6 Essentials for Your Fitness Journey

So…you do this fitness thing often, or…?

🤔 Are you thinking about all of these “big picture” items? If not, you may be missing out on potential #gainz

🚫 None of this is sexy 6-pack stuff; not a “tip, trick or hack” to help you reach an unrealistic fitness goal in a very unrealistic timeframe or any nonsense like that.

✅ This is the stuff I wish I was mature enough to even begin to consider when I started my fitness journey over 15 years ago. Hopefully this helps some folks who are getting started themselves.

💁🏻‍♂️ Here ya go. The key to fitness success is PEPSIS. Sorry if you’re a coke person.

▶️ Purpose

Know what you want and why you want it. When you feel lost, remind yourself why you’re doing what you’re doing and run every decision through the filter of “how will this decision help me achieve this purpose?”

▶️ Enjoyability

We don’t have to love every minute of what we’re doing…but there’s gotta be something about the whole thing that we enjoy enough to stick with it. We’re pleasure monkeys…we do things that feel good! How can we use what nature gave us to our advantage?

▶️ Practicality

The best plan in the world is useless if it can’t be…used. Knowing precisely what and how much to eat at all 6 meals, all perfectly-spaced every 3 hours doesn’t do much for us if it doesn’t work with our lives. This doesn’t mean that we won’t have to make sacrifices…just be realistic about how much you’re trying to accomplish (and in what timeframe).

▶️ Sustainability

Fitness should work around and for our lives, not the other way around. We need long-term thinking for long-term success. That means thinking not just about crushing this workout and crawling out of the gym, but how crushing the workout and crawling out of the gym is going to affect future training sessions and life in general.

▶️ Intensity

Of course, this whole thing is a balancing act and we can’t be so focused on feeling good that we sacrifice our work ethic and the actual effort it takes to truly own your body and your health. The challenge is what forges us into the versions of ourselves that we’re trying to become.

▶️ Strategy

Figuring out all of these variables is the ongoing process that we call “the journey.” Your strategy is the art of bringing these pieces together in a way that gets you the results that you’re looking for; hopefully in ways that you enjoy enough to keep doing and maybe even share with others.

At times, your strategy will have to evolve as you do; but with each new iteration comes new skills, insights and accomplishments. Enjoy it!