The search for generating higher levels of health and wellbeing can be incredibly hard. I’ve compiled some common reasons why most people fail, even though they really do want to change. 

Making small incremental changes in Diet, Movement, and Lifestyle are the keys to success.

1. You try to change too much too soon

This is incredibly common. You get real motivated then try and completely turn your life up side down in a day or two. This leads to overwhelm and a quick return journey on to the path you were previously walking on. 

Upgrading your health and wellbeing is a slow process that requires small incremental change. The brain is incredibly complex and new habits are incredibly difficult to sustain. Change takes energy, so the more change you want to make, the more energy you’re going to need…

2. You don’t have support from someone whose lived and done it

Would you hire someone who has never climbed Everest, to guide you up there?

I sometimes go bouldering with friends in my local climbing gym. Bouldering gyms have climbing walls with set routes to take: some are easy, others are hard. A particularly hard route can attract a small crowd. As people try over and over again to finish it. When everyone fails it seems absolutely impossible to do it. There’s so much resistance, both mentally and physically. 

However, what’s interesting is that once someone manages to achieve it, everyone else in the group can suddenly do it too. Because we’ve seen it happen in front of our eyes, we’re getting guidance from someone whose lived and done it. It’s the same with when you have a mentor guide you to your health and wellbeing goals… 

You will inevitably encounter challenges, and situations in which you do not have the experience to overcome it; hiring a mentor, buying the right book, or simply becoming privy to the right information, can help you avoid failing and getting stuck in a state you’re not happy with.

3. You are only focused on one aspect of health rather than a holistic view

If you get too caught up in one aspect of health, you can easily sacrifice other parts which are equally important. Bodybuilders are a perfect example of this. With the goal of being to acquire more muscle, certain unhealthy habits are very prone to come into play. When you need to eat monstrous volumes of calories, it can certainly take a toll on the health of your organs, such as your digestive system and your liver. 

Bodybuilding is in fact one of the most unhealthiest sports that exist. Because the pursuit of muscle comes at the expense of many facets of the body and brain. 

Many people sacrifice the health of their organs for things like a bigger chest or bigger biceps...

Another example is the vegan yogi who becomes so dogmatic about their way of living that they become blind to the possibility that too much yoga can come with adverse effects to the body, and a vegan lifestyle can be incredibly rewarding to start with, but start working against you after a certain period of time. A holistic view in which no dogma is attached can be seen as the ultimate way of acquiring total human health. 

Instead of putting all of your energy into exercising, keep some for upgrading your eating habits, and designing your lifestyle to make this whole project easy and effortless. Instead of putting all of your energy into upgrading your eating habits, keep some for exercising, and lifestyle design… 

4. You don’t have a dream

This might be the most critical first step for any chance of experiencing long term health and wellbeing change. Since the process of becoming healthy can be rather challenging, you need a real dream to use as an anchor that will sustain your drive.

A labor of love is easier than a labor without love.

You need to have a clear vision of what you want to become before any kind of successful change can occur.

One of the biggest reasons why people fall off their pursuit of heightened health is that they don’t have a strong enough reason to get to their goal. When you attach emotion to a goal, it becomes incredibly powerful, and your brain starts prioritising it above other things that are not serving you, like certain un-healthy habits. 

The dream serves as a compass so that you know deep down what you’re working and putting all of your effort into.

5. You don’t have the energy for change

People think that going to the gym, going for runs, and being super active is the best way to become healthy. Unfortunately that is a big reason as to why people fail to get healthy. 

The process of creating change in your lifestyle takes a huge amount of energy. When you study how the nervous system works, you come to realise that the actions you do more and more become easier for your biology to do. This means that the un-healthy habits that you might have been doing for 20 years or more, are so easy for your biology to do, and the act of doing something else is so much harder, that the process of change can be incredibly energy consuming. 

Life is a game of energy. Balance what saves you energy and what spends it! 

This is where a sound appreciation of techniques and protocol that cultivate energy vs spending energy come into play. With a balanced program, that is truly individual, and respects the anabolic vs catabolic forces, you can cultivate the necessary energy to sustain the change process and create long lasting health and vitality. 

6. You burn out, get injured, or become apathetical 

Every one goes into the goal of upgrading their health with good intentions. Unfortunately, if you go about it without skilled supervision or have the right mentor, three things are very prone to happen: you burn out, get injured, or become apathetical. 

Your body and brain are constantly sending you messages.

All three of these are messages your body and brain are telling you that your strategy is not working and change is needed. Burn out is an overtaxation, Injury is an overtaxation, and apathy overtaxation. 

This simply comes down to not having the right program in place, and not having the right guidance. 


Pierre is a CHEK Practitioner, Corrective Exercise Specialist, and Nutrition & Lifestyle Coach based in London, UK. He helps people increase vitality, decrease stress, achieve optimal posture, and more.

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