Over the next couple weeks, I will be exploring a series I have done a few times in the past as this gym has grown from a blog, to a side hustle, to a gym in the backyard, to our last location, and finally… to our little gym in Northport today: the Five P’s of your fitness journey.
What are the Five P’s?
Well, over the course of training and providing consultations for over 500 people (I’ve done the math, it’s actually way more), I’ve found that, just like with anything in life worth doing, it’s easy to set a goal… and then get overwhelmed by what it takes to get there.
Now, all of these could apply to any given goal: working out, crafting, car repair, family matters, etc.
But I have found them to be true for every person I’ve ever trained… including myself.
The Five P’s are:
Purpose
Plan
Progress
Persistence
Perspective
I want to take the time to go over each one, maybe with some filler in between posts/videos/episodes. So for now, I’ll keep it simple and start with Purpose.
Purpose is both the goal and the reason behind the goal.
I use a lot of car analogies in my training, despite not being a big “car guy.”
That has less to do with a passion for automobiles as it has everything to do with the fact that I traveled a LOT growing up. We traveled for fun, we moved, and since being an adult… that hasn’t really slowed down until I opened up this gym.
A lot of time on the road, to be cheesy for just a moment, really gives you the time to reflect on life as you stare out the window and watch the scenery and the people passing by.
Your purpose… is both your destination - where you’re going… and the reason behind the trip - why you’re going there.
Stop for a moment and ask yourself, whether you’re already on your fitness journey, or are about to start, or are thinking about starting:
Where do I want to be? And WHY do I want to be there?
I have asked a LOT of people this question (and one more question we will get to shortly), and I even threw it out to several of my fitness communities today. The answers were as varied as the number of fitness routines, gyms, and exercises out there.
I want to workout to be able to go down the slide with my kids without getting winded.
I want to be able to climb a flight of stairs without feeling exhausted.
I do it to feel good.
I do it to get strong.
Inevitably, and this is both a result of my naturally inquisitive coaching style and my time in military intelligence in the Army, I ask again:
“But WHY is that important to you?”
It’s an obvious textbook approach people see coming from a mile away, but there was never an attempt at subterfuge here. It’s an attempt to get people to slow down and really dig in instead of answering off the cuff.
From experience with myself and others, I find that the goals that get dropped the most often are the ones we go into with half baked reasons. Note that I didn’t say any reason was invalid, or that you can’t have a silly reason for wanting to get in shape. Many people I know workout to look good in cosplay. That might seem silly to other people, but it’s as valid as any other. If it gets you in the gym, it’s valid.
What’s important is that you know for sure WHY, and why THAT particular reason is enough to get you going, and either keep going, or sustain you until it either becomes a lifestyle… or another motivator takes over.
As my dad is fond of saying: “I don’t care as much about what you believe… as I do about why you believe it… and that you know why you believe it.”
Yeah, Coach Summers Sr. might be responsible for the amount of space this topic takes up, rent free, inside my head.
Getting back to that: most people find that if they dig a little deeper, silly or not, there is a reason more important to them than the initial reason. Now, with the goals of moving with your kids and family… that’s pretty damned important.
But reasons like looking good, and feeling good, while still very important, often open up into motivators of building confidence, helping define one’s own self worth, recovering from an abusive or toxic time in their life, wanting to set the bar high now so that when they’re older they remain healthier, etc.
They don’t all run that deep. Most do though. Even the silly ones, whether they realized it when they answered or not.
But even if it’s as simple as “I want to look good, get strong, move better, and take care of myself”, if that’s what’s important, that’s the motivator.
The question after that, then, is why NOW?
There are a couple key important reasons for asking this.
First, it identifies how important this is to someone. You don’t have to have been dwelling on this Batman style for decades, ready to avenge your muscles. You could have been thinking on it for a week, or a month. But if this has been something you have been wanting to do for years… and it’s stuck with you, and it’s maybe even *bothering* you that you haven’t started… you clearly want this. But as with all big goals, it’s easy to stand at the foot of the mountain and look up, daunted by the climb in front of you.
Second, it allows you to evaluate whether you truly are ready: are all the perceived obstacles that have stopped you before now cleared? Or are you just so ready to start that you are ready to jump those hurdles and push on?
Third, and finally, and this is more important to me as a coach, but definitely intimately important to YOU as the person who’s body is about to transform… if you haven’t started before, is it because of very real limitations and/or injuries we need to be aware of?
Now we have the WHAT, the WHY, the WHY NOW… and I was going to cover the second WHAT - the goal that will accomplish your purpose - but I will save that for our next entry.
So if you haven’t asked yourself these questions while reading, listening, or watching… I will leave you with this again:
What is your purpose in working on your fitness? Why is that your purpose? And why now?
Until next time!
This has been Coach Cap, helping put the Fit… in MisFit.
--Coach Cap
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