It’s easy to lean on external things for a ‘why’ with exercise:
I want to run around with my kids
I want to feel confident in jeans
TBH they’re a cop out for doing the work to find your true purpose. If these outcomes are your why, are you feeling panicked about not being able to go to the gym right now?
Your fitness is a driver for how you contribute to the world. It develops your humanness, your mindset for how you show up.
How you show up and contribute is how you express your talents and greatness. It starts with finding your purpose. That’s the essence of you.
How you show up in the gym is how you show up in life.
You look after yourself in the gym, move for your body’s needs and wants, do things you don’t like because they’re good for you, do things you like because that’s good for you, too.
Same as in life.
If being an honorable human is important to you, how are you doing that with your exercise?
Being strong to run around with your kids and confidence in jeans is a byproduct of something deeper.
Your body deserves to be treated the way you treat the rest of your life.
What do you stand for?
What do you stand against?
If these are important to you—are they honored in the gym, too?
Self respect: you treat your body with respect and give it just enough to adapt but recover.
Courage: you persist when something is hard, which could be either slowing down when you want to speed up or speeding up when you want to slow down.
Connection: you’re fully present with yourself and your body, you’re not preoccupied with others and your phone.
When you exercise with your purpose clear, you move with intent.
This is how you can be malleable with the current situation, too. Instead of being solely outcome
focussed (body comp, strength) come back to what’s important to you for the next step in approaching a different training environment for a while.
You can still amplify your contribution to the world in any circumstance because your why is not just confidence in jeans but instead self respect—how can you execute that with your fitness no matter where you are?
I've created The Bold Collective: outside of the gym edition to help you still have intention and purpose to your training in this unsettling time. To find a new rhythm in this time, a new normal go here to get on the waitlist for The Bold Collective: outside of the gym edition.