Recently I’ve been up very early on Skype calls to Oz getting some things sorted out from a period I spent down there (with my ex-girlfriend). It’s something that I’d been putting off for the last while because I am not good at doing things like that and every time I’ve been thinking I need to do it, I avoid it with thoughts like:

“I’ve far too much going on and getting up that early to do it is just an extra hassle at the moment.”

Then as I was on hold on one of the call’s I started to wonder was it some reason like I didn’t want to completely close the door on that period of my life. Must have been a love song on in the background or something.

Ultimately I didn’t do it because it is the kind of thing that I hate doing and I was making excuses about it.

I’ve read before that 70% of people who go on Facebook end up feeling worse about themselves as they flick through it. They see all these perfect lives in front of them and log off thinking that their lives are awful in comparison.

Because they only see the highlights of everyone else’s lives. 

You may have some friends who are ultra-motivated and might be flying with their training and nutrition at the moment. But it is important to remember that everyone is at their own level with regards to their health and you have to start from the one you’re at.

Friends and people I train might look at someone like me and think I have it relatively together on my training and nutrition schedule. But I’ve been working out for a long time and am probably just a little further along the line than they are.

If they were to look away from the gym and at some other aspects of me and my life they might see chaos. I can be disorganised, have about 100 million things going on in my head at times, I don’t make enough time for the really important people/things in life, haven’t known when to give up on situations when I should have in the past and have on occasion not just pressed the self-destruct button but punched it as hard as I could.

And as you can see at the start of this post I’m good at procrastinating when I want to be.

But I’m ok with all of that because I know everyone’s got their areas of strength and weakness, and I’m doing all I can to mover the needle forward every day.

As Rod (a mentor who helped me and gave some invaluable advice when I got back from Oz) said when we were laughing about another one of my mistakes last year:

“Life is all about having an adventure and getting over the challenges is as important as the good parts – they are really what make you grow. So enjoy them as well”.

The reason I’m saying all this is that there are so many people who feel guilty about not being at the same level discipline wise as their friends/colleges or feel intimidated by the progress being made by others. They feel like they can’t get talk/get excited about their fitness achievements because they can’t do something like a full press-up.

Or whatever.

That just means that you are at an earlier part of the line on your training but have built strengths for yourself in other areas of your life.

So it is time for you to go after your fitness goals with no judgment towards yourself or expectations of perfection.

Start enjoying the process and work every day to improve your fitness habits slightly, then realise every time you move the needle forward no matter how (perceived) small it is progress and it is a win.

Commit to this attitude for 4 weeks and you’ll be shocked at how far your fitness will go.