Most people assume the folks who show up to the gym consistently must have more time than everyone else — a lighter schedule, fewer obligations, more room to breathe. In reality, it’s often the opposite. Some of our most consistent members are the busiest people we know: nurses, therapists, teachers, parents, a pastor, business owners who coach other people’s goals all day and have none left over for their own.
I know this firsthand, because I live it too.
On a typical week, I’m coaching morning, afternoon, and evening classes, with just enough time between them to get home, take care of my dogs, and maybe eat something. My calendar isn’t really mine — new client calls, goal sessions, and personal appointments land wherever they land, and the day fills up fast. To get my own workout in, I need close to a two-hour window once you count travel, a shower, food, and the actual training. Some days, that window just doesn’t show up.
The moment that gets me almost every week happens after a late night. I’ll finish with a client around 7:30, get home by 8, and that means the next morning has to run perfectly. If I haven’t meal-prepped, I open the fridge in the morning to find nothing ready. No clothes laid out. Maybe a coach calls in sick and I’m covering their class on top of my own. Standing in front of an empty fridge, the thought hits: there’s no way I’m working out today. Not because I don’t want to — because the day already got decided without me.
That’s the real barrier for most people, and it’s not the one we usually blame. It’s not laziness. It’s decision fatigue.
I remember this clearly from years ago, before I’d even found CrossFit. I was working out at a YMCA, and I’d spend nearly an hour just standing around trying to figure out what to actually do that day. Between work, school, and the gym, by the time I got there, I had nothing left to make yet another decision. That exhaustion is real, and it compounds. A lot of our members live some version of this every single day — many of them work in professions built around taking care of other people. Nurses. Therapists. Teachers. Parents. By the end of a day spent making decisions for everyone else, there’s nothing left to decide what they need.
People often tell us, before they join, that they “just don’t have the willpower” to work out on their own. I don’t think that’s really the diagnosis. Life gets busy. People travel, get sick, hit a stretch at work, and their routine falls apart — and it’s genuinely hard to rebuild alone. A lot of people tried to keep training at home after COVID and eventually lost the thread, not from weakness, but because home is also where the laundry, the family, and a hundred other pulls on your attention live. It’s a lot easier to keep showing up when there are people around you also showing up.
There’s a second kind of overwhelm we don’t talk about enough: complexity.
There is an enormous amount of information out there about what you’re supposed to be doing — the right program, the right macros, the right approach for your exact situation. Even well-meaning advice can backfire. Take the growing conversation around training and eating around your menstrual cycle — genuinely useful information, but when there are that many steps and rules attached to the “right” way to do it, a lot of women simply freeze and do nothing at all, rather than take an imperfect step forward.
What actually moves the needle is much simpler: start.
Drink one less soda. Eat one more vegetable. Show up for ten minutes. Trial and error beats a perfect plan you never begin — because waiting for perfect means never starting.
Even as a coach, I fall into this trap myself. I know exactly where I could improve — strength, gymnastics, running efficiency, nasal breathing, a solid handstand walk — and if I chase all of it at once, I end up doing everything a little and nothing well. What works is treating life in cycles: showing up to class and moving daily is the non-negotiable baseline, and if I have extra energy, I pick one thing to focus on rather than several.
This is exactly what we try to build for our members. When someone walks through our doors, the hardest part — showing up — is already done. From there, we take almost everything else off their plate. Class is on the calendar, so it’s not a decision you make every day. The programming is already planned in cycles, so you’re never wondering what to do today or tomorrow. You just show up, and the coach and the people around you carry the rest.
If there’s one thing worth remembering, it’s this: you’re not lazy, and you don’t lack willpower. You’re carrying a lot, and it’s okay to let someone else carry a piece of it with you. You don’t need the perfect plan — you just need to move a little more today than you did yesterday, and ask for help getting there if you need it.
Try one class this week. Come see how simple it actually is.