There are many things I dream of achieving.

I set myself goals. I plan,.I write out lists. I blog. I share my vision with friends, family, anyone who will listen, really!

But in the end, none of this makes any difference. Because in the end, it is what I DO, not what I plan, say, dream, that really matters.

I am in the process of turning my life around, and it was not due to anything special. No tricks, no amazing revelations, no miraculous change of heart.

All it took was an action. I had to DO something. I had to take a step towards my goal. I had to start the journey.

This week, I took the step of begining conselling for my eating issue. A small step, just a begining, but now that I am on the journey, I can start to move forward from a place of self abuse to a place of self worth.

It was somewhat ironic that to get to the appointment, I had to endure a 2 1/2 hour traffic jam across the city, inching my way slowly towards the meeting, every time I passed an intersection wondering whether it would just be easier to head for home. I arrived, albeit 90 minutes late. But the important thing is that I did arrive. And I have started my journey.

Taking action can be a simple step, or it can be a monumental effort, just to take that one step. But taking action is the only way you can move towards your future.

What are you prepared to do?

There is a lot to be said for setting yourself goals. Having an idea of where you are going, and working daily towards achieving that, makes the challenges we face easier to bear.

However, I often get so caught up with ensuring that everything is perfect that I forget that getting the job done is actually the important thing.

Setting myself a goal of writing a page a day is a great motivator for me. However, it is actually much more important that I write some, and often, than that I write daily, and that everything I write have perfect grammer, spelling, formatting.

The information, the attitude, the meaning … conveying these things is what communication is all about. If I don’t get it right this time, I will learn something about how to do it better for the next time.

So what I would like to say for today is not to beat yourself up when achieving your goals does not come out quite like you planned.

Remember, Finished is always better than perfect.

I strength trained with my wonderful personal trainer, Hamstar, yesterday.

Hamstar is a most amazing fellow. He is one of the most honest, open, caring, and brave individuals I have ever met.

He has done some truly terrifying things, like leaving his home country of New Zealand to come to Australia, leaving behind family and friends, to follow a dream. He arrived in Australia with no job, no prospects, knowing no one. He describes it as “Taking a jump off a cliff”. Cliff jumping will tell you a lot about yourself. Like whether you a turkey or an eagle.

Hamstar is most definitely an eagle. The things he has accomplished since jumping that cliff are astounding and so inspiring. He has survived and blossomed in an environment where many have failed. He has become a highly regarded educator, and has developed his own First Aid Course. He has set himself HUGE goals and keeps on achieving, over and over again.

He has faltered, don’t get me wrong. There are times when he has, as he is quite prepared to admit, “F*cked Up”. He has succeeded because he has always been prepared to admit his mistakes and fix them up where he can. And this amazing, inspiring, motivating, encouraging, courageous man is my personal trainer! WOW! I am so honored!

But this post is not about how much I think of my trainer. He shared with me that he has been inspired by me! How proud he is of what I have set out to do, and all I am achieving.

Which brings me to the reason for this post. My favourite quote is from Marianne Williamson, 1993

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.
There is nothing enlightening about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.”

In the end, we are all brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous. Hamstar is, I am, and so are you.

Go and fulfill your potential!

I read a wonderful line recently: “Love is a verb”

It got me thinking about things we regard as feelings, like love, trust, commitment. These things should be an active choice we make. These things come from within, not from anything anyone else does to us or for us.

Feeling healthy is much the same. It takes action from within, and cannot be gained from anything anyone else tries to do for us.

So why am I so concerned about creating change in the fitness industry? If health and fitness is all up to the individual, what can a fitness professional do for us?

They give us tools. They have the knowledge to advise us on effective training methods. They have the experience to provide a wide range of options. Their enthusiasm gives us encouragement to give it a go. But in the end, that is the point. We have to do the work. The experts are there to tell us how best to go about the work, but in the end, it is up to us.

Each step I take, every stumble, every success and every failure is a direct result of the choices I make.

It is not about whether I feel like exercising. It is about what I choose to do.

“Using body image as a true measure of fitness is like using facial beauty as a true measure of intelligence or personality.”

Wise words indeed! And yet how many of us think like that?

My project, Changing Fitness, is all about changing attitudes, both in the community and in the fitness industry.

The perception in the community is that the fitness industry is set up to cater for fit people. The feeling in the community is that the vast majority of people in the industry have never been unfit. People I have spoken to tell of being made to feel unwelcome in an environment that appears to strive for physical perfection. There is no doubt that as a seriously overweight or obese client of any fitness centre, you stand out. However, I have spoken with “normal” sized people who feel overwhelmed at fitness centres, and don’t feel like they fit in. And yet there are professionals within the fitness industry who are longing to help people achieve their health and fitness goals. I want to challenge anyone who has felt let down by the fitness industry to keep searching for the right place for them. Communication is the key. Find the place that will listen to what you want to do, to what you need, to your goals and your challenges. Keep searching until you find the place that will help you achieve your health and fitness goals.

As for the industry, everytime I walk into a health club, the assumption is that I want to lose weight, not only because I am obese, but because I am a woman. The recommendations and suggestions made for me are, for the most part, generic, and not tailored to my individual situation. Why? Again, communication is the key. I have a Personal Trainer not to lose weight, but to get strong. My goal is not weight loss, but to compete in a powerlifting competition. My long term goal is still not weight loss, but to be fitter than I am now.

To the industry I make this observation. If you are wanting to grow your business, do you want to compete for the 3% of the Australian population who regularly use the fitness industry, or do you want to grow your business from the 97% who currently are not using the industry? At the moment, everyone in the fitness industry is competing for the same 3%.

There are so many people who have tried a gym, only to have it “fail” for them. Capture these people by creating a “Get Fitter” industry – one that is focused on improving any body’s fitness, one step at a time.

Once again, communication will be the key. Focusing on the goals and challenges of the client means you need to know that the goals and challenges are. Ask great questions, then LISTEN. Take note of everything a client tells you, and also the things they don’t! Building a relationship, getting involved, will ensure that your client has the best chance of acheiving their goals. And a happy client is a loyal one!