“It’s very black and white and actually quite simple, you either value your health, or you don’t.”

With Christmas approaching in 11 days, the New Year is right around the corner. Every year, hundreds of thousands of people either resolve themselves or publicly announce their mission to get back in shape, lose weight, or go to the gym more regularly. They reinstate or purchase new memberships, invest in personal trainers, purchase new sneakers and workout clothing all under the guise of sticking to this resolution, with hopes that something will click, and this year will be different. Many will actually make a good go of it for the first month or two, but by mid March, most if not all of the New Year gym resolutioners will have fallen back into their old habits with the gym/weight loss resolution becoming only a vacant memory until next New Year’s Eve.

Those that have been in the fitness industry long enough, know there are two kinds of people, those that do and those that don’t. It’s very black and white and actually quite simple, you either value your health, or you don’t. Now for many people this statement may seem harsh, but let’s take a moment and really think about it. There is a reason why every year, many of the same people that make the New Year Resolution to get in shape, or lose weight fail, and that reason is because deep down inside, it is not a priority for them. It’s a goal, hope, plan, to look better, fit into a certain size, or feel better about how others see them, it’s anything but a priority to be healthier. Things that we make priorities in our lives, we follow through with and accomplish. People show up to work everyday on time, or close to it, no matter how much they despise their boss, position, or co-workers, and they do it because it’s a priority. If they don’t show up to work, they may lose their job; no job equals no pay, so it is a priority. Many people will rush home to catch their favorite television show and if they know they have to miss it, they will DVR it. Why? Because, it’s a priority. People will spend two to three hours in front of the television every night watching mind numbing shows that make them laugh, or leave them in suspense, because it creates a world of escape from life and if they miss “their show” feelings of frustration are evoked, so to prevent that, they DVR, because seeing their show is a priority. Millions of people start every day with one or two cups of coffee, because they don’t feel fully functional without it. They do this because having that coffee is a priority, it gets them going in the morning. I could go on and on with examples, but all the examples add up to the same thing, whatever people make a priority, they follow through with.

Priority is a commitment, it’s placing that thing in the forefront of your life and seeing it through. It becomes something you need to do. The Resolutioner doesn’t succeed because the goal for them is superficial, it’s aesthetic, and for it to become a priority, it has to be about something deeper, something that makes them want to commit. It has to be about valuing their health and wanting to truly change it. Health is something that, unless threatened with the loss of, many take for granted. Being able to get up and out of bed every morning , to walk without assistance, and not have to take any medications, to know that you are whole and that there’s nothing growing inside of you that you can’t control, many take that for granted. It’s something most people don’t think about day to day, but they should, because if they did, it would become a priority to maintain it as best they could.

Don’t get me wrong, not every gym rat is in there working out because they value their health. Many are there for vanity and in today’s society, vanity is in, but those that are there for only vanity, will eventually find something else and make that their priority. We all know the guy that reminisces about his glory days and what great shape he was in and how much he could lift; those guys that are “getting back” into the gym. When you ask many of them why they fell off, most will say, it was no longer a priority or other things got in the way. See vanity and aesthetics will only drive you for a short amount of time, we all get old and we all change, but being driven by the value of health, makes the time you spend in the gym a priority.