One of the biggest problems people face when it comes to wanting to become physically healthier, more active and working on overcoming their aches and pains is not knowing where to start. As a physical therapist and personal trainer, I’ve seen this situation play out a thousand times before.

If you don’t know where to start and you want to stand a better chance at taking back control of your health and wellness, in this article, I’ll be going over ten game-changing tips that I’ve used with my clients and patients over the years to help them find the necessary confidence, motivation and even enjoyment that enables them to take back control of their physical health and eliminate pain in the process.

I’m super excited to share these tips with you, as I SO want you to experience a more meaningful and rewarding life.

ARTICLE OVERVIEW (Quick Links)
Click/tap on any of the tips below to instantly read that section!

• Tip 1: The ongoing journey
• Tip 2: It’s not about the destination
• Tip 3: Three beautiful rules
• Tip 4: Celebrate the small stuff
• Tip 5: Set these types of goals
• Tip 6: Meaningful movements
• Tip 7: The five whys
• Tip 8: The power of community
• Tip 9: You vs yourself
• Tip 10: Your true value

Related article: Trigger Workouts: How They Solve Your Biggest Fitness Problems

A quick reminder: As I go through each of these tips, be sure to ask yourself how it might apply to YOU and your own personal situation; you’ll find a lot more meaning and value in each one if you can see yourself within the tip itself.

And make sure to read until the end; if there were only ONE SINGLE tip to follow when it comes to making a lifestyle change and reclaiming your physical health, tip number 10 is the one to know, follow and implement daily.

Alright, here we go!

Tip 1: Understanding the journey

Taking control of your health AND continually working on your overall well-being will ALWAYS be an ongoing journey. This means there will ALWAYS be things to learn. You WILL make mistakes, and there will be ups and downs, regardless of whether you’re a fitness rookie or seasoned veteran. I’m two decades into my pursuits, and I am still learning and still making mistakes.

But this journey is way less intimidating, way more doable — and dare I say — even more enjoyable when you take the pressure off of yourself to always “get it right” and feel like you’re supposed to know everything.

Too many people never even start or give up shortly after simply due to feeling overwhelmed. If you want to avoid this feeling, give yourself permission to make mistakes and learn as you go. Keep yourself as safe as possible, mind you, but thereafter, give yourself permission to not get everything right.

It’s not about getting everything right — it’s about accepting that there is always more to learn and embracing the fact that there will be highs and lows. If you can realize this and accept this, you’ll find that the pursuit of health and wellness is one of the greatest teachers you could ever have for all sorts of life lessons, fitness-related or otherwise.

Related article: Getting Inspired to Exercise | Tap Into This Game-changing Mindset

Tip 2: Fall in love with the process

Since your health and wellness pursuit will ALWAYS be a journey, it’s critical to fall in love with the process and not just the end results themselves. When you fall in love with the process — whatever aspect of the process that may be — you have something to look forward to each and every time you do your fitness-related pursuits.

Too many people only find meaning in the end result or in hitting their major milestones. As a result, they lose their motivation in the ongoing pursuit of it all; they have nothing to look forward to when working on their goals and instead feel like they’re “slaving away” while losing all zest for something that could be a beautiful experience if they only found something meaningful in the ongoing process itself.

So ask yourself: how can YOU fall in love with the process? What’s going to make all of this meaningful to you? Dare I say that if you can answer this question, you hold the keys to a healthier life within your hand.

Tip 3: Three beautiful rules

Tip number three focuses on three central tenets that help simplify and prioritize the process of looking after yourself. It’s critical to keep things simple when embarking on a new endeavour, especially one that involves looking after yourself.

There is profound power in simplicity, and while the following three rules may seem simple, believe me when I say not nearly enough people abide by them.

They go something like this:

• Rule #1: Prevention is better than ANY cure.
• Rule #2: Never let a minor issue become a major one
• Rule #3: When in doubt, seek professional help

So, take some time to ask yourself what those rules mean to YOU, and how they might factor into your own personal situation. You can save yourself a world of frustration, pain, and health issues across the board when you do this.

Tip 4: Celebrate every little victory

That’s right, celebrate every single little victory along the way — no matter how small or inconsequential it may seem. Doing so will keep your momentum going in more ways than you likely realize and can be a game-changer for many people who want to commit to a healthier lifestyle for all their days ahead.

Significant victories are great, but they may be few and far between at times, so keep your tank full by celebrating all the good stuff you make happen along the way.

Pro tip: Think of every little victory being analogous to dropping some spare change in a money jar — it will add up at a rapid rate and help keep the momentum going when it comes to feeling inspired and empowered on your journey to a healthier life.

Tip 5: Set behaviour-based goals

I cannot overstate how much power there is in setting behaviour-based goals and prioritizing them over outcome-based goals. Outcome-based goals are the ones we’re most familiar with and tend to set the most. 

They’re the type of goals that focus on the end result without focusing on any aspect of how you conduct yourself along the way. They’re goals such as “I will lose twenty pounds in four months” and “I will be able to run for thirty consecutive minutes in two months.”

But you may just find that setting goals based on your behaviour towards your health and fitness pursuits are much more motivating and rewarding. As a result, they’re much more likely to keep you on track with your pursuits.

Here’s the reason why: sometimes you can do everything right, but you don’t meet your targeted outcome. This can feel really discouraging and make you wonder, “what’s the point?”

But if you set a goal that’s based around your behaviour, well, then that’s the type of goal that you have great control over. And in this health and wellness journey, a sense of control is EVERYTHING when it comes to feeling empowered with your pursuits.

These are goals such as, “I will workout for thirty minutes, three times a week for the next six weeks.” Or “I will eat two additional servings of vegetables per day for the next two weeks.”

Like any other type of goal, you can set short-term, medium-term and long-term behaviour-based goals to help you stay on track with your pursuits.

Remember: when you focus on your behaviours, you’ll have a great sense of control throughout the process. Yes, set some outcome-based goals, but set your behaviour-based ones as well and consider prioritizing those along your journey.

Tip 6: Make your movements meaningful

It’s tough to stick to something when you can’t find meaning in what you’re doing. When it comes to becoming more physically active, you need to find meaning in your exercises and movements. This is especially true if you tend to get easily bored with exercises or fitness regimens in general.

The truth of the matter is that unless you’re training for highly-specific activities or competing at high levels within your sport or activity, you actually have a lot of variety you can put into all aspects of your fitness routines and pursuits.

So, it may be worth picking out movements and exercises — or having someone help you with this — that relate to real-world activities and pursuits that you enjoy.

As an example: if you enjoy gardening, picking movements and exercises that help you keep your knees and lower back strong or help reduce your aches and pains when getting down into gardening positions can be movements that you’re motivated to perform — or find greater enjoyment with since you can see how they can help you keep on doing your gardening activities.

So, find meaning in your movements, and this whole journey of yours will be sustainable and enjoyable.

Related article: Seven BRILLIANT Ways to Actually Make Cardio Enjoyable (Seriously)

Tip 7: Ask yourself “why” five times

Ask yourself why you want to make your fitness or lifestyle change five times.

This little drill is known as “the five whys.” It can drastically help you uncover just what is driving you toward wanting to make a positive lifestyle change.

Here’s an example of what it looks like:

Q1: “Why do I want to lose weight?”
A1: “Because I want to have a better quality of life and live longer.”

Q2: “Why do I want to have a better quality of life and live longer?”
A2: “Because I want to see my grandkids grow up and to be active with them.”

Q3: “And why do I want to see my grandkids grow up and be active with them?”
A3: Because family is important to me, and I want to be a good role model.

Q4: “And why is family important to me, and why is it important to be a good role model?”
A4: Because I won’t always get to be with my grandkids; I want to maximize my time with them and help them make good lifestyle choices.”

Q5: “And why do I want to help them make good lifestyle choices?”
A5: Because I love them and want them to have the best life possible.

So, based on these questions in this example scenario, it would seem that the individual’s driving factor isn’t so much about themselves but about their desire for their grandkids. As a result, realizing this core desire becomes an incredibly powerful and driving factor in their fitness and lifestyle pursuits.

So, ask yourself “why” at least five times to get down to the core factor that is really driving you to make a change. If you can do this and reveal what it truly is, you’ll likely find yourself having much greater reason and direction for changing your lifestyle for the better.

If you want to learn more about the science behind The Five Whys, check out this article:

• The Five Whys (Wikipedia article)

Tip 8: Community is everything

Going it alone and being the lone wolf probably isn’t in your best interests. Even the most highly motivated and dedicated individuals in the world of health and fitness will tell you that having others by your side throughout your healthy lifestyle endeavours will produce dramatically better results and overall drastically higher chances of success.

Whether it’s a gym buddy, joining a club of like-minded individuals within your community, or even belonging to an online community, your chances of staying on track and experiencing greater and more fulfilling outcomes drastically increase when you go through the process with others.

And not only does this help with your physical health, but it dramatically enhances your social health and emotional health as well.

And in this day and age, there are online communities for basically every type of lifestyle endeavour imaginable. So take the plunge, find a group or community and get plugged in.

I cannot state how much of a game-changer this truly is. Get plugged in with others and get drastically better results in various domains of your health and wellness.

Tip 9: Just compete against yourself

Sure, it’s good to have a friend to compete against in some sort of friendly fashion. Still, many people who are simply training to become healthier and feel better about themselves make the mistake of feeling like they need to compare themselves to others who they may see in the gym or towards a similar lifestyle pursuit.

Unless you’re training for some sort of actual competition, leave the comparisons aside and just compete against yourself. I can’t tell you how much more enjoyable — AND sustainable — your pursuits will be if you learn to focus on yourself and tune out others around you whom you feel you need to compete against.

FYI: This is something that I myself continue to struggle with, especially now that I no longer compete in lifting or other sports. Remember back in tip #1 when I said that this whole thing is an ongoing process? I wasn’t kidding.

Tip 10: Know where your true value comes from

If there were only one tip I could impart to you, and one that I’d hope you carry forward with you throughout all your days ahead, it would be this:

No matter how many times you feel you fall short on your pursuits, and no matter how successful you are with becoming fit, healthy and pain-free, remember that none of it determines your God-given worth for who you are as an individual.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be healthier, look a bit healthier, or feel better about yourself. Those are all admirable desires and worthwhile outcomes to pursue. But if you feel that your worth is tied to your successes or failures with these pursuits, then you will, at one point or another, likely find yourself feeling oddly dissatisfied with who you are as an individual.

Health and fitness work best when your pursuits are built on a solid foundation of knowing your worth as a human being. It serves as this beautiful sort of anchor that keeps you settled during the storms but also from preventing your ego from floating up into the clouds.

So, remember that you’re awesome and that no matter where you’re starting from or where you plan on going, your innate human worth will never change.

Final thoughts

I hope you’ve been able to find some inspiration in these tips. Even if it was just a single tip or a portion of a single tip, carry it forward as you set out and embark on making a healthy lifestyle change.

My hope is that you will craft a remarkable story for yourself and use it to inspire others who will one day be setting out on fitness and lifestyle journeys of their own!