From January 1st through mid-March, gyms are packed. The treadmills are full, group classes are waitlisted, and motivation is high. By spring, the crowds thin out, and by summer, they’re gone. The cycle repeats every year. Most people who begin the new year energized and determined to get in shape abandon their routine within 90 days. Gyms, particularly large corporate ones, are built around this annual cycle. January brings sales, discounted training, and irresistible promotions aimed at people newly resolved to change. The industry depends on this pattern.
So why does this keep happening?
It’s not that people don’t care about their health. Ask almost anyone, and the answer is obvious: of course they want to feel better, and more capable in their bodies. The real problem is that we’ve reduced “health” to a single activity: going to the gym.
Real health has never worked that way. Health is not just physical. It is biological, social, psychological, and spiritual. When one of those aspects is neglected, the others eventually suffer. Exercise becomes another isolated task, powered briefly by motivation and willpower, rather than a sustainable expression of a well-ordered life.
We ask people to train consistently while they’re chronically stressed, emotionally disconnected, under-slept, overworked, and spiritually depleted. Then we act surprised when motivation fades. January gym culture fails not because people lack resolve, but because it offers a false promise: commit to working out and you will be healthy, you will be different. These are hollow words. In order to make healthy lifestyle changes last, we must learn to not only do them, but to think about them in a new way.
The Answer:
You don’t need to just “stop being lazy.” You need to think about health differently.
Here are five different ways to correct our thinking/pursuit of health:
• Health Is Sustainable: When you are thinking about how to begin working out, it is all too common to say “If I put in more work, then I’ll get more results.” This is not actually true. What works is what you can do for a long period of time. If you are wanting to begin going to the gym this year, commit to something that you feel you could do forever. We are looking for what is sustainable, not what is extreme.
• Build a Vision Around It: Start considering your “why.” Ask yourself, what is the purpose of trying to get into better shape? Feeling better? Sure. Looking more appealing? Sure. Less pain? Sure. However, I would suggest that the bigger the vision is attached to an action the more likely we are to continue to engage in it. Here is an example of my own personal vision for health. “ I want to be healthy, fit and capable in order to be the most valuable version of myself for my family, community and world.”
• Motivate Yourself By Encouragement, Not Shame: When attempting to start working out, it is common for folks to motivate themselves by shameful language. Or perhaps when looking in the mirror, you begin to critique yourself and that’s what pushes you to do something about it. Whether it’s words or self critiquing looks of shame, this is not an ideal way to motivate yourself. Frankly, it’s simply terrible, and will not work for a very long time. Your psyche does not need to be bashed into submission. It needs to be empowered and told that you are indeed capable; you are able to give this kind of encouragement to yourself. All it takes is work and becoming aware of how you speak to yourself.
• Keep It Fun: One of the silliest presumptions about exercise, when we initially get into it, is we think we will hate it. That might be the case at the beginning, due to our lack of ability to move well. However, something crucial to longevity is doing something you actually enjoy. If you hate running, don’t run. If you hate rock climbing, don’t rock climb. If you enjoy dancing, go dance. If you enjoy sports, go play. If you do not find any sort of exercise enjoyable at the beginning, be encouraged, you have the rest of your life to find something you enjoy.
• Start Small: One of the most distorted beliefs in the fitness space is that we have to be one of two kinds of people. We have to workout five days a week, 2 hours a session, meal prep everyday, and have this adonis of a physique. Or, we simply do not go at all. (Social media promulgates this terribly) This makes us believe that we are either fit or fat. We have what it takes or we don’t. This is flat out false.
The truth is that most of us have lives, jobs, families, a home to maintain, extracurricular obligations that demand energy from us. We cannot all be extreme fitness guru’s. Not because we can’t be fit, but because we have lives and cannot give 14-16 hours a week. Start as small as you can. Even if you think it’s pathetically small, it doesn’t matter. (Just go on a 15 min walk a day) If it is consistent, it’s worth it. It will compound over time, and before you know it you will be moving your body frequently.
Lee Ramsey has a passion for fitness as a way to help people grow and change into more adaptable, capable and resilient versions of themselves. He is owner of Sanctify Fitness in Covington.