Exercise habits are easy to fall out of, and getting back into them can feel disproportionately hard. But here’s the good news: whenever you start again, you gain more knowledge and experience to apply the next time.

Habit formation, like regular exercise, can feel like a complicated math problem because it is! It’s so complex and nuanced that behavior change is a full field of study dedicated to understanding how humans adopt and sustain actions that support their physical, emotional, and mental health.

So, if you’ve ever struggled to start exercising or to restart after time off, welcome to the club. I have a BA in psychology, an MS in Kinesiology, five nationally accredited fitness certifications, and 20 years of professional fitness experience, and I have also fallen out of the habit at different times. No one is immune to it.

What to know about behavior change

If you’re currently out of the habit of exercising and want to get back into it, it’s important to understand some basic components of behavior change.

Habit change is hard

It’s hard to make a change! Not just for you, but for everyone! It takes real, intentional, strategic effort, and simply wanting to change isn’t a strategy.

Habits fall out for many reasons

Whether due to injury, illness, travel, a busy season of life, or simple boredom with your current routine, all reasons are real and valid, and the judgment or shame we place on ourselves for it is not beneficial or useful.

You don’t need to be more disciplined

I wrote a full issue on why discipline fails as a behavior change strategy. Give it a read.

Stopping and starting is part of the process

An annoying but true fact about behavior change: Stopping and starting are part of the experience and a valuable part of learning about yourself. Paying attention to the details of why you start or stop is how you learn what works for you.

Consistency doesn’t mean perfection

When thinking about exercise habits, we usually think of following the same exercise program every week without fail. Not only is that unrealistic, but it’s also not an accurate representation of exercise consistency. Instead of aiming for perfect attendance, think big-picture: over a three-month period, did you mostly participate in your planned activities?

You might not be ready yet

Change requires you to be ready to implement, and while you might feel like you’d like to change or want to change, that’s different from being truly ready to make a change. Not being ready yet is literally part of the behavior change process, according to the research. So, if you’re not quite there yet, it’s okay. Keep reassessing. Exercise will be here when you are ready.

Sustainable change is a process that requires intentional effort. It also requires less judgment about where you are and more curiosity about what you need next.

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Where to start

Investigate

This is where most people skip ahead: they think, “I need to change something,” and immediately jump into planning or action. But without understanding the full picture, those plans often don’t stick. Before planning, investigate what’s worked, what hasn’t, what you need, what you want, what’s meaningful to you, and how you feel about it all. Instead of going straight to planning, start with curiosity.

Here are a few questions to answer for yourself to begin the investigation. And a tip: do not answer any of them with shoulds, only what really feels true for you.

• What do I need to help me feel more physically well?

• Why does exercise feel important to me right now?

• What contributed to getting out of a previous habit?

• What have I liked about my previous experience with exercise?

• What have I not liked about my previous experience with exercise?

• Where in my schedule could I add time for exercise?

• What types of new-to-me exercises might I like to try (if any)?

• Am I ready to implement a change right now?

Plan

Once you understand yourself better, you can start creating a preliminary plan. Here are a few tips to keep in mind as you plan your exercise habit.

Choose experiences that help you feel closer to yourself

The best way to make an exercise habit stick is to identify how the experience helps you feel more connected to yourself. What does it mean to feel closer to yourself? That’s for you to determine. If you’re thinking, “That’s a tough question to answer,” you’re right. It takes real effort, but the answer is where you’ll find a more consistent, long-term habit.

Make a realistic plan

Days, times, locations, exercise modes, duration, intensities, etc., all based on what is realistic for your life. You can even plan what you’ll wear to exercise or which podcast you’ll listen to. Plan as much as you can based on the information gathered during your investigation phase. The more information you include in the plan, the more data you have to reassess later.

Start small

Like, really small. Even just one bout of exercise a week, for 10 minute, is meaningful to the change process. A common problem with change is that most people practice all-or-nothing thinking: going from no activity to a five-day-a-week exercise program. Research has made it pretty clear that all-or-nothing almost never works for long-term change.

Ensure your plan is meaningful

You’re more likely to engage in activities that are personally meaningful to you than in activities you think you should do, so choose experiences that align with you or your schedule. If you’re trying to make it work, it’s almost certain it won’t.

Make it something you look forward to

You’re more likely to be successful if you plan experiences you can look forward to, for one reason or another. Maybe it’s seeing friends at a dance class, the view from a hike, the competition you feel in a sport, or the quiet, alone time you get on a walk. Whatever it is, plan something you look forward to.

Practice

Practice your plan for two weeks, then review. How it felt, what works, and what doesn’t. During the review phase, hold off on judgment or shame. This is simply data.

Whether the plan works or not is not a referendum on whether you are good or bad, strong or weak, or disciplined or lazy. It’s just a matter of having the right information for what you or your schedule needs right now.

Here are a few questions you can use to review your experience:

• What about the schedule worked or didn’t work with my everyday life?

• Did the experiences I chose feel meaningful to me?

• What changes might I need to make to the schedule or activities to make participation easier?

• What resources do I need to help me be successful (Personal Trainer, running community, childcare, etc.)

With these answers, you can adjust your plan, then practice for two more weeks before reviewing.

Need more support restarting an exercise habit? My self-paced course, Your Fitness Foundation, does just that! If exercise has felt confusing, inconsistent, or hard to stick with, this course explains why and how to do things differently.

The phrase most frequently used by gyms in their marketing materials:

“Our workouts get results.”

While meant to convey their value or distinction from others, it ultimately fails to communicate anything at all.

“Our members get results.”

Standard copy. Meaningless. It says nothing.

The word results in this context couldn’t be more generic. It does not differentiate gyms from other fitness experiences in your community. It does not effectively incentivize habit formation for new exercisers.

Results, as a marketing phrase, imply that a specific type of exercise is superior to others and that participating here will achieve what no other gym can. An untruth, and if you want to know my honest opinion (that’s what I’m here to do after all), it’s lazy marketing.

Have you ever felt inspired or motivated by a gym that tells you they “get results”?

Frankly, exercise works, regardless of where you do it. The research is clear: You will experience many benefits from regular exercise.

In fact, the promise of results has nothing to do with the gym. It has everything to do with you, the participant.

How much you participate in exercise is directly related to the benefits you might experience. Especially if you’re still working to solidify your exercise habit, your participation in regular exercise is much more important than what you do, where you do it, or how intensely you do it.

So, if a gym actually wanted to ensure you experienced a benefit from participating in the exercise they offered, they would pay more attention to the behavior change elements that make it hard for people to do so.

To be clear: there is nuance in exercise programming. Not all exercise is the same, not all movement is appropriate for every person, and not every gym delivers evidence-based coaching. But that’s not what this phrase is communicating.

When results is positioned as the goal, it can narrow your expectations of what exercise is supposed to feel like and create self-doubt if you don’t immediately connect with it. That disconnect is often what makes building a consistent exercise habit even more difficult. Understanding this can make the path to regular participation feel less confusing and a lot less turbulent.

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What are results?

Results, in a broad sense, are intended to describe what you will gain from regular exercise.

Results are rarely used to describe improvements in mental health, increased confidence, new skill development, or a greater sense of well-being. Instead, the word has become shorthand for one thing: visible, measurable changes in your body, including changes in physique, weight loss, and muscle gain.

The problem isn’t that these benefits are inaccurate; it’s that fitness culture has planted its flag almost exclusively in aesthetic and performance outcomes. So much so that when a gym promises results, most people hear a single message: your body will look different.

That is a very narrow definition.

The concept of results is actually a wide spectrum, and reducing its benefits to body transformations alone is limiting and inaccurate. Results can be many different things, many of which are not even quantifiable.

Here are just a few benefits, aka results, you might get from exercise:

• Fun

• Community connection

• Learning new skills

• Making new friends

• Increase in your quality of sleep

• Decrease in anxiety

• Decrease in depression

• Support managing ADHD

• Increase in mood

• Increase in heart health

• Increase in confidence in your physical capabilities

• Increase in bone density

• Increase in metabolic function

• Living longer

And on…

You can exercise to experience any of the above. You can exercise simply because you enjoy it, with no other goals in mind. You can exercise to change your physique. You can exercise for any reason that’s important to you.

But results, whatever that means to you, are not determined or provided by the gym.

A gym provides a space and a service.

You define the meaning, the benefit, and the outcome.

What to look for instead of results marketing

Instead of seeking gyms that tout results as one of their main benefits, look for this instead:

Gyms that market themselves as providing effective, evidence-based, safe movement.

Gyms that market the endless benefits of movement and community connection that exercise brings.

Gyms that demonstrate they value individuality and the uniqueness of each person they serve.

Practical tip: If you’re really trying to avoid gyms that use traditional results language, look for a gym that doesn’t offer any body composition testing. This is usually a good indicator that they focus on the vast benefits of movement, rather than on traditional body composition changes only.

Exercise provides so much more than the typical results. Gyms that only market intensity or results as their unique benefit, well, are not unique.

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Fitness culture celebrates discipline, and it’s often touted as the solution to reaching your goals.

Discipline, as a tactic, relies on willpower and obligation. It’s a binary model. I do it, or I don’t. It leaves no room for nuance, personal needs, identity, or meaning. And those elements are required for successful behavior change, says every behavior change theory.

The loudest proponents of this strategy are those who believe discipline has helped them cement an important habit. They feel movement is connected to their identity and values. Doing it or not doing it affects how much they feel like themselves. So, when they choose to move, even on a day they don’t feel like it, they call it discipline and tell you to have more of it.

But here’s the thing: that’s not discipline. It’s intrinsic motivation.

You don’t need more discipline. You need a clearer understanding of what actually drives lasting behavior change and what makes movement meaningful to you.

The discipline dilemma

If you’ve ever tried to change your fitness habits, you’ve encountered discipline as the prescribed strategy. A quick search on Instagram yields an endless stream of inspirational quotes:

“Discipline is choosing your future over your feelings.”

“Discipline is the bridge between where you are and where you want to be.”

Punchy. Shareable. And ineffective.

Discipline, by definition, is about compliance, following rules to avoid consequences.

There’s no consideration of how you feel, what you need, or what actually matters to you. Discipline, by design, doesn’t ask those questions. Its entire function is to require you to act regardless of the answers.

Fitness culture’s version of discipline distills down to a few similar directives:

Do it because you should.
Do it because you said you would.
Do it because others say you should.

Does this model work? Not often and not for long.

Here’s an experience you might find relatable. You decide you’re ready to make a change and commit to discipline as your strategy. The first two weeks go well, then you have a week when you didn’t sleep well, work is busy, and it feels impossible to attend that 6 am yoga class you told yourself you would. “I’m supposed to. I said I would. I should.” And when you’re too exhausted to pull yourself from bed, shame floods in. “I’m just not disciplined enough, that’s why this never works for me.”

The thing about shame is that it is not an effective strategy for behavior change. Research on motivation is consistent: shame doesn’t build habits, it deteriorates them.

Discipline, as a behavior change strategy, fails because it ignores three things behavior change depends on: your needs, your environment, and your sense of meaning. Personal meaning is one of the most powerful drivers of sustained behavior change.

Those who advocate most loudly for discipline as a strategy likely misunderstand the concept. They experience exercise, or eating well, or waking up early, as something that feels personally meaningful and rewarding, and they’ve mistaken that for discipline, when it’s actually intrinsic motivation.

Understanding Motivation

Motivation is a well-researched area of behavioral science with many theories and components. While this issue won’t be an overview of each principle of motivation, I’ll share a key point to help you better understand motivation and what is needed when attempting change.

Motivation, as a concept, is often misunderstood and simplified to mean “energy.” People regularly say, “I don’t feel motivated to do that right now,” when they mean, “I don’t have the energy to do that right now.” Energy fluctuates hour by hour. Motivation does not. It’s a macro concept. While your energy stores strongly affect your ability to take action, not taking action due to fatigue isn’t a lack of motivation; it’s a lack of energy. Those are different problems with different solutions.

Motivation is the why behind our actions. The reason someone chooses to engage in a behavior, like exercise, and it operates on a spectrum.

Extrinsic <—> Intrinsic

Extrinsic Motivation: Doing something because you think you should or others want you to, or you’ll gain external rewards, or avoid a negative consequence.

Intrinsic Motivation: Pursuing an activity because it is inherently interesting or enjoyable. Brings you happiness, interest, and personal satisfaction.

I like to think about it this way:

I Should (extrinsic) <—> I Am (intrinsic)

Shoulds are things that feel nice to have but are not a need-to-have. We do the shoulds only when we have lots of energy, and it feels easy, or when others require us to.

I am is your identity. The things that make you feel most like yourself.

Motivation becomes more sustainable the more it shifts toward the intrinsic side of that spectrum. According to Self-Determination Theory (Ryan & Deci, 2000), intrinsically motivated behaviors are far more likely to persist over time.

If you want long-term success with your health habits, spend time getting to know yourself: what you value, what kinds of movement resonate with you, and what feels meaningful.

Really meaningful. Not “it would be great if…”

I mean “Without this feeling or this experience or this habit, I don’t feel like me.”

Because here’s what really gets you out of bed at 6 am on a cold, dark Friday after a long week: doing something that helps you feel more like yourself.

Identifying your motivation

Getting to intrinsic motivation isn’t a quick fix. It’s an ongoing process of self-knowledge. If you have struggled to find lasting motivation for exercise habits, these tips are a good place to start.

Get to know yourself and find meaning

Meaning is a fuel source you can tap into when you don’t have much energy to rely on. Invest time in knowing yourself: your wants, needs, values, and identity. What matters to you and why? What helps you feel more like yourself?

Find the environments, activities, people, and systems that align with you.

Enjoy the process

Fitness culture sometimes suggests that you may hate the exercise, but you’ll love the results. Intrinsic motivation comes from also enjoying, at least in part, the process, not just the outcome. So, when investigating your feelings and personal meaning, be sure to include the process.

Practice autonomy

Moving along the spectrum from extrinsic to intrinsic motivation requires you to make choices that are right for you. You get to decide which movements you do, which environments work for you, which intensity feels right, and which activities connect with your sense of self.

The through line in all of this is that self-knowledge, not discipline or willpower, is vital to your long-term success with exercise.

If this resonated, the work of getting to know yourself, understanding what actually motivates you, and building systems that connect to your identity rather than your willpower, my course, Your Fitness Foundation, was designed to guide you through the process at your own pace.

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Traditional fitness culture celebrates intensity: the imprint of a sweat angel left on the floor after a brutal class. The jokes with friends about how sore you are, you can’t even walk down the stairs. The badge of honor that comes from being completely wrecked by a workout. The instructor preemptively apologizing for how much pain you’ll be in by the end of class. You “made it count,” you “earned it!” as they say.

The language meant to motivate is often really about suffering. Do more. Push harder. If it doesn’t hurt, you didn’t work hard enough. It sets an expectation that high intensity isn’t just one way to exercise, it’s the only way that really counts.

Spoiler alert: this concept isn’t true. But that doesn’t stop the public from believing it or many fitness professionals from perpetuating it.

For anyone who struggles to make exercise a habit or who doesn’t feel completely at home in a fitness environment, high-intensity workouts are a barrier to long-term participation in exercise.

The intersection of intensity and habit

The first thing to understand about habit formation is that how you think and feel about a specific behavior directly affects whether you engage in it. So how you think and feel about exercise determines whether you do it.

If you’re new to exercise, returning after a long time off, or have never been connected to it, the only way to make it something you actually do is to explore the full spectrum of your attitude toward it, then create systems that make you want to come back to it.

In my experience, exercise intensity, or the level of effort given in a workout, is one of the factors most misused, and it consistently gets in the way of developing a regular habit.

Here’s an example:

You’re working to make exercise a regular part of your week. You show up to a strength and conditioning class and push yourself hard for the full 60 minutes. It’s exhausting. There are moments when you’re not sure you can keep going, but you do. You push through. You leave drained but proud of yourself for finishing.

Two days later, you’re scheduled to go again. You’re still a little sore, tired from your workweek, and you remember how much effort it took to get through that last class. You ask yourself, “Do I have it in me today?”

The answer, most often, is probably no. So you push it out until next week, when you’re sure you’ll have the energy. And a new habit is created—one that puts enormous pressure on each individual workout and steadily increases the number of days between workouts.

This is where intensity becomes a habit problem.

Now consider a different version of that same class. Instead of pushing to your limit for 60 minutes, you work at 50% effort. You modify when you need to. You leave feeling pleasantly tired, like you did something, rather than depleted. You finish feeling capable, not wrecked.

Two days later, when it’s time to go again, you have a different answer to the question of “Do I have it in me?” “Yeah, I think I can do that.”

Shifting your mindset from dreading having to get through a hard workout to knowing you only have to give the energy you have that day. Habits form when you leave feeling capable of returning, not from the hardest workout you’ve ever done, but from the one you keep showing up for.

What the science says

Now, of course, there is clear evidence demonstrating the benefits of reaching high intensities during a workout.

The Principle of Overload states that for your body to adapt, grow, or improve, you must subject it to a stress or workload greater than it is accustomed to. Although this tool for progression is personal to each body and each day, applying it as a blanket expectation for every session, for every person, at every stage of their fitness journey, is a misuse of the principle and a barrier for those still seeking consistency in exercise.

Intensity, as a training variable, isn’t the issue. It’s the belief that everyone’s workout needs to be performed at maximum effort. An example of all-or-nothing, perfectionist thinking.

And here’s a fun fact: Numerous studies demonstrate that muscle soreness isn’t required for physical adaptations to occur. So you don’t need to be in pain the next day for that exercise to have “counted” or for your muscles to develop strength. This knowledge can change how you interact with exercise.

Behavior change research is clear on this: the accumulation of consistent, sustainable movement over time builds fitness, supports health, and creates lasting habits. Not a single high-intensity bout once a week. Consistency over intensity.

How to practice a sustainable relationship with intensity

Monitor and plan your intensity

An easy way to monitor your effort is to use the Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE), which asks you to rate your effort on a scale from 1-10 based on how you feel in the moment. With 1 being low effort, like lying on the couch, and 10 giving maximum effort, you can’t sustain it, you can’t speak, and you need significant recovery afterward. I like to think of RPE as the percentage of effort you give out of 100%.

If you’re working on building consistency in your movement, try completing all movement around 50-60% effort, or 5-6 on the 1-10 scale. This is still a beneficial amount of exercise, and it keeps you coming back.

Before you exercise, take a moment to check in with yourself. I call it a moment of presence. Take time to check in with your mind and body to determine what you really need that day. Is it a “just move” day, a “let’s see what feels good” day, or an “I’m super excited to work hard” day?

During movement, notice whether the effort level still makes sense for how you actually feel. Afterward, ask yourself whether you honored what your body needed or pushed past it. Over the next day or two, check in: How does your body feel? Did you push too hard? Has it affected your habit of returning to exercise? All this information is useful for your future workouts.

Don’t take on the pressure from others to do more

Exercising your autonomy is one of the main ways to progress in habit formation. Do not disregard your autonomy to meet others’ expectations.

Fitness spaces are full of other people’s energy, goals, and relationships with effort. The person next to you in class who is pushing harder than you are is (hopefully) doing what works best for them, not setting the standard you’re required to meet. The intensity you work at does not determine your strength, your goodness, or your worthiness.

Your autonomy in fitness spaces includes the freedom to work at the intensity that’s right for you. Not the intensity the room expects. Not the intensity the culture endorses. Yours.

Practice doing less

This one might sound counterintuitive to achieving health through fitness, but I assure you, it’s a valuable part of the process. Deliberately choose a lower intensity: a shorter session, an easier effort level, and/or a gentler version of the movement. The more often you do that, the more effectively it builds your habit of doing it.

If this resonated with you, my self-paced course, Your Fitness Foundation, is designed to help you understand what sustainable movement looks like in your real life and how to build a long-lasting system.

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Perfect form. Perfect attendance. Perfect body.

If you’ve spent any time in fitness spaces, you’ve absorbed these standards, whether you meant to or not. They show up in how classes are taught, how gyms are marketed, and how fitness culture talks about effort and results (I really hate this concept, but that’s a topic for a different day). The implicit message running through many exercise environments is perfectionism.

I believe everyone is affected by perfectionism, but it’s especially hard on those who are new or returning to exercise, or who don’t feel comfortable in these spaces.

So, what happens when the form isn’t perfect, attendance isn’t consistent, my plan isn’t perfectly mapped, or my body doesn’t look the way images suggest it should? Most people arrive at the same conclusion: if I can’t do it right (aka perfectly), I shouldn’t do it at all.

It’s not a personal failing, it’s a predictable response to a culture that demands perfection and leaves no room for anything else. In psychology, this is called all-or-nothing thinking, and spoiler alert: it never supports long-term participation in physical activity.

Perfectionism in fitness is like seeing a couple who says they never argue. Sounds good, but girl, that’s not gonna work long-term!

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The problem with all-or-nothing thinking

There’s a cognitive pattern that shows up constantly in people’s relationship with exercise called all-or-nothing thinking: the idea that something is only worth doing if it’s done completely and correctly. You’ve probably experienced it.

♦️ I can only workout for 15 minutes, not worth it.

♦️ I didn’t push myself enough, the workout was too easy. What a waste.

♦️ I can’t do that exercise with perfect form, so I’ll do something else instead.

♦️ I’m off my fitness plan now, I’ll start again when I have the time.

All-or-nothing thinking is genuinely harmful to exercise habits because it narrows the definition of success so tightly that most real-life participation falls outside it.

It completely gets in the way of your movement. Health, fitness, and well-being, in every definition, are not achieved with a single meal, workout, or night’s sleep. It’s the collective actions over months and years that determine them.

When we limit ourselves to only completing exercise when we can finish the 45-minute planned run, or only show up to class when we have the energy to do all the movements at full intensity, or decide “I’ll start tomorrow” instead of going for a 7-minute walk today, we delay our health. We complete the cycle of “I do it all” or “I do nothing.”

In my two decades working in the fitness industry, it’s the number one pattern I see among people trying to make exercise habits stick.

What imperfect participation is

Imperfect participation is exactly what it sounds like: showing up and moving your body in whatever way is available to you on that particular day, without requiring it to meet a standard of completeness, correctness, or intensity.

It’s the twenty-minute workout when you planned for sixty. The modified version of the movement because your knee is bothering you. The walk instead of the run. The class you stayed for three-quarters of before leaving. The week when you moved once instead of five times. The movement you’re not exactly sure how to do, but you’re practicing.

None of those are a failure. That IS movement! That is success! And participation that is imperfect, inconsistent, real-life participation, is how a long-term relationship with movement is created.

What this looks like in practice

Reframing your perspective on perfection isn’t easy. Shifting a deeply internalized belief is personal work, and it’s made harder by how loudly fitness culture reinforces that belief everywhere you look: Social media, the way gym staff in your neighborhood talk about results, the people exercising around you. The standards of perfect participation run deep, and they’re reinforced constantly. Here are a few ways to start loosening them:

Give yourself the room to practice

Learning new movements follows a cognitive progression. In the first stage of learning, we’re thinking a lot about how to move, what to move, and whether the movement is correct. With repetition, that thinking fades and confidence builds. Eventually, the movement becomes familiar enough that you’re not thinking about it at all. You’re just doing it, and you’re actually able to enjoy it. That progression requires practice, which means experiences where you feel a little awkward and not quite right are unavoidable and part of the process. Give yourself the mental space to practice imperfectly.

The only caveat to your imperfect movement is safety:

• Are you at risk of acutely hurting yourself?

• Are you at risk of hurting others around you?

• Are you at risk of damaging the equipment or facility?

If the answer to each of these is no, then let it be imperfect! If the answer is yes, modify the movement, the location, or the equipment and keep practicing.

Redefine starting

A common experience is feeling like you’re either all in or all out when it comes to fitness in general. I do fitness, or I don’t. “Tomorrow, I start again. I will become a different person who does things differently. I’ll be all in!” Maybe it works for a few weeks or even months, but inevitably, the all-or-nothing cycle returns. A busy week disrupts your routine, and before you know it, you’re back in the “nothing” part of the cycle. That’s when the pressure to start again begins to build. The mental gymnastics of deciding when you have the right amount of motivation to “start.” Or the relief of feeling like you don’t have to be “on” during the nothing phase. The shame of not doing anything. It’s a lot of pressure, and it’s exhausting.

Instead of this rollercoaster, try redefining what starting even means. What if it didn’t require perfect participation to count? What if, instead, it was just the next small thing? Leaning in to the accumulation of participation. Doing more when you want, and less when you want, without the pressure of it needing to be perfect or it doesn’t count.

Notice the all-or-nothing voice

When it tells you that a partial workout doesn’t count, or that one missed week has ruined everything, or it’s not worth doing something until you’re ready to officially “begin”. Recognize it for what it is: a subjective narrative that doesn’t benefit you.

The only way to combat perfectionism is to notice where you’re using all-or-nothing thinking and work to reduce it.

A note on the fitness spaces you’re in

Much of this work is personal, but it’s important to examine the environments that might also be contributing. Not every gym, class, instructor, or trainer creates room for imperfect participation. Some environments — through their language, culture, or instruction — still communicate that modification is a weakness and inconsistency is failure.

Seek out a fitness environment that celebrates imperfect participation. Instructors who offer options for each movement without hierarchy. When you haven’t participated in 4 weeks, the staff will say, “We’re glad to see you!” not “Where have you been?!” You leave not feeling judged for your form or performance, but celebrated for your attendance.

It’s important to know that perfection isn’t possible and it’s not the goal.

If you haven’t heard the term Gymtimidation before, you’ve likely felt it at some point.

Gymtimidation is a term used to describe the anxiety or fear that can come with participating in fitness spaces, ranging from feeling uncertain to feeling like you just don’t belong.

These feelings can show up differently for everyone.

For some, it’s a fear of not being able to keep up or of doing a movement wrong and being noticed for it.

For others, it’s a confidence gap: in your knowledge, your experience, or your body’s ability.

And for many people, it’s something harder to name: a persistent sense that this space wasn’t made for me and that I simply do not belong. That everyone else knows the unwritten rules for navigating these experiences, and I’m the only one who doesn’t. That the right body, the right clothes, and fitness expertise are required to participate.

It can feel like cosplaying a fitness person. Pretending you know exactly what you’re doing while watching everyone else move through the space as if it’s completely effortless.

It can feel upsetting when the gym’s website says “all are welcome here” or “we’ll meet you where you’re at,” but the experience doesn’t match. Those phrases can reinforce the impression that it’s a me problem. If I had more knowledge, understood my body better, or was in better “shape,” I wouldn’t feel so uncomfortable.

You are the customer, yet it doesn’t often feel that way. Instead of entering a space designed to serve you, it can feel like a place where you’re expected to perform, to serve their needs rather than the other way around. To prove you belong before you’re allowed to participate.

All of this can feel exhausting and, ultimately, limit your participation in physical activity and affect how you think about yourself in it.

But have you ever considered that it’s not a you problem, but rather that the fitness industry’s operational systems, marketing, and communication tactics make you feel this way?

Why the industry misses the mark

When trying to help people get past those feelings of fear, their Gymtimidation, the fitness industry regularly takes the approach of helping the exerciser learn to overcome it, rather than looking critically at the fitness experiences they (we) are creating. It is also important to note that some of those feelings are unique to the individual and need to be addressed by them directly, because the behavior change process is personal. Although the overall impressions and feelings you experience in fitness settings ultimately start with us– the fitness industry.

In my work as a fitness consultant and educator, I regularly speak with fitness professionals about this experience and how it’s their responsibility to create a better environment rather than asking the exerciser to push through the fear. I have spoken with hundreds of GMs and owners, and I know that nearly all of them genuinely want to make people feel welcome. But good intentions and the actual impact of their actions are not the same thing.

This gap between what gyms intend and what people experience isn’t always obvious. It lives in the details. The images in their marketing, the language an instructor uses when someone takes a break, the look from other members when you don’t know where to return your equipment, the way a class is introduced, how modifications are offered, and whether a new face gets acknowledged or overlooked. All of it consistently communicates whether this is a space where you’re welcome to learn and experiment without judgment, or a space where you’re expected to already know what you’re doing.

This experience isn’t because gyms are trying to make you feel this way. It’s because gymtimidation is an area of weakness for them. Fitness professionals are too comfortable in fitness spaces to experience them the way new or returning exercisers do. They’ve forgotten what unfamiliar and uncomfortable feels like, and worse, they don’t often pause to assess or investigate their role in perpetuating that experience.

Resulting in people feeling like “I don’t feel comfortable here” or “I don’t belong,” instead of what it mostly is: “this gym isn’t serving me well.”

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While not yours to fix, here’s what you can do

Knowing that gymtimidation is structural rather than personal doesn’t make it disappear. Of course, the feelings are real and likely deeply ingrained. But recognizing that much of this isn’t your problem to fix about yourself can change how you interpret that experience, which in turn affects how you feel about your relationship with physical activity.

When you enter a gym and feel out of place, that feeling isn’t evidence that you don’t belong there. It’s evidence that the space hasn’t done enough to make you feel like you do. It’s important to know that you have the right to ask for what you need.

Here are a few ways you can advocate for yourself:

Share your feelings

Feel nervous about your experience? Share it with them when you’re ready. This can be during the gym sign-up process, when the instructor greets you before class, or as a follow-up after a few sessions. Your feelings matter, and the right place will hear you and make adjustments.

Make choices that are right for you, without apology

It’s important to know that you are always in charge of what you do or don’t do. Always. Never override your body or mind’s needs for what the instructor or trainer suggests.

Let’s say you’re in a group fitness class and an instructor gives a movement suggestion you don’t like, have concerns about, or don’t understand. Exercise your autonomy: Don’t complete it, choose a different movement (rest is always a great option), or ask for support. Even as a fitness professional, I do this in every class I take.

Advocate for yourself

I can’t stress this enough. You have a voice in your experience, whether it’s your first time entering a gym or you’ve been trying for 20 years to find comfort in one. Use your voice and advocate for yourself. Here are a few examples:

• Tell your trainer you’re returning after a long break and need a different starting point.

• Unhappy with the language used in gym-wide emails, marketing materials, or class experiences? Tell ‘em!

You know more than you think you do.

Only take on what’s helpful

Fitness professionals are doing their best to provide education, motivation, and movement suggestions to a variety of people. As with any other educator or service provider, leave what doesn’t benefit you and keep what’s helpful. Their power, language, or suggestions don’t all need to permeate your experience or sense of self.

Change the environment

If you’re in a fitness space that consistently makes you feel unwelcome, uncertain, or like you need to earn your place, that’s information about the environment, not about you. There are spaces that do this better, and you deserve to be in one. Suffering in a space that isn’t caring for you won’t help you move your body more. Find a space that feels better.

Reflect

Spend time untangling your feelings of gymtimidation. Identify what makes you feel nervous or uncomfortable in fitness settings. Review your feelings about the gym experiences you’ve had and what you’ve liked or disliked about them. Work to understand your personal feelings about exercise, your body, and where you are in the process of making habit changes. This will help you understand what is yours to work on personally and what isn’t yours to carry.

Only when you place these feelings in the right context can you better choose experiences that feel aligned.

If this article resonated, there’s a personal component to gymtimidation that’s worth working through, and I built a course for exactly that.

Your Fitness Foundation is a self-paced, evidence-informed course that helps you make sense of your past fitness experiences, understand how behavior change and motivation actually work, and build a personalized movement strategy that fits your real life. It includes a full module on navigating traditional fitness environments — the unwritten rules, how to exercise your autonomy, and how to set yourself up for experiences that actually feel good.

It’s not a workout program. It’s the foundation that makes any movement approach more likely to stick.

Your Fitness Foundation

Most people who struggle to make an exercise habit stick have one thing in common:

They feel personally responsible for their lack of success with exercise and think it’s their fault.

They’ve tried the gym, the app, the program, the trainer. They’ve started over in January, on Monday, after the injury, after vacation, after the busy work season. And every time, it doesn’t stick, they arrive at the same conclusion: I just don’t have what it takes. Other people can do this, but I can’t. I’m not disciplined enough. I’m lazy, etc.

After two decades in the fitness industry, I can tell you definitively: this isn’t a you problem.

The industry — the culture, the spaces, the language, the programs, the marketing — has been built around people who already feel comfortable moving their bodies, who already believe exercise is something they’re capable of, and feel they already belong in fitness spaces.

So, if you are new to exercise, returning after a long break, anxious about being in a gym, unsure where to start, self-conscious about your body, don’t feel ready, can’t find the energy, etc., of course, it doesn’t feel easy to start (again) or continue.

That’s not a discipline problem, it’s a system problem.

You deserve to understand the system you’ve been navigating. That’s what you can expect from my work here. An honest, direct review of the fitness industry experience. Validating why it’s hard and providing person-centered solutions to help you feel more successful with movement.

A little bit about me, if we’re just meeting

I’m Christin Everson. I have a master’s degree in Kinesiology and a bachelor’s degree in Psychology. I am an ACE-certified Personal Trainer, Health Coach, Group Fitness Instructor, Medical Exercise Specialist, and Behavior Change Specialist.

I have never worked outside the fitness and recreation industry. At 19, I started working at my college recreation center (Go Ducks) and teaching my first group fitness class, and I have never looked back.

In the years since, I’ve worked in nearly every type of gym, studio, and physical activity setting you can imagine, and have served every age group. I’ve run large and small fitness programs, taught and mentored hundreds (maybe thousands?) of fitness professionals, taught group fitness classes, trained clients and consulted for other fitness businesses.

This industry is the only professional home I’ve ever known.

When I think about my critiques of the fitness industry, I always think of this quote from author James Baldwin:

I am passionate about what fitness professionals do. It is not an exaggeration to say we help people live better, more fulfilling lives. I have watched it happen up close for decades. And I have also spent those decades watching the rhetoric, misinformation, judgment, shame, and relentless comparisons that accompany fitness culture, making it harder for most people to want to engage in physical activity at all, especially in traditional gym or studio settings.

Both of those things are true at the same time. The industry does profound good, and it can cause real harm. I’ve contributed to both. Some of what I know now came from years of accidentally doing harm by following the traditional fitness playbook without questioning it. The rest came from recognizing that harm and spending years trying to do better.

Everything I write here comes from those two places.

What Re:Fitness is

The name of this newsletter means a few things at once, intentionally.

It’s a reply. A response to the fitness rhetoric that has been talking at people for decades without stopping to ask whether it’s actually working for them. A more realistic, human-centered perspective.

It’s a reminder. In behavior change, starting again isn’t failure. It’s part of the process. Research on habit formation shows that lapses are normal, expected, and part of how sustainable behavior change occurs. Every time you re-start, re-try, or re-connect to movement, it’s meaningful.

It’s a reframe. Of what fitness is, what counts as “being fit,” and what a sustainable relationship with movement actually looks like.

Every issue of this Substack will take something about fitness culture or the fitness experience and work through it: the science, the psychology, and the real human experience of trying to make movement a sustainable part of your life. We’ll talk about why certain spaces feel the way they do. Why certain programs work for some people and not others. We’ll define what motivation actually is and ways you can identify yours. We’ll talk about what the research says about how habits form and why they break down. And what it looks like to build a relationship with exercise that fits your actual life, not the future you that you hope to be.

You don’t need more discipline. You need to understand yourself better, and the autonomy to do it differently than you’ve been told you should.

I’m glad you’re here. Let’s Re:Learn.

Recently, while teaching my hour-long Strength & Conditioning class, a participant left halfway through.

I couldn’t have been happier.

He packed up quietly, gave me a nod, and headed out about thirty minutes in. His early departure showed that he heard me when I said, “You’re in charge of your experience.” That he felt free of shame or judgment for making the call to wrap it up.

Because before every single class I teach, I say this:

“You are completely in charge of everything you do today. You can do the movements I’m suggesting, or you can do something else. You can follow my suggested intensity or choose your own. You can stay for the entire class, or you can wrap up whenever you feel you’re done. You have complete autonomy.”

He exercised his autonomy. And that is a huge win!

Here’s what actually happened when he left early

The fitness industry has a complicated relationship with leaving an exercise experience early. I’ve been a participant in classes where I packed up before the end, and the instructor said I was “giving up.” I’ve also been in classes and watched the same thing happen to other participants. Sometimes it was a joke. Sometimes it wasn’t. Either way, the message is clear: leaving early is something you need to justify to others. It’s unacceptable to leave class early if you want to “achieve your goals.”

That message is harmful in ways that are easy to miss in the moment.

Here’s what my participant actually accomplished when he left at the thirty-minute mark:

• He completed thirty minutes of exercise.

• He listened to his body.

• He made a decision that was right for him that morning.

• He showed up at 6:15 am to move and connect with his community.

• He left knowing his needs were respected.

• He used the gym membership he pays for monthly.

Every single one of those things is a win. Not a consolation prize, an actual win. And each one makes it more likely he’ll be back next week.

The alternative might have looked like this: staying for the full hour even though his mind and body were telling him to stop, in an environment that made him feel he had no choice.

It would have made the gym feel like a place where his instincts don’t matter and his autonomy isn’t welcome. Where he isn’t in charge of the movements he does, how hard he works, or what his mind or body needs. It may have felt like suffering, counting down the minutes until he’s allowed to leave. Or it simply might not have felt fun, enjoyable, or worth it, and that it’s a failure to leave early.

One of the biggest challenges with this isn’t just how it feels in the moment, but what it does to your future participation. It is a reminder that you must be in just the right mood to attend and have the right energy to give, both mentally and physically. It requires you to ask yourself, “Do I have what it takes to go to class today?”

It adds friction to showing up next time, and friction is one of the primary reasons people stop coming back.

Here’s what’s also real: most fitness businesses interpret early departures as dissatisfaction with the class, the instructor, or the facility. Because fitness professionals are genuinely passionate about their work, just as you care about doing your job well, an early exit can feel like a personal criticism. So the response, conscious or not, is to discourage it, to make leaving feel like something that requires an explanation.

That’s not your fault. And it’s not your responsibility to manage someone else’s professional ego while caring for your health.

What this means for you

Most fitness classes are not run the way I run mine. Most don’t open with an explicit permission structure. Most don’t name autonomy as a value before the warm up. And a lot of them, explicitly or implicitly, communicate that modification, leaving early, or doing less than programmed is something to be embarrassed about.

You don’t have to accept that as the standard.

Arbitrary class times don’t determine what your body or mind needs that day. You do.

If you’re in a fitness class and you’re ready to leave, you can leave. If the intensity isn’t right for your body today, you can adjust it. If a movement doesn’t feel good, you can choose something else. None of those actions requires an explanation or an apology. None of those choices makes you less strong or less committed. They do not make you less.

And if you’re regularly in environments that make you feel otherwise, that use shame, competition, or social pressure to keep you performing past what’s right for you, that’s worth paying attention to. Not because those environments are always malicious, but because they’re not serving you. And a fitness environment that doesn’t serve you is one you’ll eventually stop going to.

What to look for instead

A fitness space that’s actually working for you will feel different. The instructor gives you options, not just directives. Modifications and progressions are presented as choices, not as a lesser version of the real thing. You leave feeling like your time was yours, not something you owed or merely survived.

The feeling of agency, of having shown up on your own terms, is what makes exercise sustainable. Not the hardest workout. Not simply completing the class. The one where you felt like yourself the whole way through. This is what matters most about fitness habits: that you keep coming back.

My participant left early. He came back the next week. That’s fitness.

If this connected with your personal fitness experience, my course, Your Fitness Foundation, was built around the same philosophy. It’s not a workout program, it’s a framework for understanding yourself better and building exercise habits that actually fits your life.

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You’re in the locker room, about to begin a workout or in celebration of finishing one. Maybe you’re mid-change, or freshly out of the shower, and someone positions themselves in front of the mirror and pulls out their phone.

While this action might feel innocuous to the subject, just a quick selfie! It’s the obligatory demonstration that they were here. I can assure you, it causes harm (Yes, even when no one else is present in the locker room). Here’s why:

The gym can be scary enough

The gym can be a very vulnerable place, especially for those who are new to exercise, returning after a break, or still working on feeling comfortable in fitness spaces. Engaging in traditional fitness experiences means learning to move your body in novel ways, using large, heavy, intimidating equipment, navigating shared spaces, and pushing yourself in ways that may feel uncomfortable.

Then you enter a shared locker room, where you do the most vulnerable part of the gym experience: changing your clothes and showering. Literal nakedness! What’s more vulnerable than that?!

While in your birthday suit, it is all too common to suddenly see someone taking a photo in the mirror or setting up a camera to get a specific angle. This requires you to cover up, quickly get out of the shot, or wait until the photoshoot concludes before completing your tasks.

While likely unintentional, that photo sends the message that there is no safe place in this facility. It says that I am always at risk of being photographed or videoed without consent. This creates a lack of safety, potential emotional harm, anxiety, and a host of other feelings when you’re just trying to use the locker room as it was intended.

“I only take a photo if I’m alone.”

Well, that’s still problematic. While most who use their camera in locker rooms do their best to ensure no one is in their shot or that they are completely alone in the space, the unintended subject of your camera can still be harmed by your photo. This can happen in two ways:

1. In Real Time

Your photo directly affects the people around you, making them feel as though they must manage themselves to stay out of your background and protect their privacy. It starts with inconvenience: they’ll change in the restroom, shower at home, etc. But the more significant impact is the conclusion: this is not a safe place.
Prioritizing your need for the photo over their personal safety and experience.

2. For Future Visits

Let’s say you take a photo in an empty locker room and then post
it on social media. That photo shows viewers that the locker room is a space
where cameras are out and pictures are taken. It prepares others to feel
anxious about future visits and teaches them to be cautious when using what’s
supposed to be a safe, private space.

By law, we are guaranteed an expectation of privacy, prohibiting photography/filming of others without their consent in locations where they are likely to disrobe, and when someone introduces a camera into that space, even if they’re only photographing themselves, even if you’re not in the shot, that expectation is broken.

Taking a photo of yourself in a vulnerable space like a locker room creates a sense of insecurity, undermines personal consent, and compromises the experience for all.

Posting that photo signals to everyone who sees it that this locker room is a place where cameras exist. Where you might need to be careful. That signal reaches people before they even set foot in the building, quietly adding to the mental load of just trying to go to the gym.

The absolute last thing I want when I’m changing my clothes is to be constantly looking over my shoulder to ensure someone doesn’t have their phone out and I’m accidentally in their shot. The impact is not just an inconvenience; it’s prioritizing the desires of one over the collective safety of others.

Why this matters for your relationship with the gym

If you’ve ever felt tense in a locker room, or rushed to get changed, or avoided using the shower facilities altogether, this might be part of why.

Feeling safe in fitness spaces is not a bonus feature. It’s a prerequisite for actually using them consistently. When any part of the experience chips away at your sense of safety, even something as seemingly small as a locker room selfie, it adds friction to showing up. And over time, friction is one of the primary reasons people stop showing up.

This is one of the things I talk about a lot on this Substack: how fitness environments create invisible barriers that actually make it harder to participate regularly. The locker room selfie is a small example of a much larger pattern: gym settings have been designed by and for people who already feel comfortable there, leaving everyone else to manage the discomfort on their own.

Still want that shot? Try this.

If you’re the person taking the selfie and photo evidence of your attendance is important to you, consider taking the photo only in a single-occupancy restroom, where you are guaranteed to be alone and will never disturb the current or future experiences of others.

You’re the person who has felt uncomfortable by others having their cameras out:

• If a gym has a policy against locker room photography, you’re completely within your rights to remind someone of it or flag it with the staff.

• If no policy exists? That’s worth knowing about the gym you’re attending. A facility that hasn’t thought carefully about locker room safety probably hasn’t thought carefully about a lot of other things related to your experience or safety either.

Feeling safe and confident in fitness spaces is something everyone deserves. If you've ever struggled to feel that way, or if exercise has felt confusing, inconsistent, or hard to stick with, my course, Your Fitness Foundation, explains why and what to do differently.

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