Category: motivation

The real you is the one that does very good things with your body and mind, even if the odds seem against you at times. 

Lots of you down the gym and online this week raising your OWN bar, not setting for run of the mill, not settling for what could have been if “this or that happens”, you are grinding and doing it extremely well, we strongly appreciate it.

If you aren’t making it so often as you would like, consider how much effort you make for things that don’t help your body and mind anywhere near as much, perhaps they even send both into decline.

If you are making time for your health, you really value your life and relationships in my view. Those closest to you DEPEND on your being mobile, healthy and you leading from the front. You won’t always be super healthy maybe but you can least have a go, then NOBODY can fault you.

If you aren’t at your best right now, the last thing you should do is hang your head in shame. NOBODY is perfect but EVERYONE can show up and make the effort to go TOWARDS being your best again.

You may tell your kids and grandkids to always do their best, but you may tend to miss yourself out of that conversation. Those kids and grandkids really look up to you for inspiration, without saying anything, they look to you to lead, to inspire them and most of all lead by example.

You have a million reasons to be fit and healthy, but you should know there are some very strong emotional reasons too to get this done you should never ignore before it’s too late.

Waiting to see “what if” for too long makes you think that you are freezing time, but the reality is that you are wasting your time in favour of hoping things turn out for the best as if by magic, and life soon begins to pass you by.

The reality is you have a fresh opportunity to boost your health every single day, and it can work two ways. 

Number one way is to show up, end of story. You show up first and let everything else happen for you because once you step int the gym, you are bound to have a great workout, bound to be tested and pushed to go a bit further than you think you can go.

Number two way would be to skip today, and then maybe tomorrow and before you know it the week has gone without you doing a single workout. No medicine for your brain in terms of better mental health, no medicine for your body in terms of getting pain out of your body and getting increased energy, your progress has come to a screeching halt!

We all have things on our mind, things we often hope will happen for the best, BUT exchanging our workouts because “we can’t get our heads into it” is a path to disaster. 

We make better decisions when we exercise, we have more incentive to eat well when we exercise and we have a much greater sense of wellbeing when we exercise-FACT.

Life carries on every day no matter how much we think it doesn’t, stay in the game, look after your health and build a better life, both now and in the future by doing the things you know work so well for you.

We all like hate some films that some people love, some love to read, I can’t read without being bored but I listen a lot to books, some people love a certain way of exercising and never deviate much from that idea, some like experiencing something new at regular intervals and opening their minds constantly.

Everything has a different audience. We had new individuals starting today and we all know how hard that can be on so many different levels, and many of you did things for the very first time today, stuff you never thought you would do, both ends of the spectrum having widely different needs but both succeeding in their own way simply by showing up.

We have had people today who are struggling in their lives, some who just wanted some peace down the gym, Different needs at the gym but the workout satisfies both’s feelings ultimately and hopefully bringing more inner calm than any box of tablets could ever give you.

As we gain more experience, and we are all still earning, it’s important to respect everyone’s ideas, opinions and path in life, because we are on our own path and the more we concentrate on that, and respect others’, the more we succeed ourselves and the happier we become.

Never has there been a better time to be strict with ourselves in our habits which mean we look after ourselves better, whilst at the same time being more tolerant of others and their path and we all win that way.

I know I have a huge array of needs at the gym from all of you, and I’ve never been so excited to do more with you and keep rejecting the one size fits all approach which we have never done and will never do.

Everyday is learn a new skill day, improve your balance day, improve your strength and endurance day, if you focus on always getting better bit by bit, everything else takes care of itself.

There’s a million things to moan about, plenty of things we wish were better, decisions we made in haste or anger that we later wish we could have reversed given our time all over again.

Times like these threaten overwhelm us, make us feel all at sea, our emotions threaten to paralyse us just as we need to be taking action the most to escape the stress, anxiety and feelings as if we aren’t in control of our own lives anymore.

Even in our most desperate and low times, we need to expose ourselves to the medicine that starts our fightback, and sustains our fight and eventually overwhelms those things that are threatening to take over our lives.

I’ve never EVER met anyone who’s life hasn’t been enhanced greatly by exercising, getting fresh air, healing themselves internally by eating well, and being exposed to people on a daily basis who will lift them up, make them laugh and continually drive the message home to them that life can and WILL get better.

More than likely, there’s going to be someone who has been through the same at the gym or likely much worse again, and they have come through the other side, not only healed but stronger than ever before and they are willing to tell their story to you too, and inspire you to keep taking action, even at times when you don’t even feel like carrying on.

Our emotions can make or break us, they can make us feel we have lost control or we are totally in charge. Whatever life throws at us, the daily medicine of your workouts, eating right (not stress eating or drinking) and the company we regularly keep will be the constant game-changer that gives us a strong advantage in every area of our lives.

Freedom is something society has fought for over centuries through protesting, until draconian laws were crushed through sheer weight of opinion, endless cases of injustice and eventually the overwhelming will of the people.

Freedom has come a long way, but many of us choose to imprison ourselves through our own restrictive thinking and our worry about what others would think of us if we went against the status quo even it was for the best for us and our families.

For example, since I started training people, there are far more individuals who train with us who done’t drink alcohol anymore for all sorts of different reasons compared to 30 odd years ago. 

Some over-drank every day and it eventually destroyed everything in their lives, but over time and a lot of help, some overcame it and eventually reclaimed their lives from seemingly certain oblivion.

We have youngsters in the gym who have just decided alcohol is not for them, and the circle they hang out in is often alcohol free.

Then we have people who now drink much less and decided to quit, and feel fantastic and don’t miss it at all. The positives are huge, but the feedback I get is that they can lose some friends along the way. Maybe they say, their friendships with others were based BECAUSE they drank with them, instead of being a real friendship?

Our habits often make us gravitate towards those who’s lifestyle resembles ours the most, and I have found often that when we decide to change that lifestyle often for the better in terms of our health, we often meet a lot of resistance from others who don’t want us to change it, which makes the task 100 times as hard unless we see it out.

Whatever your choices (and we respect you all), when you get healthier, the likelihood is that some of your friends are likely to change along the way. It’s like going down the pub every day, once you don’t do that anymore, you often will develop a new group of friends that share your healthier interests and your interests are likely to broaden hugely.

Freedom comes in all categories and remember it’s exactly YOUR choice on how you want to live, how healthy you want to be, and whilst it may take some courage along the way, your true friends will always be your friends, and it should never depend on how much you drink to impress others.