“I just don’t have enough willpower.”

“I’m too busy.”

“My significant other isn’t on the same page.”

“I’ve tried everything and nothing works.”

I hear it over and over. And most of the time it’s coming from a place of genuine frustration, not laziness.

Negative self talk will kill your goals. Truth is, these aren’t moral statements. You are not a bad person because you struggle with motivation, or willpower, or an unsupportive environment, or confusion.

Time shouldn’t always dictate your workouts, but life happens. Something is almost always better than nothing. Give these ideas a try next time you need to squeeze a workout in, or you need to shorten your normal session due to other obligations.

This year has been hard. Really hard. Between the natural disasters that rocked Nashville in the spring and now the ongoing COVID19 pandemic, we’re all facing a great deal of uncertainty, instability, and uneasiness.

The mental health toll that these events have taken on us can’t be measured. I know I’ve struggled with that uncertainty. Sleepless nights, overthinking, finding it hard to relax, even physical symptoms like shakiness and that tight feeling in your chest that doesn’t seem to go away. Maybe that’s you too.

Recently I heard a recruiter was mad at one of my clients for lifting weights, thinking that the lifting would make him big and slow when he needs to be lean and fast. There’s always an exception, and if you look for an example of someone that got big and slow from lifting, you can probably find one.

That’s not the rule though.