You know the feeling. You’re out with your friends, and they’re questioning how you can drag yourself out of bed every morning to train. They’re pressuring you to skip out on a session with your coach and have a night out instead. Or they’re telling you that you don’t need to watch your diet so much because one bad day doesn’t count.

All this sounds familiar, doesn’t it? We’ve all had - or have - friends who don’t understand our training journey. Sometimes it’s because they don’t get the sacrifices that contenders like you make to succeed. Other times, they don’t realize how important your goals are because you haven’t shared them.

Your friends should know what matters to you so they can support you every step of the way. Friends care about each other - why would they dismiss your training goals? If they do dismiss your ambitions, are they worth keeping in your social circle?

Here’s how friends can make or break your training-- if you let them-- and what to do about it if your buddies aren’t supportive like they should be.

Your Goals Matter

Okay, contenders. This is the most important thing:

Your goals matter.

It doesn’t matter what your goal is or why you care about something. All that matters is that it’s your goal, and you deserve to go after it. Whether you’ve always wanted to learn how to box, or you’re looking for a new challenge, or you’re out to find people who “get” your vibe, your ambitions count.

Be clear about what your goal is. That’s the first step. Once you take your own goals seriously, your enthusiasm is clear for others to see.

Remember, contenders, you’re all winners, but you’re also leaders. You’re inspirational. And inspirational people go after what matters to them, right?

Don’t let anyone tell you that your goals don’t matter.

What Happens When Your Friends Don’t Support Your Fitness Goals

When your friends question your fitness goals, it’s easy for self-doubt to creep in. It’s even easier to lose sight of your own ambitions and give up on them completely. This is what happens when you let your friends dictate your progress:

Motivation Drops

If you let your friends criticize your fitness goals, you’ll possibly lose interest in pursuing them. You might stop going to your group training sessions, or you might not even take that initial step inside the studio for your first meeting with a coach.

Once you stop training for a while, it’s even harder to get your head back in the game.

Doubt Takes Over

Do you ever find yourself wondering if your friends might be right, or that your goals are silly, or maybe you aren’t cut out for fitness after all? That’s what happens when you let self-doubt take hold. Success is a mental and physical commitment; there’s little room for self-doubt.

Bad Habits Accumulate

If your friends fail to take your goals seriously, they’ll encourage you to make choices that don’t align with your goals. For example, they’ll always insist on going to fast-food restaurants, or drinking calorie-dense alcohol, or staying out late when you should be resting up for a hard session.

Bad habits are very difficult to break, and they’ll derail your progress.

How to Tell if Your Friends are Sabotaging Your Training

Just because a friend comments on how much you train one time doesn’t mean that they’re interfering with your fitness goals. So, how can you tell when a friendship becomes toxic and holds you back from what matters?

• They make you feel guilty about how much time you spend at the gym, which means you think you must spend more time with them.
• Your journey becomes about them and how it makes them feel.
• They’re dismissive of your goals and say they don’t matter.
• Your friends tell you that you can’t achieve your goals for whatever reason and they encourage you to stop.
• They’re critical of your appearance and how your body is changing if, for example, you’re trying to add lean muscle mass and you’re looking more toned than usual.

If any of this behavior sounds familiar, it might be worth distancing yourself from the friendship. It’s no longer a healthy friendship if someone doesn’t support you reaching the positive, self-improvement-oriented goals that you care about.

How to Stay Focused and Stay Friends

Friendships are a two-way street, and unless you recognize toxic attitudes like those mentioned above, you shouldn’t throw away a good friend lightly. Here are tips for dealing with critical friends - or family - when it comes to your training goals.

Check Your Priorities

Most of the time, your training you should come first. However, if you’re truly pushing yourself too hard, your friends will be able to see it. Maybe you aren’t eating enough, and you don’t seem like yourself, or perhaps you aren’t sleeping because you’re worried about your training.

Always check in with yourself and make sure that you aren’t overtraining or spending too much time on your own at the studio. Contenders are self-aware and understand the difference between testing their limits and hurting themselves.

Stay Flexible

Winners find ways through every obstacle. There’s a solution to every problem, and the same goes for balancing a social life and training. Maybe you don’t always have to train right after work, and you could sometimes see your family instead, or perhaps you could move your Saturday afternoon session to the morning so you can see your friends later.

Remember, contenders - you can still have a life while smashing your fitness goals. That’s what being a contender is all about.

Be Calm and Honest

Sometimes, it’s best to explain where you’re coming from without apologizing for it. Here are some examples.

If you don’t want to miss a training session, explain that it’s “your” time and you’re not going to skip out on yourself. Or, you can explain that you’re working with a coach and they expect you to show up and train. Contenders don’t just speak up for what matters to them. They’re accountable, too.

Don’t want to cheat on your diet? Tell your friends that why your diet matters - maybe you need extra protein to retain muscle for getting stronger, or perhaps you’re trying to shed a few pounds, and you’d love it if they could support your efforts. You could also offer them some healthy recipes to prove that clean eating isn’t boring.

If your friends don’t understand your fitness goal, explain it to them. Tell them, for example, that you want to improve your conditioning and endurance by joining a group training session, or tell them that you’re working towards your first pull-up and you’re really excited to reach that goal. You could even encourage them to join you.

A simple explanation can make all the difference.

We Know Your Goals Matter

Here at Gloveworx, we know what it takes to be a winner, and we know that you’ve got what it takes.

The bottom line is that winners don’t let anyone stand between them and their goal, and it’s up to you to pursue your training ambitions regardless of how supportive and understanding your friends are.

If you feel like you need to find people who “get” you and care about your training journey, we’ve got just the thing at Gloveworx. Whether it’s 1-to-1 personal training or a coach-led group session, you’ll meet your fitness tribe here. Come and join us today.