Overwhelmed by Fitness Advice? You Need an Action Plan, Not a Perfect Plan
Quick Summary
- There is no “perfect” workout plan. Nobody can know what perfect looks like in advance. If you’re too afraid to start and make a mistake, it will keep you stuck at the starting line.
- Build an action plan instead: 1 or 2 small actions this week, and everything else blocked out for now.
- Action is what teaches you. Three weeks of imperfect reps will tell you more about what fits your life than three months of research ever could.
Do you ever feel like you’re stuck at the starting line?
You want to improve your health and fitness. But there’s so. much. going. on.
Every time you try to make a plan, you get 1,000 opinions on the “perfect” workout. The “perfect” diet. The “perfect” routine.
You’re not sure where to start or what to do.
So you freeze.
I hear this story so often that I gave it a name. And a face. 
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(h/t to Leo, our awesome illustrator who makes these images for us from scratch! 
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Meet Major Overload.
He’s every fitness voice on the internet at once.
Do this. Never do that. Fasted cardio. Never fasted cardio. Carbs are fine. Carbs are the enemy.
The Major loves it when you have 100 tabs open on your browser, but haven’t done a workout yet.
He wants to keep you plugged in to The Matrix. He feeds off of you staying stuck in planning mode while he drains your batteries.
My client Eric ran into him a few months ago.
He’d spent weeks searching for “best at-home workouts to lose fat”.
In his words:
I know exactly how that feels.
It’s the way I felt when I tasked myself with running Nerd Fitness’s Instagram.
A million different opinions on how to do it. Hours spent researching. And weeks later, I still hadn’t filmed an actual video yet.
I was firmly stuck in analysis paralysis.
Same boss battle as Eric. Different rabbit hole.
What got me unstuck was the same thing that helped Eric.
It wasn’t finding the “perfect” strategy or plan.
It was two decisions.
1) Follow one plan and block out everything else for now.
2) Commit to taking some small action, most days of the week.
The first one turned Major Overload’s volume down.
I didn’t need every voice. I needed a simple starting point. One that didn’t have a gajillion hoops to jump through.
The second one is where the learning actually happened.
I didn’t have to be perfect. I had to commit to imperfect reps.
I’ve learned more from a couple of weeks of posting than from all the agonizing I did beforehand.
Here’s what I told Eric, and what I’d tell you, too:
There is no “perfect” plan
Unless you’re Doctor Strange, scrubbing through 14 million possible futures to find the one where everything works out, you can’t know what perfect looks like. Neither can I. Nor anyone on the internet, no matter how loud they get.
Luckily, you don’t need a perfect plan.
You need an action plan.
Enough structure to get out there and do the thing. Not so convoluted that you never get started.
That’s why we built the Beginner Bodyweight Workout and our Strength Training Templates.
So you stop getting stuck at the starting line, and start putting in the reps.
Moving from planning to action does two things at once.
It breaks the inertia, and it teaches you what fits in YOUR life.
And that’s where the real magic happens.
It’s where you learn that, actually, training later in the evening works better for you than trying to force yourself up at 5AM.
It’s how you discover that splitting your workout up into two 15-minute chunks works better for your schedule.
Or that you prefer training with weights to training with bands.
You won’t know those things until you get out there and try.
It’s just as important to learn what DOESN’T work for you as what does.
Three weeks of taking imperfect action will tell you more about what works for you than three months of listening to Major Overload ever could.
Here’s what I want you to walk away with
Instead of searching for the “perfect” plan, build your action plan.
1 or 2 actions you can take this week, small enough to test and see how they feel.
- A short bodyweight workout
- A free trial session at your local gym
- A recipe you bookmarked to prep this week
- A lean protein at each meal
That’s exactly what we did with Eric.
We mapped out his first few action steps. Things that fit his life, and he felt confident doing.
And now? He’s 4-months in and training consistently. Not perfectly. Consistently.
And that’s made all the difference for him. 
One more thing about Eric’s story I want to leave you with. He also shared this with me as part of our conversation:
That’s something else I hear all the time. And it’s nothing to be ashamed of!
Sometimes, the bravest thing you can do is to ask for help when you need it.
That’s the whole reason we’re here.
When you’re stuck at step one, overwhelmed by information and not sure what’s worth your time, that’s exactly where a coach can help.
We build a program around you: your schedule, your equipment, your starting point. And then we help you run it and adjust as you learn.
If that sounds like what you’ve been looking for, here’s my invitation:
Fill out this short form. Someone from our team will reach out to have a real conversation about whether NF Coaching is a good fit for you.
And if it’s not a fit? We’ll tell you that too, and point you in the right direction.
Either way, the goal is to get you out of analysis paralysis and moving forward.
Take that, Major Overload!
-Matt
TLDR: Build an action plan, not a “perfect” plan. Commit to something simple to start. Learn and build from there. And if you want guidance from a coach who’s been through it all before, here’s how to work with us.
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