Imagine this scenario: you've set a goal to run a marathon. You've meticulously planned your training schedule, diet, and rest days. But as the big day approaches, you catch a cold. Despite your best efforts, you're unable to perform at your peak. This story illustrates a common truth in fitness and life: we can't control outcomes. We can only control our effort.

It's easy to be frustrated by outcomes, but understanding and accepting that outcomes aren't guaranteed can be a game-changer for anyone pursuing fitness or health goals. Let's dive into why focusing on effort rather than outcomes can lead to more sustainable and fulfilling progress.

Acknowledging Our Drive to Control

As humans, we often find ourselves driven by an inherent desire to control outcomes in various aspects of life. Whether it's our careers, relationships, or health and fitness goals, the need to direct and manage situations is a fundamental part of our nature. Here are just a few of the reasons why.

It’s a survival mechanism. Early humans who could predict and influence their environment were more likely to survive and thrive. This survival mechanism still influences our behavior today, prompting us to seek stability and predictability.

It reduces anxiety. When we feel in control, we reduce the fear of the unknown and its associated stress. Knowing that we have a say in our outcomes provides comfort and security. These are basic human needs, so it’s understandable that we seek them. One downside is that control may actually increase anxiety in the long term, but that’s a different topic altogether.

It gives us a sense of accomplishment. Control can also boost our sense of self-efficacy, which is the belief in our ability to accomplish a goal or task. Self-efficacy is confidence that we can navigate challenges, overcome obstacles, and achieve our desired outcomes. It is a crucial aspect of our motivation, behavior, and resilience.

Understanding the Limitations of Control

In the realm of fitness, our desire to control often translates into setting specific goals, such as losing a certain amount of weight, achieving a specific body fat percentage, fitting into a particular clothing size, lifting a particular weight, or running a set distance within a time frame.

The hard truth is that even if we do our best, various factors beyond our control can impact these outcomes. These include genetics, environmental influences, life events, mental and physical health, and unforeseen circumstances like injuries or illnesses. The result is that when we focus solely on results, we set ourselves up for potential disappointment and frustration.

We Control Less Than We Think

I'll be honest here—shit happens. You will miss workouts. You will fail lifts. You will struggle with form on some exercises. The gym will be closed. Someone will be in the squat rack for an hour on a day when you need it. You will go off your diet. You will screw up your food tracking. Your prepped food may go bad. You will be in situations where good food choices aren't available. 

You can't control these things. However, you can control how you respond to them. You can get frustrated and throw in the towel. You can skip exercises, skip workouts, eat a bunch of crap, not even try to get some protein, and whatever else.

Or you can respond in a way that aligns with your goals. You can accept what is, be flexible, and compromise. You can put forth some effort rather than zero effort. It may not make a tremendous difference in the short term, but over time, the sum of multiple "some efforts" vastly outperforms the sum of zero.

Focusing On Outcomes Can Backfire

Highly valuing outcomes isn't a bad thing. It can be an excellent quality. However, focusing on them exclusively can actually detract from our level of effort. This is especially true if we're black-and-white thinkers, as we may get discouraged by a lack of progress or a rate of progress we don't like and figure, "What's the point?" and give up altogether. 

Then what happens? Nothing, that's what. See, effort unlocks everything. It is the singular factor that we can control and that drives our progress. So we should do everything we can to facilitate effort. Speaking of progress, let's delve into that next.

The Power of Focusing on Effort

If you think about it, what specific actions will help you achieve your goal? Let's say you want to lose 10 pounds. How will you make that happen? You might think, "Eat healthier and exercise more," but what does that mean? Be specific.

What does eating healthier look like? What foods will you eat? What amounts? When will you eat? Will you cook your meals yourself? What days and times will you cook? What's your plan to accomplish all the actions that go into eating healthier?

What is your exercise plan? What type of exercise will you do, and is it appropriate for your goal? On which days will you exercise? At what time? Where will you exercise? What's your plan to accomplish all the actions that go into exercising more?

As you can see, outcomes require multiple tasks, most with subtasks. We need a plan that lays out daily actions we can take to ensure these things get done—and those actions must be achievable.

Why Acceptance Allows Us to Improve

Love it or hate it, we are where we are. Whether we have gained weight, become out of shape, failed to meet our goals, or experienced any other regrettable outcomes, all we can do is accept what has happened and take the next step.

Accepting everything may sound defeatist, but we should not confuse it with indifference or resignation. True acceptance is about acknowledging reality without losing hope or abandoning the pursuit of positive change. It requires courage, not avoidance. It enables us to embrace the present, learn from it, and move forward.

Here’s what I mean. When was the last time that berating yourself to change worked out for you in the long run? I can’t think of a time when it did for me. It may light a fire under you in the short term, sure.

But does resisting the reality of your situation actually encourage you to commit for the long term to the daily actions that lead to change? Or does it leave you burned out and ready to give up when something doesn’t work out as planned?

Acceptance isn’t about throwing in the towel. It’s about not fighting yourself and getting in your own way. Clear the road; you’ve got work to do. That is how you move forward. With that said, let’s get back to effort.

What Does Effort Look Like?

Once we've clearly defined our goals and accepted our situation, it's time to roll up our sleeves and put our energy into doing the daily things that will get us where we want to be. Here are some examples of daily efforts we can take:

• Showing up for scheduled workouts

• Working harder in our workouts over time

• Eating a cup of veggies with every meal

• Eating a palm of protein with every meal

• Meal prepping for the week on Sunday afternoons

These actions are specific and actionable and lead to results. Consistent effort may not always bring immediate results. Still, it will lead to some change and build resilience and discipline—qualities that undoubtedly lead to behaviors and habits that create results.

Practical Tips for Cultivating Effort

To help you embrace the power of effort in your fitness journey, here are some actionable tips:

Set realistic goals. Break down your larger objectives into smaller, more manageable tasks you can control. Don't try to tackle it all at once, though. Start with just one or two daily tasks or changes to focus on, then add to that over time.

Track your progress. Keep a journal or use an app to track your workouts and nutrition. Tracking your progress can help you stay accountable to yourself, recognize patterns in your behavior, and make course corrections when needed.

Practice mental flexibility. Life is unpredictable. Be prepared to adjust your plans as needed and accept that setbacks are part of the journey. Always try to find a compromise rather than giving up when situations aren't ideal.

Find support. Surround yourself with a supportive community—whether it's friends, family, or an online group. Sharing your experiences and challenges can provide encouragement and accountability.

Focus on enjoyment. Choose exercises and eating strategies that you genuinely enjoy. There are multiple paths to your goal, so if one doesn’t work for you, try another. Consistently putting in effort becomes much easier when you find joy in the process.

What to Do If You're Outcome Driven

If you are strongly outcome-oriented, value clear benchmarks for success, and enjoy tracking outcomes, I can relate. I'm a data geek myself. If you struggle to stay motivated without focusing on outcomes, I get where you're coming from.

If you find the process stuff dreadfully dull, I get that, too. Logging workouts, tracking calories and macros, sticking with your eating and training plan even when it's not fun, getting to bed early, etc., can be mundane.

But that's just the reality of fitness. Achieving a muscular and lean physique, getting strong, or whatever your goal may be, is not an exciting process. It's the sum of many years of consistent daily actions. If we are overly invested in the outcome, it's easy to lose sight of what will get us there, or let emotions about our progress lead us to behave in a self-defeating way.

The bottom line is that if you're all about outcomes, that's totally fine. It's great to set goals for specific outcomes and clearly define them. Tracking is excellent, too. Just don't let it detract from your daily actions and habits.

Conclusion

In both fitness and life, outcomes are often beyond our control. But by focusing on the effort we invest, we’ll learn to navigate challenges, respond flexibly, and choose behaviors that align with our goals.

We can only control so much, and it’s probably less than we think. So, don't be shackled to outcomes. Instead, put all your energy into your daily actions. Effort is the one constant you can rely on—make it your greatest asset.