Don’t Let Others Deter You

Today I experienced something that is relatively common in gyms, but never have I seen it so blatantly done.

I went to a fit4less today for my workout session. I was there for an hour and a half and there was a group of six guys at the back who made fun of every single person that walked into the gym. In good shape or not, it didn’t matter.

DON’T EVER BE THESE PEOPLE

These are the worst kind of human beings. People go to the gym to lead an active lifestyle or to try and turn their life around. Sometimes it takes these people a long time to work up the courage to make the choice to get into shape. Then these despicable people destroy their confidence and deter them from ever going again.

Ignore these people. They are losers. And you damn well know you’re better than what they say. You’re lifestyle and your health are more important than the opinions of a few strangers.

Don’t let them slow you down!

Get in there and do your thing! Nobody else’s opinion matters but your own and you know you’re making a good lifestyle choice.

We need to make the gym a positive atmosphere for everyone. People need to be encouraged to go not deterred! What that means is making the gym free of judgement.

Do your part, help make the gym a better place.

Fitness Is Not A Competition

It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been working out, or being active, there will always be someone in better shape than you are. That is just a fact of life and unless you hold multiple world titles this still applies to you.

Unfortunately people have a tendency to base their worth by comparing themselves to others. For some reason it doesn’t matter how well you’re doing at something, when you inevitably find someone better than you are at it, we all take it personally.

How come I don’t look like that? What are they doing that I’m not? What’s wrong with what I’m doing?

We all do it. And it’s really quite stupid. Maybe that person’s been putting years more of their life into that activity than you have, or sacrifice their personal life to get better. You haven’t got a clue how they got there. It doesn’t even matter.

Who cares how they got there? Good for them they’re doing great! Good for you, you’re doing great too! Why do you need to be better?

YOU DON’T.

Fitness is not a competition. It’s a lifestyle. You do it because you love it and you spend your life improving yourself. As long as you’re making progress and you’re happy where you are, why bring yourself down with thoughts like that?

Now for some people they just can’t help it. They compare themselves to everyone and everything, it’s just how they live.

If you’re this kind of person, it’s how you react to these comparisons that is so important.

You can do one of two things:

1. You can feel bad that other people appear to be more successful than you and drag yourself down and let it affect you’re own personal progress and sense of accomplishment.

2. You can take their success as inspiration for you to reach for even higher goals. Let it drive you forward and motivate you to improve.

It’s all about how you think. Change you’re thinking, change your life. The most successful people in life are the ones that take draw strength from moments like this. This takes practice but anyone can do it.

To practice this, every time you find yourself comparing yourself to someone else, your mind will do what your mind normally does. But make a point of finding one thing that you can take away from their success that you could apply to yourself. Then do it.

There’s my take for the day. Don’t make fitness a competition. Use others strengths to bring yourself to greater heights. You’ve got this!

Your Life Your Fitness

Fitness is great. There are so many benefits to living a healthy active lifestyle I could be here all day listing them all. When you think of fitness what do you think of? Most people think about a gym with treadmills and weight racks or going for a run.

BREAK THIS LINE OF THINKING

Fitness is different for everyone. What if you don’t like treadmills and weightlifting? Does that mean fitness isn’t for you? Absolutely not! It just means that those activities aren’t for you.

Maybe you like sports. So you could do something like soccer or football. Winter sports like skiing or skating. Track and field. Swimming. Running up stairs at the office. Pushups during commercials. Taking the dog for a walk.

See what I’m getting at?

There’s no one thing you need to do or participate in to get fit. You just need to love what you do. If you hate something that benefits you, it doesn’t matter how good it is for you, you’ll never stick with it because it’s not enjoyable. Why would you? You want to do something that’s fun!

So don’t listen to others opinions of what you need to do to get fit (I mean if they know what they’re talking about that’s one thing), you need to find what works for you! If you don’t know what you like, TRY THINGS! What better way to find out what you like then to try a bunch of activities. It doesn’t have to be expensive, you don’t have to join a bunch of clubs to do this. Find a YouTube channel, do a google search. There are lots of ways to try things for free but it helps to have something guided to get you started. It makes you feel more included you know?

When you find that thing you like Get Into It. Don’t short change yourself. Your enthusiasm will carry you into it and you’ll find fitness and exercise comes easier. If you’re having fun it doesn’t feel like a chore.

I personally like the feeling of lifting a really heavy weight until my arms or legs just give up. They can do no more. It makes me feel like I really gave it my all. And most importantly, the struggle means progress it coming! That feeling is what keeps me going.

So, the most important thing here is to find something active that you like. If you like it, you’ll do it more. Simple. So go out there and get started!

What’s your favorite thing to do to keep active? Tell me in the comments!