Have you ever said to yourself “I know what I need to do, I just need to do it”?

I’m sure we all have.

And we do.

We know what to do.

It would be quite an insult to your intelligence to suggest you don’t know how to eat better and / or exercise more than you are now.

I might question the “need to” bit, but that’s a different conversation for a different day (tomorrow).

But, we know what could do.

That’s a given.

That’s the easy bit.

I know how to run faster than Usain Bolt.

In just need to maintain stride length and increase leg movement speed by about 60%.

Simple.

I also know how to out dive Tom Daley and bang in a World Cup winning goal.

Doesn’t mean I actually can or will do any of those things.

Just like knowing what to do doesn’t mean we can or will do it in any area.

So, what’s the answer?

How do we bridge the gap between “knowing what to do” and “doing it”?

Often it’s the same way as we would bridge the gap between any of the things I mentioned above.

Start somewhere between poor and mediocre and practice ourselves better.

Practice ourselves better at exercising by exercising.

Practice ourselves better at turning up for workouts by turning up for workouts.

Practice ourselves better at tracking our food by tracking our food.

Practice ourselves better at reducing portion sizes by reducing portion sizes.

Practice ourselves better at getting more sleep by getting more sleep.

Practice ourselves better at drinking less alcohol or caffeine by drinking less alcohol or caffeine.

Practice ourselves better at meditating by meditating.

Accepting that we know what to do but we’re just not as good at doing it as we might, ideally like.

But that we’ll only get better by doing it.

And, secondly, we might benefit from doing the equivalent of accepting that we might never be as good a diver as Tom Daley.

And being ok with that.

Being happy with just being a “considerably better diver”.

Not feeling we’ve failed when we can’t do three full on workouts in a week and eat like a nutritionist.

Knowing that doing two so-so workouts and eating better than we could’ve chosen to do will still have more benefit than no workouts and telling ourselves we should “write off the rest of the week”.

From my experience, “I know what I need to do, I just need to do it” rarely leads to, you know, doing it.

Let’s just do what we can and build on that over time.

Much love,

Jon ‘I am actually working on a lifetime PB in the 100m. Thankfully I was never very fast in my youth’ Hall

P.S. It actually says on our website that we help take people from “I know what I need to do, I just need to do it” to “doing it” onto “done it”. Apply now at www.myrise.co.uk/apply to find out more about that!

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RISE in Macclesfield was established in 2012 and specialise in Group Personal Training weight loss programmes for those that don’t like the gym and find diets boring and restrictive!

Jon Hall
Jon Hall

When not helping people to transform their lives and bodies, Jon can usually be found either playing with his kids or taxi-ing them around. If you'd like to find out more about what we do at RISE then enter your details in the box to the right or bottom of this page or at myrise.co.uk - this is the same way every single one of the hundreds who've described this as "one of the best decisions I've ever made" took their first step.