I hear it almost every time I meet with a new client who has been struggling to adhere to a new fitness routine—“I should be getting in here more often, but I think the problem is I’m just lazy.”
Here are some of the most common underlying issues that are actually going on when I dig deeper:
1. You’re Burnt Out
Are you waking up exhausted even after getting 8 hours of sleep? Do you find your energy crashing mid-morning and mid-afternoon? Are you running into the problem of feeling tired but wired?
Burnout can be caused by our nervous system being in a chronic state of fight or flight without the ability to switch off. We find ourselves stressed at work, coming home to a chaotic household, wrapping up dinner and errands just in time for our heads to hit our pillows, rinsing and repeating day after day. We may also find ourselves seemingly up to our necks in obligations without taking the time to really care for ourselves. Burnout can even hit when our schedule isn’t packed, but lacks structure in a way that leaves us aimlessly searching for which step forward to take. If any of these sound like you, you may have a stress problem.
Unfortunately, there’s not a one-step quick fix for burnout, but here are a couple suggestions from me. My favorite option is to make your workout routine something you enjoy, rather than something that adds extra load to your plate. Play around with different workout styles, group fitness classes, or find a friend at Merritt that can push you. If you’re not sure where to start, set up a session with a trainer to help explore your options! The second option from me would be to take a look at how you can adjust your schedule to have more consistency. If you can’t necessarily remove any of the obligations bogging you down, see if you can restructure some of your priorities so that your daily routine looks somewhat similar across the week. When you work out at 6am one day and 8pm the next, your nervous system has a tough time knowing when it should be switching on or winding down.
2. It’s All or Nothing
Does the following situation feel familiar? You’ve been trying to cut your fast food habit, squeeze in a 6am workout before work, skip the company lunches for the chicken and rice you prepped, down 5 supplements a day, and carry around a gallon jug of water because…that’s what you have to do to get fit, right? Sure enough, life got in the way and something(s) had to give. Without the ability to be on all of your habits, the whole routine gets scrapped—you tell yourself you’ll start again tomorrow when conditions are perfect for success again.
Cue the time you sit down across from me. You have been off of your routine for weeks or even months, unsure quite how you got there and upset because the progress you worked so hard for feels frustratingly far away. I am a victim of this mentality myself at times! Being on a consistent routine helps you notice the real changes, and when you fall off of that routine it’s easy to feel like you don’t even know where to start. To fix this problem, I ask myself a few key questions. First—is my routine actually sustainable? Second—if not, what are the non-negotiables I want to really stick to even on hard weeks (no more than 1 or 2)? And lastly—what is my game plan for life’s uncontrollable moments?
Essentially, in what kinds of ways is life going to throw a wrench in my routine, and how am I going to adjust when that happens?
3. You Lack a Specific Direction
At the end of the day, the building blocks to a healthy lifestyle are relatively simple: sleep, nutrition, hydration, movement, stress management. And the reality is, only 1 in 4 Americans even have a gym membership (Health and Fitness Association, 2025). It’s common to think: it’s time for me to get healthy. A quick scroll on Instagram will blast you with a firehose of information on the supplements you should be taking, the micronutrient you’re missing, the workout split you need to be hitting, and the workout outfit you need to buy in order to become the ideal you. Influencers get paid to promote products, and they gain a following by presenting you with information you somehow didn’t know you needed, purporting to have the key to success that will solve all of your problems. Ten (or forty-five) minutes into your scroll and you have acquired an overwhelming mental list of all of the ways you’re behind and all of the things you need to do to catch up and get your fitness right. Figuring out where to start is often the hardest part, and when it feels necessary to change everything at once it can actually have the opposite effect, which we call analysis paralysis. Essentially, you have so many ideas about where to put your efforts that you can never really take that step forward in any long-term direction for progress. As a trainer, it’s part of my job to figure out which piece will be most actionable to change first, and how we can adapt that behavior in a way that is sustainable for you so you can continue to build. And on the realest note, my job is to help you filter out all of the garbage that overwhelms your notion of what fitness has to look like, and set you on a clear path.
4. You’re Relying on Extrinsic or Fleeting Motivation
Motivation and willpower may be the biggest scam the fitness community has concocted. There is this idea that you either have a natural motivation to engage in healthy behaviors, or you’re lazy. Motivation can be highly targeted towards fitness one moment, and then gone the next. And this is super common! What I recommend to get out of this off and on motivation is to set a goal with some purpose and structure. To start, I want you to answer the following:
What change do I want to see in my health in fitness? Why do I want to change my fitness behaviors?
Next, I want you to do the following, and have a reason for why you’re answering each:
- Specify: What EXACTLY is your goal (and why)? (e.g. run 3 miles in 30 minutes, rather than run longer or run faster)
- Identify your goal posts: What are you going to measure to see if you’re on track, and how frequently will you check in (and why)?
- Make a timeline: When do you want to achieve this goal by (and why)?
- Make it realistic: Based on what you know about your schedule and exercise history, is this achievable in this time frame? You aren’t going to wake up a completely different person tomorrow (or at least not sustainably), so work with yourself and be patient, thinking about 1% better every day.
- Have a backup plan: What are you going to do on the days when the motivation just isn’t there?
The why is the most important part, because you won’t make time for something that isn’t important to you when push comes to shove. Find your why (and make it personal), and then add structure around it.
5. Your Workout Routine Isn’t Built For You
The simplest answer might just be: your workout plan isn’t right for you! Maybe it’s outdated, maybe it’s too long, maybe it’s too much too quick, or maybe it’s just plain miserable. It’s pretty common for people to think working out is a chore until they find a form of fitness that they actually enjoy. And better yet, the craving for the gym becomes more natural when you start to see real results. A mentor of mine would say random workouts lead to random results. Meeting with a fitness professional can be one of the simplest ways to figure out how to build a routine that’s right for you—that should be something that fits into your schedule without friction, is catered towards the change you want to see, and is truly something you enjoy. At the end of the day, we take the path with the least resistance and your workout routine may very well be the issue leading you astray.
Morgan Raun is a trainer and group fitness instructor at Merritt Clubs Downtown.
