if you hate working out, you’re probably doing it wrong.

And by doing it wrong, I mean you’re probably focusing on the wrong goals. Allow me to unpack this bold claim.

As someone who grew up in the thick of diet culture—The Biggest Loser phenomenon, heroin chic, magazine covers that screamed “lose 10 pounds fast!”—I was sold and bought into everything that diet culture threw at me, primarily that workouts existed for one purpose: to manipulate your body and make you smaller.

My ultimate fitness goal was to lose weight, be smaller, and take up less space. For me, that meant cardio every day, lots of time on the treadmill or elliptical, hating all of my life’s choices.

Not to mention, every workout had to meet very specific metrics—X number of minutes, X many calories, X visible results—or it didn’t count.

When movement becomes a math equation or punishment for what you ate, it stops feeling like a gift and starts feeling like a chore. It’s exhausting fighting the uphill battle of body control. It’s defeating to chase an aesthetic goal and constantly feel like you’re coming up short. You hate the process, dread the effort, and grow resentful of the whole thing—because, let’s be honest, it sucks and it’s definitely not sustainable.

What if the problem isn’t you?

What if the problem is the story you were told about what exercise has to be?

We have to shift the narrative.

What if the goal didn’t have anything to do with weight, changing your body, or losing weight?

What if the goal was to feel 1% better than you did yesterday? To improve your mood, sleep, physical, and mental health? To be strong for your old lady body? To do life with less pain and more joy?

And by shifting that goal, that would mean you didn’t have to do 45 minutes of high-intensity misery if you didn’t want to.

• You could just go for a walk for an undetermined amount of time while listening to your favorite podcast.

• You could join a spin class with friends because it sounded fun, but also allow yourself to leave halfway through because you just weren’t feeling it.

• You could aim to lift weights for 60 minutes, but instead do 20 minutes and feel absolutely content with that. Because again, the goal was not to complete a time, but to show up and get 1% stronger than the day before.

What if movement didn’t have to change your body, but just connect you to it?

You might not love working out. And I’m not saying you have to.

I do love working out, but I’d be lying if I said I love it every day. I don’t.

Sometimes I don’t want to do it. But, because I’m not chasing a smaller body or a shrinking number on the scale, it helps me lean into what my body needs. I slow down my walk instead of power walking. I lighten my weights instead of going for a PR. I opt for a nap instead of a workout.

I show up with a something over nothing mindset because I know that movement helps me do life better. Making that shift changes everything. It allows for more compassion, imperfection, and grace.

Have you ever felt like you had to “start over” after falling off the wagon? Here’s a hard, but honest truth: the wagon doesn’t exist. It never has. You can’t fall off something that was never real.

So instead of punishing yourself for missed workouts or trying to “catch up,” just pick up from where you are right now. You haven’t failed—you’ve been living.

This is the beauty of shifting your goal away from weight loss or body control. You get to decide what movement looks like for you today. Maybe that’s a walk or run. Maybe it’s ten minutes of stretching instead of a grueling 45 minutes of HIIT. Maybe it’s rest.

Movement becomes something you get to do, not something you have to do to earn your worth.

That’s the shift. That’s how you stop hating your workout and start appreciating how it makes you feel—maybe even starting to like moving your body, and eventually falling in love with what your body can do

What would your workouts look like if they were built for your life, not someone else’s standards?

Could that help you shift your goal from body-focused to life-focused—from changing how you look to changing how you live?

When movement feels like it belongs in your life, it turns into something you can hold onto forever and becomes something you might actually love.