Some Discipline Required
Some Discipline Required
Getting fit and healthy for some of us is a seriously difficult challenge.
I remember years ago friends asking me to go with them to train at the local gym. Honestly, at that time in my life, I couldn't think of anything worse to do. Yet, here I am writing this, 13 years into my own training journey and coaching others through theirs.
But my story is like many other people's. I didn't like training and exercise until I did. I had no interest in it whatsoever, so I took no action on it.
You might relate to this. Unless you really enjoy it, you're probably not going to make the effort required to actually make a long term change to your health.
This presents an obvious problem. Being fit and healthy (not necessarily triathlon fit, but fit enough to go for jogs, play a pick up game of tennis or basketball etc), is a really beneficial thing, both short and long term, both physically and mentally. It also benefits everyone else for you to be healthy, full of energy and happy.
This means then to be fit and healthy, you might have to do something you don't absolutely love.
Which brings me to the idea of discipline.
Given the opportunity, many people, including myself, would do little to nothing all day if they could maintain a reasonably comfortable life, and would eat donuts, pizza and ice cream. These things brings us immediate pleasure. It turns out the easiest and most pleasurable option is very rarely the one that helps us get fit and healthy, even in the short term. This doesn't mean that we all need to be having only kale smoothies and exercising for an hour a day everyday. Indeed, the people who can do that really do display amazing levels of discipline. But it does require us to say no on a regular basis to immediate pleasures like that ice cream. It also requires us to say yes to immediate discomforts like exercise on a regular basis.
You can follow any numbers of strategies, coaches, diets, programs or any other short or long term solution to the problem, but at the end of the day, it takes a level of self discipline to be healthy, requiring us to do things which do not provide instant gratification.
Until next time,
Marco
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