Keri McKibbin Personal Training

12 weeks to go until Christmas, and your most testing 12 weeks of the year to come on all levels.

50mph and heavy rain on a sunday isn’t the most encouraging start, but let it be the start of your NO COMPLAINING stage of the year.

You can complain about how cold, dark and wet it is, you can complain your clothes don’t fit you, how you don’t have energy, how your best days may be behind you (totally false by the way), BUT you don’t need to fall into that trap of self-defeating self talk, self defeating talk that you are beaten before you start.

Look for SOLUTIONS rather than complaining.

Become the person who takes ACTION every day, are you getting better or are you the best complainer in town?

It all starts with winning each day as it comes, don’t look forward too much too what may or many not happen.

In my experience, I have people I train do amazing things any time of year, and it’s much more gratifying to do great things when the sun isn’t shining, its dark much of the time, and it’s much colder.

Whilst many people stay on the settee for the winter and complain about life and the pain they aren and the worry they have on their minds all the time, be the exception, be the one who continuously puts the work in, be the one who gets up earlier and gets stuff done, be the one who works stress out of their system at the gym each and every day, be the one who NEVER quits-BE THE EXCEPTION!!!

The last quarter of the year is year, time to embrace it and run straight at it!!

Failure is GOOD, it’s your ever present friend in you getting better, without it, you would settle for a very low standard in life that was easy to jump over all the time, but ultimately give you far less reward and benefits to your health.

Your character is BUILT by your failures.

Accepting you have to do way less as you age is like going to school, learning the 5 times table and then progressively getting worse as you go up each year-NONSENSE and it wouldn’t be allowed in school, by your parents/guardian or anyone around you, unless someone said it was “okay” to do so and have so little ambition.

Are you getting better by challenging yourself? Or getting weaker and less healthy by creating a far LOWER BAR for yourself?

There has never been a more important time for us to shine lights on people who are struggling with their health, struggling with their motivation, struggling with the pain in their bodies, and struggling with all kinds of tests and challenges in their mental health.

I have seen many people who have achieved high levels of fitness ‘’settle” for less overall fitness, in terms of less appearances, which means more pain when you do our sessions because you never get in a groove. This is where it starts.

It’s easy then to rationalise its “fine” to miss sessions, fine to drop your standards after all you’re getting “older” and thats what “older people do”, but all depends WHO you are comparing yourself to?

When I assess someone new who has great pain I their hips, I know exactly what to do, and the relief that comes from people having pain leave their body is incredible. Most people do not want that new elevated feeling of wellbeing to leave them. Many of you remember that feeling.

As human we are far from perfect, and any piece of news can throw us sideways at any time. How we react though is crucial, do we hit the bottle? Do we take some kind of drug to “forget” about our problems?

Or do we rely on hitting the gym?

It’s easy to forget how the gym helps us stay strong, not only in body terms but in getting our minds right too-so vital and many of you message me on it all the time.

This is why we as a gym should always shine a light to whoever needs it, because at this time in history, the world seems to be struggling far more than it ever has, with the way we treat each other in general, to our general physical and mental health, to the way we undervalue ourselves, our self belief may be at an all time low, so we need to act, we need to keep showing up more, and we need to remind ourselves that we can do great things and all it takes is all of us putting the work in, and not kid ourselves anymore that sporadic sessions are enough.

Keep your standards HIGH!!!