It Doesn't Get Easier

A common question from new clients is “When does this get easier?” My answer to that question is “It doesn’t.” Nothing worth doing is easy. People are willing to struggle through advanced degrees, relationships, and career stress, but a little bit of physical discomfort has them looking for the light at the end of the tunnel. The light doesn’t exist, so you better get comfortable in the tunnel. 

There is no pill you can take to increase motivation and waiting for motivation to train is a one-way ticket to mediocre results and a lifetime of inconsistency. Challenging your physical and mental limits is uncomfortable, and it never gets easier because as our capacity increases, we increase the stress of training. This entire process becomes worth it once we see how much we have grown. We trade easy training sessions for a more capable/resilient body, we warm up with old maxes, and we enjoy unrestricted participation in activities that used to cause pain. In order to get there though we have to learn to recognize the value of doing hard things. You can seek comfort, or you can change your life, but rarely will staying comfortable change your life.

Traits that will improve your outcomes in the gym include discipline, high levels of effort, and the ability to delay gratification. These traits fall right in line with a growth mindset. A growth mindset is one that embraces challenges, persists in the face of setbacks, and views effort as the path to mastery. Qualities that are taught to us early on in life commonly fall by the wayside when it comes to our own training and health, and that’s unacceptable. I’d venture a guess that if more people understood that training isn’t supposed to be easy or fun and instead adopted a growth mindset towards exercise, we would see more than just 18% of Americans meeting the weekly recommendations for physical activity.