Getting started on any new fitness endeavor can be super overwhelming, amiright?

You start with the end-goal in mind and know what you want or where you want to end up.  You may also have a good idea of what you need to be doing to get there. On a very basic level that usually ends up being nailing your exercise and nutrition habits.

But even a slight miscalculation or roadblock can derail even the best of intentions. Life gets in the way, work get busy, results come slow, things just don’t always go as planned and then you’re just completely overwhelmed.

That’s when it can be easy to just throw your hands up in the air and say ‘fuck it’. It’s too much.

Sound familiar?

At First Guess Fitness we believe there is a better approach. And if you’ve ever trained with us; you’ve heard us say it. It’s also written on our walls and baked right into both our business AND training philosophy. It’s…

1% BETTER EVERY DAY

Let me tell you, it’s reeeeeealy easy to get caught up in all of the media hype and believe that you can get ‘6 pack abs in 30 days’ or you’ll have the ‘perfect’ body after doing this one super special training program. But I’ll be the first to tell you that it doesn’t exist.

Change takes time. And even if you’re doing everything right, have a growth mindset, and are in the best possible training environment results don’t come easy. Nothing valuable ever does, right?

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Looking for expert guidance and a fun place to nail your fitness goals? 

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And going HAM might seem like it will get you ‘there’ quicker but it often just leads to burnout and plateaus. And while we don’t believe it’s necessarily bad to go hard periodically, it often doesn’t work out for the long term.

I mean, even Goku only goes Super Saiyan every once in a while. So what are you to do with the rest of your time?

We recommend focusing 99% of your time just getting 1% better at nailing each aspect of training, nutrition, and living your best life.

NAIL YOUR GOALS ONE DAY AT A TIME

Whether your goal is to drop 20lbs, learn a new exercise or deadlift 2x your bodyweight, the best practice is to know what you were able to do yesterday and just focus on getting 1% better TODAY.

Better doesn’t mean harder. Better is just better.

And just focusing on getting better will help you make continuous progress and nail the shit out of your big goals by chipping away at your small ones. Here are a few examples of fitness goals and different ways you can get 1% better.

• build strength in a particular exercise – Can you lift more than yesterday? Is your technique improving? Do you recover faster?
• nail your nutrition – Are you eating more vegetables? Are you drinking more water? Are you making better choices?
• drink more water – Are you aware of your intake? Are you drinking more water?
• sleep better – Are you going to bed earlier? Are you waking up less frequently? Are you drinking less caffeine during the day?
• relationship gainz – Are you communicating better? Are you listening better? Are you caring better?

How you choose to measure that 1% is totally up to you. But note how small that number is and how doable that can be on a regular basis. You CAN keep getting 1% better each day and approaching your fitness this way WILL yield epic results in less time than you think. I promise.

And don’t forget to look back and see where you started every once in a while. You might be pleasantly surprised at how much more awesome you’ve become!

WHAT NEXT?

This simple approach will allow you to stay focused on getting better EVERYDAY and before you know it you will not only have found success but you will find that the journey has been much more rewarding!

Remember: It’s okay to go hard 1% of the time…but the other 99% of the time the focus should be on just getting 1% better.

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Looking for a place to get 1% better at all things fitness?

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Steve is co-founder and head coach of First Guess Fitness, downtown Boston’s most inclusive personal training studio. His background is in posture, performance, injury prevention and strength development and packaging fitness in a way that is accessible to everyone. He’s a soon-to-be dad (yay!), an avid reader and enjoys nerding out to science fiction.

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