Have you ever been in the middle of a workout, muscles on fire and lungs burning, and thought to yourself, “I’m really enjoying this right now!”? I haven’t either. The truth is, most people don’t enjoy a lot of things that are typically associated with working out. It is hard to find someone that loves the feeling of muscular exhaustion, the pain of sitting on the toilet the day after a heavy leg day, or struggling to breathe during a sprint workout. At face value, none of these things are enjoyable. That’s what makes exercise such a hard sell. Most people have tried to start a new exercise routine at some point in time and have encountered one or more of these things. How do you convince someone to start exercising again when their deepest ingrained memories of exercise are pain and failure to achieve their goals?
In truth, it’s one of the hardest and most rewarding parts of my job. How do you glamorize sweat, soreness, and push-ups over sweatpants, a couch, and a drink? Honestly, you can’t. I’d love to have someone come and tell me with a straight face that they’d rather do a burpee instead of eating a piece of pizza. I’d have questions for them. The top question on my list would be the most obvious one: why? The answer they give to that question is the reason I do my job and the most important part of any exercise routine. I could ask that question to 10 different people and receive 10 different answers, but they would all have one thing in common. They would be telling me what makes the actual exercise part of working out worth it for them.
Think about why you exercise. Do you love the music in class? Do you look forward to seeing your friends, new and old, a few times a week? Do you simply want to make sure you can keep up with your kids? Those reasons going through your mind right now are exactly what I try to get to as an instructor. I know you don’t like lunges. I know bear crawls may be your least favorite thing in the entire world. I’m not trying to sell you on those. My job, and one that I truly love, is making sure the entire process of “getting in better shape” is worth the temporary struggle.
I love seeing you at AddeoFit. I am really, honestly happy when I see you walk through our doors. The reasons for that are numerous. First, I like you. You make me smile and I enjoy talking to you, however briefly that may be. Second, I’m proud of you. Out of everything you could be doing at that moment and despite the long list of things you need to get done, you chose to take time for yourself. Getting yourself through those doors is the hard part, and I can appreciate that. Thirdly, you’re giving me the chance to fulfill my purpose. I am made to help people become the best version of themselves they can be. Without you, there can be no me. I mean that with every fiber of my being, so thank you.
