Patience
Last week, I spoke to a woman who’s relatively new to the gym world. Like most of our members, she falls in the 35–55-year-old range. She’s been excited and anxious to add strength training to her routine, and she’s done an amazing job staying consistent over the past year.
However, when I spoke to her, she was really down. A combination of work stress and allergies had her not sleeping well, feeling sluggish, and just generally blah. She missed a few classes, and when she did make it, she couldn’t hit the intensities she knew she was capable of.
She’s not alone. In fact, there are three major issues I see most often with beginners trying to become long-term gym-goers.
The first is like her situation. They’re super anxious to get going, hitting the ground running at 100 miles an hour. They come to the gym almost every day, sometimes twice a day. They make great progress initially, and then… they hit a wall.
The second group finds it really hard to get started. Adding a new routine into their life isn’t easy, and they struggle with consistency. When they miss a class, they beat themselves up.
The third group struggles with the anxiety of not being able to do certain movements in front of others. The pressure to be perfect in every movement can be paralyzing. In today’s world, there’s very little appreciation for being a beginner. This anxiety often causes people to move on rather than push through the discomfort.
All of them just need Patience.
Patience is one of the most overlooked aspects of training, and it’s important in two major ways. One is more abstract (“woo woo”), and the other is just plain ol’ science.
The Woo Woo
Some of the things I hear beginners say about themselves when they miss a class, struggle with consistency, or get hampered by the inevitable small injury or sickness are horrendous:
“Ugh, I’m just no good.”
“Everyone is so much better than me.”
“I just need to suck it up and push through.”
“I’m slowing everyone down.”
And this is the stuff that’s okay to print—the reality is often way harsher. I always respond by asking, “What advice would you give a friend—or, more importantly, a child—if they were feeling this way about starting a new routine?” Inevitably, it’s a much more patient and understanding response, a much kinder response.
How we talk to ourselves translates to what our bodies will do physically. In the case of the beginner who’s out of the blocks at 100 miles an hour, they often get injured or sick. This happens because they don’t listen to their bodies and just demand more and more from themselves. Eventually, the body will always have the last say. So allowing for some patience is key. Taking a rest doesn’t mean you’re lazy, unworthy, or not doing enough. You’re doing great—just look at all you’ve done since you started.
For those who struggle with consistency, negative thoughts about missing a few sessions can become tangible proof of inadequacy. They think, “The best thing to do because I can’t be perfect is to disappear.” But they don’t stop to think about how hard it is to fit this into a life that already includes work, kids, and New York F**KING City. None of this shit is easy or meant to be easy. They have lives and people that depend on them. Adding something new into a routine will never be easy, and it takes a long time. That’s patience.
The third group, those who feel they need to be perfect, often listen too much to external voices. “Am I doing this right?” or “Oh no, I can’t believe I can’t do this; everyone must be looking at me!” These thoughts drown out the internal feedback their bodies are trying to give. They forget that improvement comes over time, not in a single session. Embracing the beauty of being a beginner and allowing yourself to make mistakes is key to growth.
The Science
Okay, enough with the psycho-babble—gimme some facts.
Here’s the fact: This. Shit. Takes. Time. It doesn’t matter how many sessions you do in a week. It matters how many you do in a decade. An Olympic athlete spends four years finessing what they have spent their entire lives doing just for one event!
Across all professional soccer, on average, players enter the youth system at 6-9 years old. Less than 2% will ever play for the senior team, less than 1% will make money (even a small amount), and .001% will play in the top leagues. A lifetime of work to still not be good enough.
As depressing as that is, there’s something comforting in the idea that everything takes time.
Training only works with the following process: stimulus, adaptation, and recovery, done repeatedly over an incredible amount of time. The stimulus must be intense enough to force adaptation. Recovery time must be sufficient enough to allow the adaptive process to occur.
Sleep is the most important aspect of recovery. Professional athletes are sleeping 8 hours minimum plus 2-hour naps.
Stress management is crucial. Professional athletes have everything taken care of for them—cooks, massage therapists, trainers, childcare, PR managers, social media managers. Everything in their life is built around training and sleeping stress-free.
Nutrition matters. Being neurotic about your nutrition and supplementation can help with recovery. If you’re a professional athlete, this is all taken care of. If you’re not, I hope you have a massive wallet and 6–10 hours a week to devote to it.
The bottom line is the adaptive process takes time, and 99.999% of the world aren’t professional athletes with unlimited resources and time to try to speed up that process by a tiny percentage. In fact, with all of the modern advancements in science over the last 100 years, the 100-meter sprint has only been sped up by .81 OF A SECOND. 100 years of innovation for less than a second. THIS SHIT TAKES TIME!
So What to Do?
Breathe. If this resonates with you and you recognize some of these traits, take a step back, breathe, and just congratulate yourself for starting. That’s a massive achievement.
Be Kind. Start developing a practice of speaking to yourself like you would to a friend. Beating yourself up will get you nowhere, regardless of your situation. If you’re the 100-miles-an-hour-out-of-the-gates type, ask yourself what the rush is and what you truly believe is sustainable. Ask yourself what it means to slow down.
Set Yourself Up for Success. If you’re having a hard time making classes, don’t try to book 4 classes in a week—just start with something that isn’t intimidating. Try one, then congratulate yourself! Tiny wins stacked over time are key.
Embrace Being a Beginner. If you’re feeling anxious about not being perfect on day one, remember that everyone is either at the same level or was at the same level at some point. There’s an absolute beauty in being a beginner. It’s impossible to be all things to all people, and finding something new to explore and evolve into is the fountain of youth—neuroplasticity. Also, look into the cycle of how we learn.
Expand Your Horizon. More than likely, your timeline of success is unrealistic. We all grew up with magazine culture—“6 WEEKS TO SUMMER READY,” accompanied by the 6-pack-having person who’s worked out obsessively their entire life and starved themselves for 6 weeks just to take that one picture. All that stuff is a complete lie. The article should say, “Here’s a program that you need to repeat every 6 weeks for 5 years to begin remotely resembling the person in the picture, and even then genetics probably means you won’t—but at least you’ll be really strong and mobile and much less likely to die.” I don’t think that article would sell too well, though.
However, that’s the mindset you should shift towards. Don’t look at what you did in a week; look at what you did in a month, then at what you accomplished in 3 months, 6 months, and a year, etc. The process will take as long as it takes. The horrible irony is that once you get to where you’re going, there’s no end! It’s not like you can just stop moving and exercising. This is a lifestyle and needs to remain one.
Ultimately
Be patient with yourself and your body—you’re doing great!