Tell Me What You DON’T Want

“I’m sick of getting dressed in the dark.”

It’s the first difficult question I ask whenever I meet a new athlete.

“What do you want to get out of this?”

It’s become such an obstacle over the past twenty years that I’ve started offering a follow-up.

“No worries,” I say. “Tell me what you don’t want.”

After all, most humans don’t have clearly defined goals about their lives, let alone fitness. And who can blame them? We can’t take a breath without being bulldozed by seven “perfect” workout programs and twelve ads about the “last diet you’ll ever need.”

The crazy part isn’t that we don’t all have clear and concise objectives; it’s that we manage to have any goals at all.

The flip side is, we all know precisely what we don’t want, and we can articulate it right now.

“I don’t want to feel my shirt ride up when I get out of the car anymore.”

“I’m tired of my back hurting when I get on the ground to play with my daughter.”

“I’m sick of getting dressed in the dark.”

That last one really surprised me when I first heard it years ago. The sad thing is, I’ve heard it more and more ever since.

Try it and see; write down what it is you don’t want in as much gory detail as you can dream up. Get all Stephen King about it. Then start working backward to what it is you want.

Specifically.