Goldilocks Syndrome: The Reason Why You Aren’t Successful
“If I can’t go to the gym, then what’s the point of fitness at all? Might as well just forget about eating nutritious food and home workouts.
“If I cheated on my diet by having a cookie, then I’ll just cheat the rest of the day and skip the gym because there’s no point.”
“If my shoulder is injured, then I’m just going to skip the gym altogether since I can’t make all the gains I want.”
“If I don’t have the best equipment/genetics/insert your scapegoat here, then I’m not even going to bother.”
How many times have you heard lines like these?
If you’ve been around the fitness industry for any decent amount of time, chances are, A LOT.
If the stars don’t perfectly align and if people don’t have everything “juuuuuust right“, then they lose hope and see no point to doing much of anything at all.
If they can’t have 100%, then 0% is the only logical alternative.
EVERYTHING. HAS. TO. BE. JUST. RIGHT.
This is what I call Goldilocks Syndrome.
Yes, Goldilocks. That blond-headed little girl who breaks into the house of a family of bears and proceeds to try out all their stuff and taste all their food and isn’t content until it’s “juuuuust right.“
Well, that Goldilocks Syndrome is a nasty disease, my friend. And you need to cure yourself of it because it’s holding you back and crushing your potential.
Goldilocks Syndrome
The problem with Goldilocks Syndrome is self-evident:
Just because you don’t have everything “perfect” doesn’t mean that it’s not going to be effective or worthwhile.
Just look at the common examples I used at the beginning of this post:
Just because you don’t have gym access doesn’t mean that you can’t make solid gains from a home workout with minimal equipment. Muscle growth is dependent on intensity of effort through a full range of motion for a given muscle, not what fancy equipment you have or where you perform the workout.
Just because you slip up and have a cookie doesn’t mean that you’re a failure, going to gain 100lbs, and that getting back on track for the rest of the day isn’t worthwhile. That’d be like driving your car into a lake because a pebble kicked up and chipped your front bumper.
Just because your shoulder is injured doesn’t mean that you can’t train legs or get creative with your workouts to get good results without stressing your shoulder.
Just because you don’t have the right equipment/genetics/whatever doesn’t mean that you can’t do as much as you can with what you DO have and make the best of it.
And that’s really the key of this issue:
Do WHAT YOU CAN with WHAT YOU HAVE right NOW.
So what if you can’t be at 100%?
55% is better than 0%. 85% is better than 0%. 10% is better than 0%!
Is is not?
I may not have the secrets to success, but I can tell you what ain’t it: Doing NOTHING.
So next time you feel yourself catching a case of Golidlocks Syndrome, check yourself, remind yourself of the possibilities and opportunities you DO have, and get yourself back on track.
The worst enemy you have is oftentimes yourself.
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