I’m a Personal Trainer Who Hates Working Out. Here’s What I Actually Do.

I’m a certified personal trainer. I’m sober. I run a fitness program for women, and I teach four live classes a week. And I still don’t like working out.

If you’ve been hunting for a fitness program with someone who also doesn’t enjoy this, you have found one! Here’s the method I use to do it anyway.

TL;DR

You don’t have to like working out. You just have to show up. You do that by lowering the bar to embarrassingly low, building an identity that does it whether or not you feel like it, and refusing to wait for motivation, which is a feeling, and feelings ALWAYS change.

Contrary action is the entire method. Do the thing you don’t want to do, especially when you don’t want to. The body, the mood, the energy, the standards. The 3D. It all follows the action. It never leads it.

Most fitness advice was written for the wrong audience

Roughly nine percent of people genuinely love exercise. They’re the ones writing the fitness content you’ve been reading.

The advice isn’t bad. It just wasn’t written for us. If it had been, it would tell us the truth, which is this:

You don’t need to enjoy the workout. You just need to get it done.

That’s the whole job.

Motivation is a scam

The people you see at the gym at 6 AM are not motivated. They’re just doing the thing. They’ve done it so many times that not doing it feels weirder than doing it.

Motivation is a feeling. Feelings come and go. If your fitness depends on a feeling, you have a fitness practice for the first two weeks of January.

The way out is to stop waiting for motivation and start practicing contrary action.

Contrary action is doing the thing your brain is telling you not to do. Your brain says stay in bed. You get up. Your brain says skip class. You go. Your brain says quit in the middle. You finish.

You don’t need to feel like it. You just need to do it. I learned this in recovery. The thing that got me sober wasn’t wanting to be sober. I’d wanted that for years. What worked was doing the opposite of what my brain wanted, over and over, until my brain caught up. The wanting came after, not before.

Fitness works the same way. You don’t get hot by wanting to be hot. You get hot by doing it when you don’t want to. Hot is the side effect.

What I actually do

This is the method, with the boring details.

1. Lower the bar until you can’t say no

When I don’t want to work out, which is most days, I’m not negotiating with myself about whether to do a full class. I’m negotiating with whether I can do the first exercise. That’s the deal I make.

I never actually quit after the first exercise. But the deal I sign is the smallest one I can possibly sign, because the smallest deal is the only one I’ll honor on a bad day.

2. Show up bad

I don’t need to feel ready. I don’t need the right outfit. I don’t need to be in the mood. I just need to be in the room.

The version of me that shows up cranky and over it still counts. The version of me that waits to feel like it gets nothing done.

3. Build the identity, not the streak

I’m a person who works out 4-5 days per week. That isn’t because I love it. It’s because that’s who I’ve decided to be.

The difference between “I’m trying to work out” and “I’m a person who works out” is the difference between a goal and a fact. Goals get reconsidered every morning. Facts don’t.

You build the identity by acting like the identity before you feel like the identity. You do the thing first. The feeling catches up later, sometimes years later. Sometimes never. Doesn’t matter. The action is what builds the body.

4. Keep the workout small in your head

People who hate working out make the workout enormous in their head. 

I don’t think about the workout before the workout. I don’t psych myself up. I show up when I say I’m gonna show up, I do the thing, and then it’s over, and I go on with my day.

The less mental real estate the workout takes up, the easier it is to do.

5. Have a group that won’t let you quit

The single biggest predictor of whether you work out tomorrow is whether someone will notice if you don’t.

A real person, who knows you, who is doing this with you, who will text you if you ghost. That’s the difference between a program that sticks and a program that gets canceled in March.

I built one for the women in my program. I’m in one myself with my group. Accountability isn’t a vibe. It’s a structure. You either have it or you don’t.

What I don’t do

I don’t chase motivation. I don’t wait until I feel ready. I don’t promise myself I’ll start Monday.

I do contrary action. Over and over. That’s it.

The thing about the 3D

Here’s the part nobody tells you, and it’s the part that matters most.

The body changes. The mood lifts. The energy stabilizes. The standards quietly go up. Your relationships get more honest, your work gets better, the things you used to put up with start to feel intolerable.

This is the 3D following the action. You don’t get to skip the action and just have the outcome. But you also don’t have to like the action for it to work.

Miracles are happening. Not because you wanted them to. Because you showed up and did the boring thing.

You don’t have to like working out. You just have to do it anyway. Let’s go.

Frequently asked

Is it really possible to get in shape if I hate working out?

Yes. I hate working out. I’m also in the best shape I’ve ever been in at 43 years old. Those two facts are not in conflict. You don’t have to like it. You have to be consistent.

How long until I start to like it?

Maybe never. I’ve been doing this for years and I still don’t like it. The reward isn’t enjoying the workout. The reward is everything that happens because of the workout, and you get that whether you liked the workout or not.

What if I’ve tried everything and nothing has worked?

You haven’t lowered the bar low enough. Most “I’ve tried everything” situations are actually “I tried a few aggressive plans that demanded I love it, and then quit.” The plan that works is the one boring enough that you can do it on a Tuesday when you’re tired.

Do I need motivation to start?

No. You need an action small enough that motivation isn’t required. Five squats. Twelve minutes. One class. Then you do it again tomorrow.

Where do I start?

You start with one class. You can try one of mine for free.