In life, we all have our struggles—those things that get in our way and keep us from attaining our goals. So what’s your struggle, food, money, wine or a need to have the latest gadget? For most, a person’s greatest struggle becomes a recurring theme that shows up and affects multiple aspects of his or her life.

If I use myself as an example, my greatest struggle is follow-though. I can always come up with a great plan, but when it’s time to execute, I often fall short. It doesn’t mean that I don’t want to do the work; I just don’t like the tedious stuff. But for me, I know that the tedious stuff is usually what helps me to be successful. I tend to want to tackle a bunch of major things, but I end up leaving out the details that make it work in the process.  In the end, I’m left with not reaching many of my goals.

When I was competing in bodybuilding the diet was what I considered to be the “tedious stuff,” and therefore it was the hardest part. In the beginning, dieting was a challenge, but I wanted to win so I did what I had to do.

As the years went on, and I competed in multiple shows a year, it became harder and harder to keep up the dieting. What I didn’t really realize was how much of this in essence, was just a normal part of life—the daily grind of having to do things that you find distasteful on a daily basis in order to get where we are trying to go.

What I also failed to realize is that the daily grind is what helps us to win in life. Winning comes from stringing together days, weeks, and months of doing all of the tedious little things that ultimately give us real success. This just isn’t what most people want to hear.

In fitness specifically, I think that the hardest things to do are 1) to have a real goal or vision of where you want to go, 2) to make a real plan to get you there, and 3) doing the work—this is your daily grind that will bring you real success. Most of us struggle with one, if not all of these things, making losing weight and improving our conditioning seem almost impossible.

It’s the consistency of the daily grind that is the killer for most of us. And I can’t talk about the daily grind or consistency without talking about lifestyle.  Making small changes over time to the way you live your life and to the way you make decisions is difficult and tedious.

Today’s fast-paced society amplifies how slowly change really happens. 

This is why having support through the process is so important. It reinforces that you’re going in the right direction and boosts you up when you’re feeling like things aren’t working. Just think even the best athletes in the world have a coach or a trainer or several of them to help them to improve where they fall short, so support from your family, friends and a trainer or a coach, can mean the difference between success and failure.

The struggle is real for all of us. None of us are special in that respect. We may feel that our problems are unique, but everybody has something.  Once we understand that, it just comes down to making better decisions in order to start having better outcomes. If we do this consistently, over time, we get the body and the lifestyle that we’ve been working for.

If you would like some help setting some real goals, need some accountability, or you just need a guide through some of this stuff that’s called life, let me know. I would be more than happy to help. Creating a new lifestyle can be very difficult, and having help can be beneficial. Feel free to email me any time at bill@successstudiopt.com.

Bill