Have you ever found yourself saying “I’m not fit enough”, “I’m too fat” or even “I can’t do that” when faced with a challenge of some kind? It may not even be a challenge or it could be how you view yourself in general terms in the journey from where you are to where you want to be.

If you have, think about it right now and ask yourself if these statements are actually accurate. You could say right here that they are but what are you comparing them to?

Last Saturday after Parkrun, I was chatting to a former PT client who had been running along with her son and her son said to me “Wow, you’re really fast!” I was surprised by this as I felt like I had just run it with lead weights in place of my legs but I realised that what I believed was far different from how others saw me. This certainly made me feel a lot better and that maybe I wasn’t as bad as I thought.

What would you say if someone told you that you looked great when you felt fat or pretty fit when you feel like you’ve just struggled through a workout? The thing is, these are just feelings and do not represent how we actually are. Most of the time, how we view ourselves comes from our mood at a particular moment in time and not reflective of our actual appearance or performance. We all have good days where we have lots of energy and can do anything and other days where getting out of bed or up a flight of stairs feels like an achievement! Cristiano Ronaldo, one of the finest footballers in the world, is currently struggling his way through the European Championships at the moment. He’s scored 2 goals but he’s missed plenty chances that our grannies could score with their eyes shut but that doesn’t make him a bad player.

The key is not to allow yourself to believe in the negative statements but to use them to motivate you to work harder to become better. If you’re not happy with a certain aspect of your appearance or your fitness then you can easily change things to become better but it’s worth remembering, what you think is a negative aspect could be someone else’s inspiration.

Before you go making big changes, maybe the only change you need is your mindset?