I’ve been thinking about this lately. A lot of my friends and clients talk about motivation and say quite often: ‘well it’s easy for you, you just enjoy exercising and being healthy and you don’t understand how hard it is for me to start exercising and to stick to eating all this food etc.’

Let’s get things straight – nothing is ever easy. Every day, we are presented with choices and it’s up to us, which decisions to make. Whenever we say: ‘I just don’t have willpower to do XYZ’, we are removing our power to be accountable for our lives away from us. I am a strong believer in being responsible for all choices I make. Sometimes life throws at us things that are really tough – such as an unfortunate accident / a serious illness / an unexpected redundancy / a traumatising breakup etc. Life is absolutely not fair sometimes!  And bad things do happen to good people. However, even when everything goes against us and we are at our lowest point, we still have a choice to decide how we are going to react and what we are going to do about it. All of these rough times make us stronger and give us a sense of achievement. That despite of it all, we are still here, standing, breathing and being strong.

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Every day, I make choices to eat healthy food that gives me energy and makes my body strong. I make choices to challenge my body on a regular basis with interesting workouts that take me out of my comfort zone. Do I enjoy these choices every day? No. Sometimes I feel like I should be just lying in my warm bed for a little bit longer, especially when days are short and weather is miserable. Then I think about that feeling that comes after each workout – that sense of achievement, that power of endorphins rushing through my blood, that de-stressing effect it has on me.. and I grit my teeth, put my workout clothes on and go for it.

Why? Because I have trained my mind to do so. I know when I’m trying to find a reason not to do certain things. I can also work out, whether it’s a genuine reason i.e. I am starting to feel ill or if it’s my comfort zone demanding a bit of a break. I don’t think about it, I just do it. To me, being healthy and challenging my body has become part of my lifestyle. Plus I enjoy a lot of different sports and I base my training routines around them so they are sport specific and fun. Find something you enjoy and your training will be all of sudden taken to a new level.

Here’s an example of some of the stories I have heard over the years:

• I don’t have time to exercise.
• It’s expensive to exercise.
• I get bored during my workouts.
• I am so unfit I don’t know where to begin – I may as well not bother.
• I have skipped a few workouts – I may as well give up, what’s the point.
• I’m so sore after my last week’s workout – I can’t do the next one until I get better.
• I just have no willpower.
• I can’t afford to buy healthy food.
• Healthy food tastes horrible; I will never be able to eat it.

And many more. In the next couple of posts, I will tackle all of these.

Everything is possible when we set our minds to it. Instead of trying convincing me why you can’t do certain things, think about whether you are in fact trying to justify it to yourself so you feel less guilty about it. We can be very crafty when it comes down to finding certain reasons..

On a more positive note: I believe that we are all capable of great things. There is so much potential in all of us – and in most cases, we are not even scratching its surface.

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That’s why I love training people. Being able to show them, that they are much stronger than what they think they are and that they can do so many amazing things. That feeling, when they actually realise that can do things they claimed impossible, is absolutely priceless. We have to dig deep and find that sense of belief in ourselves, only when we start believing, we can start seeing some great changes.

Remember, a mind is just another ‘muscle’. We can train it and it will adapt.

Your thoughts?