So, you’re back. The holiday is over. You’ve been away. You’ve eaten too much. Drunk too much. Slept at weird times. Exercised less than you planned to. You probably told yourself you’d go for a run every morning. You didn’t. You packed your training kit. It stayed beautifully folded at the bottom of your suitcase for two weeks.

And now you’re home. You’ve opened the fridge, looked at yourself in the mirror and thought:

“Right. Monday.”

Here we go again. The problem is not that you went on holiday. The problem is that you’re waiting to feel ready to start again. And you might be waiting a while. Because getting back into a routine is hard. That first alarm feels harder. That first workout feels harder. Your body feels sluggish. Your fitness feels like it has disappeared.

Everything that felt automatic before the holiday suddenly feels like a massive effort. And this is exactly where most people get it wrong. They think they need motivation. You don’t. You need movement. You need to do something. Anything.

You need to put your shoes on and walk around the block. You need to do 20 minutes instead of 40. You need to lift some weights. You need to get on the bike. You need to press play on a workout. You need to stop negotiating with yourself. Because the longer you sit there waiting to feel like it, the harder starting becomes. Momentum works both ways. Do nothing for a few days, and doing nothing becomes easier.

Do nothing for a few weeks, and suddenly you’ve created a new routine. A routine of doing absolutely bugger all. And then we start telling ourselves stories.

“I’ll start next Monday.” 

“I’ll start when work calms down.”

“I’ll start when the kids are properly back at school.”

“I’ll start when the weather gets better.”

“I’ll start in August.”

Bullshit. You don’t need a perfect Monday. You need a Tuesday afternoon. Or a Wednesday morning. Or right bloody now. Just start. And here’s something else I think we need to understand. You haven’t lost everything.

A holiday doesn’t erase months or years of work. You haven’t suddenly become a different person because you ate too much pasta in Italy or drank too many glasses of wine somewhere beautiful. You had a holiday. Good.

I hope you enjoyed every bloody second of it. But now you’re back. So get back to work. Not with punishment. Not with some ridiculous starvation diet. Not by trying to train twice a day because you feel guilty. Just get back to the basics.

Move. Lift. Eat properly. Drink some water. Sleep. Repeat.And stop expecting the first week back to feel amazing. It probably won’t. The first session might feel terrible. Do it anyway. The second one might not feel much better. Do it anyway. Because something happens when you start stacking days again. One session becomes two. Two becomes three. Three becomes a week. And suddenly, without even realising it, you’re back. That’s the secret nobody wants to hear. There is no secret.You just have to start.

So if you’ve just come back from a long holiday and you’re sitting there feeling heavy, tired, unmotivated and slightly sorry for yourself… I can see you. You’ve had your fun. You’ve had your break. You’ve eaten the food. You’ve drunk the drinks. Brilliant. Now stop talking kak. Put your shoes on.And go and move.

You don’t need to be motivated to start. You need to start to become motivated.

Welcome home.Now get cracking.

Huge love and High 5’s
Johno