As a coach there is a certain phenomenon I witness regularly. It’s where people will let themselves off the hook in a situation. Sometimes it’s a conscious effort to do this and other times it just happens without thinking…   

Rather than call everyone out and demean them for doing so, I'd rather simply shed light on the topic because once you know and can recognise that you’re doing it the sooner you can make change… 

Sure what we do in the gym is hard! Losing weight, building strength and learning new skills… I get it! 

But when we set out to achieve these things we knew it would be difficult and we thought we could make it work because otherwise we wouldn’t have set sail on the journey in the first place…  

Then comes a moment when the land disappears from the horizon and it becomes hard. Your motivation isn’t quite as strong and your attention might turn to looking for reasons to justify not going, to put your membership on hold or just straight up quit! 

You will have heard the standard reasons like a busy schedule, a change of heart or there is not enough “insert your favourite exercise here” in the program. My issue is not with the excuse itself but where the blame is placed. The moment someone says I am committed and would be there but my kids, my boss, my dogs, etc… 

In my opinion this is not only claiming an “out” but you’re blaming it on someone or something else…  

Now I’m not naive enough to think that people will always be able to train the house down, make progress and be super motivated. Things will always come up. But rarely do I see people take ownership of this and say “I am choosing to take a break because my health and fitness is not my current priority I have other things to focus on”

So next time something comes up and you start thinking of an “out” for yourself. Recognise it’s happening and decide to take ownership of it instead.

When you take ownership you choose to be accountable for the results you get or don’t get and being in control is always a better place to operate from!   

Shaun Diachkoff

@shaundiachkoff