I heard Thomas Plummer speak in Chicago and the guy is a genius when it comes to having a successful career in business, particularly fitness. One thing he said that stuck with me was that the more successful you become, the more new friends you will have to get. Now, this is not entirely true and is a bit of an exaggeration but the general premise of what he said holds true and ties in to what I just said. If you want to be successful, you have to have passion, drive and determination and have to surround yourself with other successful, like minded people. Wanna be an out of shape alcoholic who acts like he/she is still in high school when their 30, who's only priority is partying every night and making negative comments about others? Then hang out with those people. Wanna have a great, healthy body and have a successful career and life with goals to strive for every day? Then hang out with other positive people who strive for excellence every single day of their lives.
To apply this to exercise, wanna have an imbalanced body with pain, fat and no real goals to reach? Continue doing nothing but workout videos, magazine routines and sitting on the elliptical. Keep listening to your friends who think they know what they are talking about because they read muscle and fitness. Oh, maybe even bust out the shake weight!! That will get you where you want to be for sure!!
The fact of the matter is that most of what is popular in the fitness world is complete crap and will get you absolutely nowhere. So, do you really want to reach your goals? Then work with someone who is qualified and knows their stuff (most celebrity trainers do not) and who can get you to where you need to go. Read a legit book or two, read credible articles and do research. Try different and new things and break away from the norm! Instead of copying Bob who has done the exact same useless routine for the last 5 years and looks the same as he did back then, break away and be different.
There are plenty of tried and true methods to reach any goal imaginable with training. It takes hard work, dedication and passion but that is what makes being successful so great. Not everybody can do it. So, take some initiative and make some goals for yourself. If you have no goal or rationale for what you are doing, then you are only wasting your time. Find some positive people to hang around with who will inspire you to be positive as well. If the people you hang around with do nothing but act negative, try to bring you down for what you do and basically act like complete pricks then maybe its time to find some different friends. Believe it or not, there are plenty of people out there who will inspire and support you for what you wanna do. This applies to a lot more than just exercise.
In closing, set some goals and get some priorities; you might just be a lot happier and a lot more successful. BE DIFFERENT!!!!!