Succeeding in your fitness journey involves many things, but in my opinion and experience, the most important ingredient to success is motivation. It is why ‘motivation‘ is the first category listed on our homepage. Everything else flows from it.
As I often say, and have mentioned several times on this website in my articles, someone can know everything about nutrition, cardio, and weightlifting, but if they do not have the motivation to put their knowledge into practice consistently, then that knowledge is wasted and the person is doomed to fail at achieving their fitness goals.
This is not to say that motivation is the only ingredient to a winning fitness recipe. Obviously, people need to equip themselves with as much knowledge about the other components of fitness so that when they combine it with proper motivation, they are setting themselves up to succeed.
It is paramount to your fitness journey that you develop your inner personal trainer. You can still incorporate an actual personal trainer, but if you don’t boost your own fitness knowledge and become your own biggest fan who pushes you to never give up, then all a personal trainer will be is another tool in your fitness toolbox that you don’t use.
When you get home from a long day of work and don’t want to go to the gym, or to do basic workouts at home, is a different person who is a personal trainer going to be the one to motivate you to get your ass off the coach and put in the work?
When you get to the gym and you have a plan of specific exercises to do, yet the gym is busy and you have to decide if you are going to pivot to doing other exercises that provide the same benefit or just skip those exercises altogether, are you going to be able to call your trainer who isn’t there to ask them what to do?
When it is a holiday and you are surrounded by sweet treats and high-calorie, savory items, is it going to be a personal trainer who magically appears in the kitchen and tells you to not shove your face full of cake and gravy-covered ‘fill in the blanks’?
The answer to all of those questions is ‘no.’ It is up to you. You have to be the one to dig deep when it counts the most. You have to know what to do to stay on track at all times, no matter what life throws at you.
It takes constant learning, researching, and keeping yourself motivated, even when you don’t want to do it and especially when you don’t want to do it. Your fitness journey is not a short, straight path. It is a way of life full of twists, turns, ups, downs, and hurdles.
By developing your inner personal trainer, you will be better suited to overcome life’s hurdles and become the most badass version of yourself. Trust the process, value progress over perfection, and keep improving!
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Disclaimer: The contents of this article and this website are not meant to substitute for the professional advice of a doctor, nutritionist, and/or certified personal trainer. This content is provided as an educational tool to help people on their fitness journeys. While we strive to research topics as much as possible and provide useful and accurate information to the best of our abilities, we also strongly recommend talking to your doctor, nutritionist, and/or certified personal trainer before starting any workout, therapeutic, or nutritional regimen, as each individual’s needs and situations vary depending on the person.