Hands up if you’ve ever used the excuse “I just didn’t have time.” 🙋🏼♂
At some point or another we’ve all said this, but if you think back, was It really true? Could you honestly say there was not a spare half an hour at all that day to get some exercise in?
Time is the biggest obstacle you will ever have to face when it comes to getting fit, and is the most likely culprit when seeing why someone hasn’t met their goals- they never gave themselves the time.
Now I know just as well as you that life can get in the way. Unexpected things happen. But are you using these excuses when they actually aren’t justifiable? If this is happening everyday as opposed to a one off emergency simply because you lost track of time and couldn’t make it to the gym, that’s when the problems occur.
My first tip for avoiding missing your sessions is accountability. Have something to lose as extra motivation. Maybe motivating yourself to do personal workouts isn’t enough, perhaps instead you should aim to make classes. If you have booked and paid for a class you are way less likely to lose out on the money, giving you an extra incentive to not skip a day. Similarly if you have a trainer and you have paid for a session and committed to spending a certain amount of time working with them, you will avoid missing appointments and losing money at all costs. Not only this but trainers act as excellent motivators to make you want to come to the sessions and not find excuses to stay home anyway. Lastly you could try working out with a friend. You and your gym buddy could set punishments up for each other when you work out together for lateness and missed sessions. You’ll think twice about taking a day off if you know that next time your bestie is going to hit you with a mile run and burpees as payback!
So why are people making theses excuses? I write this in almost every post I do, but if you don’t know why it is you are training, you aren’t gunna have to motivation to overcome life’s obstacles that stop you getting to the gym. We can never get back lost time, and if you feel like you are wasting it in the gym doing hours of uncommitted rowing then you aren’t going to want to try to get there, you’ll give up at he first hurdle. If fitness is truly a priority then you will find time. The way to avoid this happening is to know what you want to achieve and set a plan of how to achieve it. Being specific in your goals will save you time in the long run as you’ll see results much faster if your workouts are tailored to what you really want. If your goals aren’t cardio-based why are you wasting time on the treadmill? Cut down the time you need to actually be in the gym by having a clear plan for every session.
When you begin your journey you must have some idea as to how this is going to fit into your lifestyle, your plan has to be maintainable in your busy schedule. Everyone has commitments elsewhere; friends, family, careers, pets, hobbies, a new TV series that you can’t get enough of, it’s all about finding how these things fit around each other. If you know that you only have certain mornings free set those days as your time to workout instead of taking the “I’ll do it when I feel like it” approach which leaves far too much room for something to get in the way.
It is important for everyone to know that doing something is better than doing nothing. Period. If you planned a 2 hour weight lifting session on your way home from work, but traffic has left you only an hour to train, it is still worth it to commit fully to working out and achieve something in that hour, even if it’s not as much as you’d hoped for. Always be moving forward. Even workouts under an hour are still workouts. A half an hour session is still making you a better version of yourself than you were yesterday. If you truly can’t get to the gym there are ways to keep progressing. A quick bodyweight HIIT workout on your bedroom floor for half an hour before you start to make dinner is always going to be more beneficial than skipping out altogether.
If all this is sounding logical but you still don’t know where to begin, drop me an email and we’ll see what we might be able to achieve for you together.