As we are working hard towards our goals we may be losing some steam entering the second half of our challenge. Here are three primary excuses I hear on a daily basis with members, clients, and even myself! Even though they seem like great reasons not to workout, they can be are easily countered with practical and real life reasons why they don’t hold up.

“You can have results or excuses. Not both.” – Anonymous 

1. I don’t have enough time.

This is probably the most common fitness excuse of them all. First off, when you say you don’t have enough time, what you’re really saying is “I don’t have enough time for that.”  Do you really think that if you were to add up all the time you spend watching TV and surfing the web throughout the average week you couldn’t replace any of it with a workout? A 30-minute workout takes up 2% of your day. Don’t ask yourself how much time you’re going to waste by working out a few times a week. Ask yourself how much of your life you’re going to waste being unfit and overweight.

2. I am way too tired.

Your mind, when it comes to exercising, is like a spoiled child. If you give in to its demands without a fight, it will see weakness and prey on it often. If you miss one planned session, you’re much more likely to miss the next. The biggest journey always starts with one step and the biggest failings always start with one step backwards. You need to show your mind who’s boss. You won’t always have lots of energy when you go to the gym but that doesn’t matter. The only thing that counts is showing up and giving it a shot. If you’re too tired to workout, change your sleeping habits, not your workout habits.

3. I have no motivation to workout.

If you think you need motivation to train you’re already half beat. What you really need is meta-motivation: the motivation to train even when you’re not motivated. If you rely on your feelings to decide whether to workout or not, you never will. As you know, your feelings are designed to keep you caged up in your comfort pit. Your feelings want you to be safe, not successful. That said, there is a trick you can use to get yourself motivated to workout… I call it ‘the few minutes’ principle. The basic idea is that procrastinators often put off doing certain things because the size of the task in front of them seems too overwhelming. By deciding to just go to the gym for a ‘few minutes’ you’ll often see the workout through to completion. Are you motivated enough to train for two minutes? That’s all you need.

–Meghann Feely, Assistant Fitness Manager (SFC)