The #1 Reason For Fitness Failure

Some of you reading this hate your job.

You live for watching your investment accounts build up and the idea of drawing social security so that one day you can leave work, never go back, and kick your feet up in Florida or some other preferred destination.

On a smaller scale you may do the same thing with a yearly vacation.

You detest your day to day life but will yourself through it with a countdown ticker on your computer home screen that says you only have 353 days left until Hawaii 2019.

But why?

What if the end game, whether it be retirement or that yearly vacation, wasn’t the game at all?

You see, many people treat their fitness the same way.

They say things like:

I want chiseled abs
I want a round butt
I want ripped arms
I want big calves (ok, I have actually only heard this from one client)

They want that “end game” body so badly just as someone may yearn for retirement or a vacation.

154949329-612x612 — Obligatory retirement/vacation photo.

The problem is, the process of achieving those physical things doesn’t make most people happy. In fact, many people flat out hate it.

I see people quit fitness regularly because the picture in their head was to gut it out for a period of time to achieve XYZ vanity goal and that’s it.

There was nothing more to it.

Which leads to the big question: What do you want that body for?

Is it to block insecurities?
Is it to get attention from others?
Do you think if you achieve that body now then you won’t have to work at it later in life?

When personal health and fitness “works out” long term it’s because the person felt it brought them a certain level of health, appearance, ability, etc.

BUT,

they also loved the process of achieving it. If not, they would have quit when progress slowed down or when things got tough.

What Does This Mean For You?

You need to figure out who you are and what you love in terms of fitness. Then you need to fall in love with the process of working on it, not what the process ends up giving you.

Now, of course there are some parameters.

If you know my general philosophies, you already know you need to be eating healthy and strength training.

Maybe you are saying to yourself “Jon this is all fine, but I hate lifting weights.”

So, there is a portion of “suck it up”, but at the same time there are a multitude of things to try in order to see what you like the best.

Maybe group workouts with a tight knit community is for you.

Perhaps home workouts in your basement.

Maybe its one-on-one personal training.

30 min workouts.

90 minute power lifting sessions.

Whatever!

You have to figure out how to make your day to day life of health and fitness exciting and optimistic so that you actually enjoy it.

When people chase something like vanity that everyone else can see, they often can’t stay the course.

Eventually their sails lose wind and because there was never any love of the process, people give up.

Similarly, when you do something for money, you often quit eventually.

When you love it, you do it forever.

The point is, an external influence will never keep you in the game long term.

You have to love the process.

I Leave You With This

Unfortunately, most people think the gateway to happiness in fitness is the perfect body.

The abs, the butt, the arms, etc.

This thinking couldn’t be more wrong.

The gateway to happiness in fitness is to love the process of achieving and maintaning your health. Whether your process gives you ripped abs or it doesn’t, whether it lets you do an Ironman race or it doesn’t, whether it gives you a round butt or it doesn’t, or whether it lets you bench press 300 lbs. or it doesn’t, you have to figure it out.

You alone have to find out what’s going to make you love your process so that your day in and day out isn’t watching the countdown ticker that says your abs should be showing in 29 days.