What if?

What is your fitness ideal?  Is it the guy at the gym who looks like a bodybuilder, and you imagine he has more women in his phone contacts than he can begin to remember?  Or is it that woman who has the perfect amount of muscle definition, not too much and not too little, the perfect six pack abs, and to make it even more frustrating the easy to manage hair that is never out of place and the perfect white teeth?

What if you knew that Joe Gym is so obsessive compulsive about his workouts, meals, and daily regimen that he hasn't been able to keep a girlfriend for more than two months?  And he struggles with social anxiety and the only public place he is really comfortable is the gym?  What if you knew that Jane Gym has an eating disorder and has had a number of expensive cosmetic procedures that have put her in debt?

The reality is that no matter what you see on the outside of someone, each and every person is dealing with some sort of physical and/or emotional struggle.  Some statistics released from a very large fitness and nutrition business with 35,000 clients backs that up.  They report the following:

• 48 percent of their female clients and 33 percent of their male clients take prescription medication
• Of their clients taking medication, 33 percent of women and 24 percent of men take antidepressant or anti-anxiety medication
• 36 percent of their clients have injuries and many struggle with chronic pain
• 27 percent of their female clients and 17 percent of their male clients are over 50 years old which means that even if you're healthy, aging brings its own challenges

Unless you know someone well, you often don't know what challenges they are facing.  Much of the time pain, disability, and psychological or emotional distress is invisible.  And no one is immune; not Joe and Jane Gym, not your trainers, and not our clients.  Fitness trainers face all of the same things that their clients deal with.  They have injuries or have been injured.  They have struggled with personal problems and emotional health.  They have been overweight or underweight.  They have struggled with addictions which can be anything from work, exercise, food, or any number of things it is possible to become addicted to. And just like everyone else, they are not getting any younger.  

Someone who looks fit or appears to be perfect in every way is facing many of the same challenges that you are.  Perhaps they are still dealing with difficulties but you just don't see them or know about them.  Or perhaps they are at the end of a very long and difficult journey.  

The bottom line is that there is no fitness ideal.  Those amazing fitness icons, your trainers, your neighbor, and you will always be working through life's challenges.  There is nothing wrong with admiring some things that others have achieved or having some mildly vain reasons for pursuing fitness.  But if you are chasing what someone else has achieved, or your only reasons for continuing a fitness program are for what you see on the outside you are chasing your tail.  You can't be someone else and what we see on the outside eventually cannot be maintained as we age. So what if "perfection" or success is not what you think you see in someone else, but just continuing to show up, giving your best effort based on what your challenges are, and making the most of an imperfect situation?  That is our definition of a true Warrior.