But over time I’ve managed a lightbulb moment that has armed me with the most valuable tool. I now know that failure is not the opposite of success, it is a part of it. To succeed at anything, we must accept that we fail sometimes. That’s why I love it. Failure, to me now, is a milestone moment. If I know how it went wrong, tomorrow I will know how to put it right.
You will not have success every day, whatever your goals. It will hurt. I know it will. And the good news is that whatever your journey might be, it won’t be as bad as learning algebra.
What do you think about the term ‘alternative therapy’?
So often during conversations about certain therapy that might be useful to a person’s physical or mental health it gets passed off as ‘hippie dippy’ (which is what crystal healing was called by a friend of mine). Other descriptions made to reference alternative therapies are bizaar, ridiculous and weird.
Perhaps some are. We live in an era where multi media can help sell any fad to any group of people or demographics and I have no doubt that many alternative therapies have been hijacked by the billion dollar business of the health and fitness industry. Indeed, if a celebrity brings out a book on maggot debridement therapy alarm bells start ringing to me.
However, many helpful treatments classed as alternative therapies are things that are much older than conventional treatments. Yoga, for example, is traced back to Northern India some 5,000 years ago. Meditation is an ancient practice from 5000 BCE. The Chinese medical text Con-Fu of the Toa-Tse dates back to 1800 BC detailing the application of massage techniques for therapy. Crystal healing, thought to be ‘hippy dippy’ by a friend of mine, was first used 6000 years ago by the ancient Sumerians of Mesopotomia.
Conventional treatment cannot be ignored either, of course. I’m a science man myself. I like the research, experimentation and the practical study of our world. Without it I wouldn’t be able to be a Personal Trainer. I don’t just stumble across a number of movements and hope that they work for a client. I follow the evidence in what WILL work for whatever my client wishes to achieve.
But it is also important to be open minded and question things. And I question everything. I question why our health services are so quick to dispense anti depressants to us. According to the OECD Health Statistics, the USA and the UK have some of the highest numbers when it comes to their citizens taking anti depressants compared to other nations.
The pharmaceuticals industry is worth 1.42 trillion US dollars (statists.com). The antidepressant industry alone is worth 28.6 billion dollars. So I question why our health services would ever want to promote any type of alternative therapy when they earn so much from us popping pills.
And yet I still can’t discredit medicine. It is a fantastic invention that saves lives or can make lives easier to live. Choosing between conventional treatment or alternative therapy is the issue for me. It shouldn’t be a case of either/or.
Personally my last resort has always been turning to conventional medication. In my early 20’s I was prescribed antidepressants. I held the prescription in my hand as I stood outside the pharmacy, wondering if there was an alternative. Down the road to the pharmacy was a gym. I joined that instead.
But the gym didn’t completely cure my anxieties. They’re still there and, as I have discovered, it is just a part of my personality. The gym just helps me to think whilst producing endorphins, which happens to be the body’s very own natural happy drug. There’s me and science again! Any type of movement can produce it. Just do the movement that you enjoy and you’ll get your very own supply of endorphins!
I have never met a person who has not benefited from yoga. And I don’t mean the sort offered by most multi national gyms. You want fixing not breaking. I mean proper yoga taught by a yoga instructor in a yoga studio. I’ve never heard anybody feel worse from a massage treatment performed by my wife. Most people feel that, with consistent treatment, their body and mind feels much more relaxed. And I’ve never encountered a poor meditation. Sitting in silence with your own thoughts and feelings for a short time each day should be a priority to anybody, whatever ailments we have. What’s so weird about that?!
Alternative therapy should always be considered in our quest for peace, happiness, health and fitness. As much as modern day medicine is extremely important, grounding ourselves and opening up our therapeutic experiences in our lives should always be considered.
And if somebody scoffs at you for buying a yoga mat, invite them to do The Crow and enjoy the entertainment.
For me it is about realising that I’m not perfect, that I have flaws, I cannot please others or myself all of the time and whilst working to improve daily I can still find humour in my weaknesses.
I’m changing daily. So are you. If you can truly accept yourself today, maybe your tomorrow’s self will be happier.
Here are a few other examples of how people interpret self acceptance…
“When you stop living your life based on what others think of you real life begins.At that moment you will finally see the door of self acceptance open.” Author Shannon L. Alder
“You have been criticizing yourself for years, and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.” AuthorLouise L Hay
Or poet R.H Sin simply put “Make peace with your broken pieces.”
And Buddha said “You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.”
I am currently studying the Socratic method of cognitive behaviour and one of the principles of this is Self Acceptance. It got me thinking. I’m supposed to be the one helping others, yet there are days when I’m so down on myself I feel like a fraud for even attempting to help anybody else. And then I got it. A bit of a lightbulb moment perhaps.
I’m not supposed to be perfect every day. Some days I will make mistakes, I’ll let myself down or I’ll give up on something. But if I have the ability to accept this as part of me, then I know how to fix it.
In my interpretation of Self Acceptance I said that finding humour in my weaknesses is a factor. Sometimes finding the humility to laugh at myself or to say sorry to somebody rather than excuse myself is a good place to start. Battling with ego and pride takes so much more energy than simply accepting a mistake or a blemish.
Take a moment yourself to think about all of the fantastic qualities that you have. You have flaws, yet the positive aspects of you and your life can outweigh the negatives if you allow them to. And in the meantime you can work on the bits that you don’t like too.
You just need to accept them.
Thank you for reading my blog. Please contact me if you have any questions or if you would like to apply for a place on my coaching app.
A very important piece of advice was given to me the other day and it has stuck with me. In fact, the more I think about it the more I can relate it to me and my goals and I see it in other people too.
The person who loves to walk will walk further than the person who loves the destination.
When you love the journey, goals just happen. The destination is cool too! But you are so engaged with the process you don’t even realise that you are there. You carry on. You hit more milestones. And whether you inch forward on some days or you take big strides, you want to continue.
This advice is so huge it goes beyond the stuff we do to become fitter or jacked or to control our weight. This is a lesson for life. There are some months I could earn more money in my previous job. I could walk away from being self-employed with no holiday or sick pay and know that I could have a regular income each month.
But this journey that I’m on? Priceless. I’ll enjoy this journey so much more. The stress, the pitfalls and the headaches are there but the good times, by far, outweigh the bad. This is my own process. My destiny.
I’ll need to give myself a little tap on the shoulder in future when I have a moment feeling down or inadequate just to remind myself of why I keep walking. Some days I’m crawling, some days I’m running. Either way, I keep going forward on my journey because I enjoy it.
I spent so long not enjoying the process. In the gym I’d choose the wrong exercises because ‘that’s just what you need to do, dude!’
And yet it isn’t what I ‘just need to do’. I need to find the few exercises that I enjoy and become good at them. Then the journey really begins. I find new and interesting formulas and techniques. Maybe stuff that I hated before became appealing and the challenge of trying it and succeeding gets me out of bed in the morning.
Transferring this attitude into everyday life is similar. The journey needs to make sense to you. It has to be yours and a good PT will make it yours because it will be personal to you. Something I’ve yet to see from Poundland PT is actually making Personal Training personal. If a PT can’t do that all they do is give every person they train a gym induction. Gym inductions are free.
Your journey becomes an obsession. Obsessions can be healthy, even if we might not like the word or its connotation. Most people we see as being happy, healthy or successful got to where they are because they were obsessed about their journey. They trained almost every day. They made their journey personal and kept on walking.
So what of the destination? Is it irrelevant? No, for sure it plays a part, but if you focus on the big house, the sports car, becoming jacked, being a size 8, taking 4 cruises a year or having the perfect family then you will be disappointed. You’ll want short cuts. You’ll take routes that you don’t enjoy and can even be dangerous to your mental or physical health. You become desperate. You quit.
The destination just happens. But it only happens if you enjoy the walk.
Keep going forward son. There’s nothing to stop you on your journey but your own self doubts.
Never Give Up PT 