What You Look Like Shouldn’t Matter
Feeling good in our bodies is often wrongly conflated with “looking good to other people.” Many people start working out because they want to change how they look, but there is a genetic limit to what we can change about our bodies. Finding something at the gym that makes it fun and rewarding to do the actual work of working out is much more rewarding and often leads to feeling good even if there aren’t big visual changes to the body.
There Is No Goal
Often exercisers set unrealistic goals, especially in the short term, which can easily demotivate them when they’re not achieved. Sometimes it can be best to not make goals at all, focus on making consistent and steady progress by continuing to exercise.
The Simplest Way To Get In Amazing Shape
The 80/20 principal states that in any field, you can get 80% of results with only 20% of effort, and the last 20% will take the last 80% of the effort. This is meant to be encouraging that you can a lot of good results without having to dedicate all of your time and energy. When it comes to fitness, the 80/20 principle can be applied to build very straightforward routines that will work - if you’re able to stick with it long enough.
Why Doing Things Imperfectly is Still Worth Doing
Perfect is the enemy of the good - Meg struggled with perfectionism and it held back her ability to enjoy artistic hobbies for years. Likewise, perfectionism can hold you back from your fitness goals, especially when you take an “all or nothing” approach. Doing ‘something’, even if it’s not perfect, helps you to maintain the habit.
Why 30 Day Challenges Aren't All Bad
30 day challenges are commonly mocked in the fitness industry for being a bad tool for developing sustainable, long-term fitness habits. 30 day challenges encourage short-term thinking, which is unlikely to help with long-term development. However, it’s important to remember that long-term thinking is just a combination of all your periods of short-term thinking - and thus, sometimes, short-term thinking can set the right standard for your future behavior.