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This can be a sore subject with a lot of people. You usually have two sides: the team ‘No Excuses’ side, or the ‘Aww, don’t beat yourself up, just put your feet up and relax and eat a whole box of donuts and watch the new season of [insert favourite programme here]’ side.
 
My job is to fall somewhere in the middle and understand that ‘life’ happens sometimes but if you have a goal to achieve, that you really want to achieve, you’re going to have to take RESPONSIBILITY and maybe make some changes or sacrifices to your normal routine.
 

 
Sometimes you can get clients or people who join a gym and think that just by paying the membership fee and having the membership card in their wallet they will be able to get the body of their dreams, or turn into Mr Fitness 2017. You know the guy I’m talking about – he’ll get the membership card out at a party to show you he’s a part of a gym and tell you all about the equipment there etc., but since joining has actually spent approximately 0 minutes inside the doors of said gym.
 
So I may have over exaggerated on that one, but if you want to achieve something and keep missing your spin class at the local leisure centre, or miss your planned early morning session or worse you SKIP LEG DAY (does this sound like you?), well let me hit you with something…you’re not special.
 
Sorry that may seem a bit harsh, but let me explain.
 
“I have work” Everybody works, “But I have a special job that means I get tired.” Everybody gets tired, “But my job involves this and that, and then there’s the kids and the dogs.” So you’re the only person who has kids and dogs? “Well I have to clean my car this weekend, sooo…” Ok that’s fine; you have 48 hours this weekend to slot that in somewhere…. I could go on but I think I’ll stop there.
 
The point I am trying to make is that universally someone has always ‘been there, done that’ before you, unless of course you have an arm growing out of your eye socket, I haven’t heard that one yet!
 
So you have to take responsibility for your excuses rather than finding other things, people or situations to blame, and be more prepared so that you can fit in the time to train and the time to do your food prep, etc.
 
Think of it like this: if you’re a parent and you tell your 12-year-old daughter to go and tidy her room but she starts whipping out all the excuses under the sun as to why she can’t tidy her room, would you just let her off and leave her room looking like its been ransacked by a team of amateur burglars? If you’re a business owner and you’ve got a member of staff who’s not pulling their weight, you approach them about the problems and provide them with solutions. You give them a bit of time to improve and nothing happens, and when you approach them they have a notebook full of excuses – what do you do? Go, oh ok that’s fine carry on being rubbish? Nope!
 
As a Coach what we struggle with is the fact that the clients think that we (as Coaches) are immune to excuses. Let me tell you now, no one is immune to excuses! Everyone has that voice in their head telling them, “No you’re too tired”, or, “Sleeping in an extra hour is a much better option”, etc. We all have excuses, it’s just how you deal with these, so prepare to know that they will happen and still get done what you need to.
 
I’m not telling you to do something I haven’t already done myself – I know how you feel!
 
So when you are calling off a session, or making an excuse for not going for a run, know that we understand your excuses but we also understand that you will feel better if you actually work around them.
 
If you make an excuse for something and miss a session once, you are almost certainly going to do it again. It’s like a negative loop of never-ending negativity! You make an excuse and skip a session; you feel guilty about skipping the session, which makes you feel like crap because no one likes feeling guilty; you might comfort eat, which will make you feel worse. The next day when you’re supposed to be going to the gym, because you feel like crap you ring in and cancel because you feel like crap…. I could carry on but you might get bored (if you’re not bored already), but basically when you’re thinking about cancelling, think about the negative loop.
 
To sum up:
 

  • Take responsibility for your own excuses and don’t blame anyone or anything else.
  • You’re not special; universally someone has always ‘been there, done that’ before you.
  • I’m not telling you to do something I haven’t already done myself; I know how you feel.
  • When you’re thinking about cancelling a session or taking it easy, think about the negative loop, and know that you will always feel better after training!

 
Yours in strength,
 
CCPT
 

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