How to Stop Waiting for the Perfect Time to Get Fit

Nikkiey: How many of you have told yourself, "I'm going to start eating healthier when my schedule calms down"? Here's the thing, you guys: life doesn't slow down. There's always going to be another work deadline. There's always going to be another event. There's always going to be another reason why now isn't the right time.

Hey, you guys, what's going on? Welcome to The WarriorBabe Show with Nikkiey Stott, co-founder of WarriorBabe. On this podcast, we talk about mindset, methodologies and tactics that will help you lose body fat, build muscle, be strong and feel insanely confident. I am your host, Nikkiey Stott, and welcome to today's episode, episode number 235.

Today, like in the majority of the episodes of The WarriorBabe Show, I just want to hit you with some real talk, some tough love, about something that I feel is holding a lot of people back.

What do you think that is? Take a moment and think about it. It's unrelated to fitness and nutrition. It's something that we do every day in different situations, depending on whatever it is, but we do it every day in some fashion. What do you think is the thing that's holding so many people back?

The thing is waiting. Waiting for the perfect time, waiting until life slows down, waiting until you feel ready, waiting until Monday, waiting until the first Monday of the month, waiting until next month, waiting until your kids go back to school, waiting until summer is over, waiting until summer starts.

But, you guys, here's the truth. There is literally no perfect time. Life isn't going to magically open up space for you to start chasing what you want, whether that's changing your body composition, getting in better shape, gaining more muscle or figuring out your menopause symptoms. It's not going to open this wide magic door one morning and say, "Here you go. This is the time for you to start making a change."

You won't wake up one day with unlimited motivation and absolutely no distractions and a perfectly clear path forward with an open door in front of you. That is not going to happen. If something is on your heart and on your mind consistently, day in and day out, if you keep thinking, "I need to lose weight. I need to get in better shape. I need to understand why I have brain fog. I need to understand X, Y and Z that's happening right now," if it's on your heart and it's on your mind, guess what you have to do? You have to act right now. Because action is the one thing that's going to change everything for you.

I've been doing these WarriorBabe success interviews. If you go to warriorbabe.com and go to stories or success stories, it's on our website. I've been doing three or four a week for the last five weeks. And specifically, I've got to give Paige a huge shout-out for the one today.

We were talking about how she saw WarriorBabe online, on Facebook, and she saw the video and it resonated with her, but she didn't do anything. She kept coming back to it and it kept showing up. There were moments where she was like, "I'm going to wait until my son's birthday is over," or something like that. And I've heard it in so many other forms from other WarriorBabes as well: "I'm going to wait until work slows down."

With Paige specifically, she was going through chronic pain. She had all of these things happen to her over a period of time. She was uncomfortable in her body. She was living with what I like to call, respectfully, a victim mentality. She wasn't taking ownership and responsibility for the things she could change in her life. She was letting her circumstances run her day to day. And she wanted change. She wanted to feel better. She wanted to lose weight. She wanted to do things that she wasn't able to do in that moment.

But she envisioned these things that she wanted to change. And some of you, if you have it on your heart and on your mind, you wake up in the morning and look in the mirror and you're not feeling comfortable in your skin, or you're sick and tired of the brain fog you're experiencing because you're putting your phone in the fridge and looking for your keys all over the place when they're really in your hand, and you're like, "Oh my gosh, I need to change something," if it's on your heart and on your mind, you have to act now. Even if it's uncomfortable. Even if it's, "I don't know what I'm doing." Even if it's, "I could fail, I could mess up, I'm not going to be perfect." Who the freak cares?

If you start taking action, things will start making more sense. And more opportunities will show up. Your reticular activating system kicks in, and things are going to come into your space that support the evolution of where you are going.

So that's everything I want to talk about today. First, I want to talk about what I just touched on: the illusion of the perfect time. How many of you have told yourself, "I'm going to start eating healthier when my schedule calms down. I'm going to commit to the gym once work isn't so crazy. I'll invest in myself when I feel more ready, when I have the finances lined up"?

Here's the thing, you guys: life doesn't slow down. There's always going to be another work deadline. There's always going to be another event. There's always going to be another reason why now isn't the right time. And if you keep waiting, you'll just be in the exact same place next year wondering why nothing changed.

In my opinion, that is the worst position you could possibly be in. If you have on your heart and on your mind right now that you want to change something, you don't feel comfortable in your skin, you don't like the way you look, maybe it's showing up negatively in your work and your relationship or partnership, whatever it is, and you know you need to make a change, you know you need to start working out, you know you need to start eating better, but you don't do anything, this next year could go by and you could be in the exact same position.

And the truth is, you guys, you don't need more time. Those of you who are like, "I wish there were more hours in the day. Twenty-four hours isn't enough. I need to sleep less so I have more hours to do all the things I need to do." You don't need more time. You need to start making your goals and yourself a priority within the life you already have.

You mean to tell me you can't remove something at the end of your day? For those of you who scroll, for those of you who sit down on the couch and watch TV, you can't remove that for a 30-minute workout? You can't remove that for 15 or 30 minutes to figure out some healthy meals to eat for the next day? You really can't tell me that. These are all just excuses.

Paige told me on the call that there was a specific podcast that really made her change. I asked her, "What was that one realization that made you think, I need to change?" She said it was a podcast I recorded on excuses. I don't remember what episode it was, but I'm definitely going to have to remake it and bring it back. She said, "I had all these excuses for all of these things in my life, but I didn't have any excuses for what was going to serve the person I wanted to become." And I was like, holy cow. Think about that right now. What excuses do you have for not actually doing better for yourself?

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All right, let's get back to the show.

There should be absolute crickets. If you think about it from that perspective, you just aren't making the things that are of value to your future self a priority right now. You're not making the time. You have all the time in the world for other things that aren't supporting your goals and are negatively impacting where you want to go. So what you need to do is make the time, within the time you already have, for the priority of where you want to be.

When it comes to taking action, I like to say that I'm the person who runs into a room and then figures out what room I'm in. I am the type of person who loves to take action. I don't like my mind and excuses to get in the way and point me in the opposite direction of where I think this next step could take me. Because the more I ruminate on it... it kind of goes into the whole Mel Robbins five second rule. I don't know why that just popped into my brain, but it made me think: you need to act within five seconds, or else things are going to creep into your brain.

She even talks about it with the alarm. In the morning, when the alarm goes off and you hit the snooze button, you now have the next nine minutes, because I think that's what the iPhone is, and Echo and Amazon too. You have the next nine minutes to get more comfortable and come up with all these excuses why you shouldn't wake up. Instead, what should happen is the alarm goes off and within five seconds you're out of bed.

Because this is the thing, you guys: action creates clarity, not the other way around. A lot of people think they need to have everything figured out before they start. Everyone thinks they need the perfect plan and the perfect workout program to follow and the perfect macronutrients, and, and, and. They wait until they have the perfect strategy, the perfect mindset and the perfect all of the things. But clarity doesn't come from thinking about taking action. It comes from actually doing the damn thing itself.

So just go to the gym, and you'll figure it out along the way. What's that saying? Fake it till you make it. I kind of believe that.

Okay, maybe even a step back from just going to the gym. You want to eat better? Cool. What's the first action you could take? Throw out all the stuff in your house that doesn't serve you eating healthier. Just throw it away. Don't think about it. Go into your refrigerator. Open the fridge. Is there ice cream in there? Cool. Throw it out. Are there snacks in your pantry that are overly sugared and processed? Throw them out, or go donate them. If you're like, "But I spent money on it," go donate it. And then go and replace it with something that's going to serve the goals you're striving for.

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And vice versa. Maybe you're thinking, "I don't have the perfect plan. I don't know how to work out." I get that. And you're not alone, because that was me at the beginning of my journey. But I did something about it. I looked on Pinterest and found a workout list I could go and do: back day.

I remember it specifically. I was sitting in a lecture. I think it was pharmacology for nursing school, or maybe medical research, one of those two. I was learning about drugs, or learning how to write papers on medical research. I hated that class. But it doesn't matter. I was sitting in a lecture room, and I remember being on my phone because I was that bored listening to the teacher. Hopefully that teacher isn't listening to this.

I was looking at Pinterest and I thought, "Okay, cool, I'm going to go do back day in the gym after this." And I had no idea what those exercises were. No idea what a bent-over row was or what a lat pulldown was. Because honestly, back was a muscle I had never worked in my entire life. Being a chick, I was all about legs, booty, shoulders, arms. Back? I had the hardest time engaging my lats. I'm sure you can relate to that too. Side note.

But I saw a back workout and I thought, "Okay, cool, but I have no idea what these exercises are." And the next thing I did, instead of saying, "I don't know what this exercise is, so I'm not going to do it," I went to YouTube. There's this cool thing called YouTube where you can copy and paste or type the exercise into the search engine. Or you can go to Google and copy and paste it in. And voila, it gives you videos showing you how to do the exercise.

And that right there gave me the confidence. I thought, "Okay, I'm watching them do this and taking mental notes. I'm going to go into the gym, or I can even bring these up in the gym. I can watch it three seconds before I do the exercise, and then I'm going to go do the exercise."

When you start taking action... I didn't have the clarity until I started doing the thing. So it was: workout, Pinterest, here's a cool back day workout. I don't know any of these moves. I could have easily given up. But no, I'm going to go Google them. I'm going to go watch them.

What I'm saying is that clarity comes as you start taking action. Clarity doesn't come from thinking about taking action. It doesn't come from waiting to take action. It comes from actually doing the damn thing and taking the action.

What I mean is, you don't need the perfect workout plan. You just need to go to the gym, move your body, or do what I just described. You don't need to know every macro calculation. You just need to start making better food choices. And like I said, you don't need to feel motivated. You need to build the damn discipline by showing up consistently.

You're not going to wake up motivated every single day. But what you can do is build a discipline muscle. It's like, "Okay, cool. Five second rule. I'm up. Man, I do not feel like going to the gym. But despite how I feel, despite my emotions and me not wanting to do this, I'm going to go do it anyway." And you show up.

Taking action, my friends, is what builds confidence. Taking action is what creates momentum. And once you start moving, you'll figure out the rest along the way. I promise. And who cares if you're not doing it perfectly? Who cares if you mess up? Who cares? It's up to you to start showing up for yourself. And the only one who's going to keep doing that is you. Nobody else is going to come save you or tell you what to do or control you. It is all in your hands.

All you need to do is take the action. And I promise you that is what's going to build confidence. You're like, "Okay, cool. I just went into the gym and did this back day workout. I had no idea what I was doing before, but I prepared myself to do it. And now I'm here inside the gym working out, and I feel confident in myself."

Or if you buy into a program, like joining WarriorBabe, don't even worry about the figuring-out part. You're still going to do the action part. But if you buy into a program and you have a coach putting the whole plan together and putting all the nutrition together for you, you don't have the guesswork I described of going to Pinterest and then YouTube and figuring out all these things. You literally have someone telling you exactly what to do. Then you just need to go take the action.

That's what I'm learning from all these success stories, and you can go watch them, like I said, on our website, warriorbabe.com. They said, "I felt like someone was in my corner when I joined WarriorBabe. Someone was holding me accountable, and I had to do all these things because if I didn't, I would let somebody down." Who wants to do that? So taking action in that way built confidence for them. That created momentum, and then they started getting the results they wanted.

All you need to do is start moving. If you're like me, jump into the room and then figure it out when you're in the room. I think that's probably one of the best things anyone has ever told me, because it's so accurate and so true. I have confidence in myself that I'm going to figure out the rest along the way. And so will you.

Now, maybe you're thinking, "Okay, I hear you, Nikkiey. I know I need to take action. But I'm stuck in my head." Or you want to do this, but you're allowing things to ruminate. There are excuses ruminating: "I can't do this. I'm afraid to do this. What if I fail?" Or you're thinking, "I get it, I need to stop waiting, but where do I even start?"

Here's what you need to do. You need to identify one specific thing. Just one thing that you can do right now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. Right now.

Here we go. Ready? Maybe you need to start drinking more water. If that's you, do that right now. Maybe today you need to go for a 10-minute walk. Go do that today. And this one's a little more advanced, but if you're like, "That's me, I'm going to jump into the room and figure it out," log your food for the day. If you're listening to this in the morning, I challenge you to get MyFitnessPal.

It takes two clicks. You open the App Store, you type in MyFitnessPal and you click download. Maybe three or four clicks. Regardless, it's really easy. Then you can open the app, instead of the other apps you open throughout your day, and just pay attention to MyFitnessPal for the day and start logging your food. The thing is, start small, but start right now.

The second thing you need to do is set a 24-hour goal. Instead of overwhelming yourself with a massive long-term goal, commit to one thing for the next 24 hours. Again, just one thing. So the one thing you can do right now could be logging, or drinking more water right now. Okay, I'm going to drink more water with you. How easy is this? I just drank more water. That was action. Maybe half a water bottle. Then go for a walk. Log your food. That's something you can do right now.

The point I'm trying to get across is that these short-term wins, and this is what I love to preach on, you can make every single day. You can do something like this every single day, and it will build into your long-term success.

And one last thing: stop thinking and just do it. Please, just stop thinking and just do it. Action will always beat overthinking. That's what I was talking about earlier with the five seconds, or jumping into a room and then figuring it out.

If you say you want this, if it's on your heart and on your mind, and then all of these other thoughts start to come up, "Can I do this? Am I enough? I don't follow through with things that I start," I know that and I feel that, because that used to be me. If that's you, you totally can. What you need to do is start taking action and stop overthinking. You don't need another program. You don't need another pep talk. You don't need another plan. You don't need another reason to wait. You just need to take the first step.

For some of you, that may be these small things. And some of you have seen WarriorBabe's ads multiple times, because I've heard this in the interviews as well. Maybe you've even seen them for a year now and you still haven't taken the action to join us. Maybe the first step you need is to set up a call with one of our enrollment advisors. Have a chat about what the program is even about. How can it serve you? How can you being a part of our community expand our community? Because it's a team. We work together as a team.

Some of you are not good fits for us, and some of you are great fits for us, and vice versa. But you won't know that until you set up a call. So do that. Go to warriorbabe.com, go apply and set up your call. Take the action.

Because here's the truth, you guys. Your future self, the one who is stronger, the one who's more confident, the one who's thriving, isn't waiting for the perfect time. She's waiting for you to start. So stop waiting. Stop making these excuses. Stop convincing yourself that later is the answer. "When everything is lined up, I'm going to be able to take on this program," or "I'm going to be able to start eating better," or "when my kids go back to school," or "when school ends," or "when spring break comes around," or "maybe next season." Later is just a lie we tell ourselves to avoid taking action.

Start now, my friends. Please, start now. Even if it's freaking messy. Even if it's small, like the points I mentioned. Even if you don't feel ready. Even if you don't think you're enough, or you feel like this is something you're going to start and never finish. Because taking action is the one thing that will change your entire life.

All right, guys. If this episode resonated with you, please send it to someone who needs a little extra push today. Maybe it's somebody who's living the same narrative and saying the same things as you, and you don't want to do that anymore, and you want her to come on board, or him, or your co-worker. You can be action and accountability partners. You could be the one who starts that whole thing, and it makes a change for both of you. So send this to somebody.

And if you're ready to stop waiting and start making real progress, check out WarriorBabe. Go to warriorbabe.com. Because the only thing standing between you and your goals is the decision to start.

All right, my friends, I love you all. I hope you enjoyed this podcast. Until next time, take action, stay consistent. I love you guys, and I'll see you in the next episode. Peace out.

Real quick: if this episode resonated with you or gave you the push you needed, I'd love for you to pay it forward. Drop a quick rating and review, share the podcast with someone who might need it, and help me keep spreading the word. Your feedback not only helps the show grow, but it might be the nudge someone else needs to kickstart their transformation. Thank you so, so, so much for your support. Thank you.