Confidence is important to everyone, especially if you don’t feel very confident. A common misconception is that by going to the gym you will feel more confident but is that true? Maybe sometimes. In this blog post, I’m going to talk to you about why you won’t find confidence at the gym but how you can still become more confident.

In this post I will:

Explain what stops you from going to the gym.

Show you a real case study of someone who lost confidence at the gym.

Explain the real reason why you don’t go to the gym.

Show you 5 steps to overcoming a lack of confidence.

What stops you from going to the gym?

So you think you’ll feel more confident by heading to the gym? Does this sound familiar though; by the time you get home from work after a busy day, the last thing you want to do is get shorts, t-shirt and trainers together and head out of the house again!

And the worst thing you can do is sit down and think “I’ll just have a rest for 5 minutes, then I’ll go” because once you sit down, your body really does not want to stand up again! After all, you’ve had a hard day, the gym will be really busy, you can never get on the equipment you want to get on, you can go tomorrow night etc etc etc.

“Imagine your life is perfect in every respect; what would it look like?” – Brian Tracy

These are all the reasons that run through our heads for us to not go. And most of the time, we go with one of these reasons. Instead, we sit down in front of the tv, play some computer games, help the kids with their homework, cook some dinner, go for a pint or two etc etc.

But we really meant to go to the gym, didn’t we? Or did we? It can be really tough trying to add something new into our already busy lives.

Making time for something new often means sacrificing the time we spend on something else and for the most part, that thing will be something that we have to do like going to work or cooking and eating an evening meal. Which is often where the problem lies; Do we want to go to the gym bad enough we’ll make time for it in our otherwise already busy schedule?

This is a long part, skip to the confidence steps HERE

We probably enjoy the idea of getting “buff” and looking better to boost confidence but how much do we enjoy getting there? Do we ever get there? In most cases the answer to both is “we don’t”. So what makes us want to go to the gym then?

Here are a few reasons why guys want to go to the gym:

• To get fitter.
• To be better at sports.
• The social side/meeting people.
• Look more attractive to possible partners.
• To feel healthier.
• To relieve stress.
• Build confidence.

And these are all good reasons for going to the gym.

Case study: 31 year old, male.

Let’s look at an example. A man, who is below average size but physically fit, once told me that after splitting up with his girlfriend, he started “going back to the gym” and was working out several times per week.

He found that he had a good appetite and was taking whey protein to bulk himself up and was genuinely enjoying his workouts. He told me that he could see that his body was growing and he felt more confident about himself and felt that by having more confidence and looking better, it would improve his chances of getting a new girlfriend.

A few weeks later he told me about a girl he had met and how he really liked her. He felt they “clicked” and he really liked spending time with her. While this man was still going to the gym, he wasn’t going to the gym quite as often as he had been before because as you would expect, he had to make time to see her.

 

As the weeks wore on, he wasn’t going to the gym anymore but “didn’t miss it”. Sadly after a few months, the relationship came to an end. Without going into too much detail, they weren’t getting along and decided to go their separate ways. While the client was happy the relationship had finished, his confidence and self esteem had fallen and he had noticed that he was eating very little. He didn’t want to go to work and had phoned in sick a few times because he wanted some time to get over the end of the relationship.

“The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty.” – Winston Churchill

A few weeks after they split up, this guy has started going back to the gym again and feeling better about himself too. You might say, “he was enjoying the gym before and it built his confidence which led to him getting a girlfriend, so surely it’s a good thing he’s working out again”? And that would be a fair question. The gym does boost his confidence, which then would possibly lead to him getting another girlfriend. Great! Problem solved! Well, sort of.

The guy in question does now have a new girlfriend but the cycle has started again, where he no longer has time for the gym because of the girlfriend, so he has stopped going again.

The confidence boost from the workouts is gone. The motivation to go to the gym, is gone. The client started to notice his muscles aren’t getting any bigger and wonders if the new girlfriend still finds him attractive, now he isn’t so muscular.

He even started to wonder whether she would still find him attractive if he starts to put on weight because he isn’t exercising anymore.

This made him worry even more and his confidence dipped further. Does any of this sound familiar? It has done to me in the past.

So, back to the original question; why doesn’t the gym work for you? If like in this example case you’re going to the gym to make yourself look more attractive, it’s probably never going to work.

The real reason you don’t go to the gym.

We need to start with the REAL reason for going to the gym. Rather than trying to make yourself more appealing to a prospective partner, you need to think about why YOU don’t think you’re appealing already.

So for example, if you are overweight and you think no woman (or man) is going to be attracted to you because you’re “too fat”, you need to think about why that is.