Perfection Prevents Progress

Sometime last week I was having a discussion with one of my personal training clients. He had mentioned a family member of his who has some health issues from being overweight and sedentary.

Well why doesn’t he try coming here? My personal training studio is in Boonton and he lives right here in town. Why not take my free trial?

“He’s the type that wants to research, and plan, and make sure everything is perfect before doing anything.”

Planning is fine but not at the expense of taking action. You know when it comes to our health, weight loss etc. there is no shortage of information out there. Type it into google and watch the algorithms try to sell you all sorts of stuff ranging from pills to detoxifying teas to girls wearing bikini’s sticking out there butts and putting motivational quotes by it, while attempting to redirect you to their “only fans” page.

I wonder what type of content they have there.

And with all that information you can get something called “paralysis by analysis” with the sheer amount that is thrown at you. Using my own experience if I’m in a restaurant that has a ton of things on the menu, I often panic and just get the philly cheesesteak with onions.

My motivational speaking coach once told me “Most people spend their entire lives getting ready to get ready, and in doing so are never ready.”

Success likes speed, do it now and you can always adjust as you go.

You can spend your life looking for the perfect program, and though unlikely you might even find it.

But how long did that take? Let’s say you searched for 10 years looking for the perfect program to lose 50lbs in 3 months. That would be awesome!

Or you could get on an imperfect but still pretty good program and lose that same 50lbs in one year.

(Actually one of my recent personal training clients lost 20lbs in a month, but we’ll have to see if that rate of fat loss continues)

And trust me, I’ve worked as a personal trainer for about 15 years, and I have yet to find the perfect training program. Maybe it is out there and maybe I’ll find it and if I do, I’ll add it to my personal training program.

Perfection can often times be the enemy of pretty good. And pretty good is still pretty good.

As an example, a recent client of mine had been interested in my Amazing 12 Body Transformation Program. I had accepted him into what was my first wave but neither of us anticipated the rigors of having full-time employment, plus a fast food start-up and on top of that a pandemic with mandatory shutdown to interrupt the training cycle right smack in the middle (he was in week 6 out of 12 when I was forced to close my personal training studio).

We worked with what we had, and since he wasn’t able to follow the nutrition plan, or do the cardio homework, and often showed up late to the training sessions because of last minute things from employees (forcing me to cut things from the hour) despite that he still made good progress.

So basically 30% adherence. Oh well, let’s see what we got.

When we retested his strength gains here’s what he did.

An easy set of 10 reps with 10lbs heavier than his previous one repetition max on bench press.

Doubled his chin ups, was actually good for more.

Added 63lbs to his max deadlift.

And what I’m especially impressed with is he took his max military press and did 9 reps with a weight that was 25lbs heavier than what he could previously do for one.

Was his situation perfect?

No, but perfection is the enemy of pretty good, and in this case, I think pretty good is still amazing.

You could wait your entire life waiting for the optimal time to get started when in fact if you get started now, you can do pretty good. And pretty good is still pretty good.

And the thing is, you can get started now, make decent progress now and if you find that perfect plan you may not even need it by the time you find it.

If you are looking to get started on a plan designed to help you achieve your goals, I have a free trial membership of my personal training program so you can see if you like it before committing to anything. And no, I don’t take your credit card or anything like that until we both decide to make you a regular member. There really are no strings attached. Text me at 973 476 5328 to get started.


Eric Moss is a world-record-holding modern-day professional performing strongman, author, motivational speaker, and personal trainer. In the tradition of the strongmen more common during the turn of the century, he performs feats of strength such as bending steel and breaking chains as part of a show and speaks on goal achievement for corporations, nonprofits, government as well as for schools and universities. His exclusive personal training studio is located on Main Street in Boonton New Jersey, is close to Mountain Lakes, Denville, Montville and Parsippany New Jersey.

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