WHEN IT COMES to fitness and personal development, social media can be a double-edged sword.
On one hand, you’ve access to millions of personal trainers, nutritionists or even just fitness enthusiasts who are keen to share the wealth of their wisdom.
On the other though, especially on Instagram, you can be inundated with pictures of men and women with perfect bodies, following the perfect diet and leading the perfect life.
For some, that can be inspirational, but for most it’s off-putting as the aspirational can quickly become the unattainable if the journey appears too daunting.
That’s the view of Pat Divilly, Ireland’s leading wellness coach, whose new book ‘Upgrade Your Life’ focuses not just on the destination but on taking that all-important first step.
“Traditionally in the fitness model, you go on Instagram and you see guys and girls with six packs and, for someone who hasn’t trained in a while, that’s the furthest thing away from what they think is possible,” Divilly told The42 this week.
“But rather than being inspired, it actually makes them judge themselves and beat themselves up and then it’s a vicious cycle where they don’t take any action.
“So the basic thing I would tell people is that it’s great to have a vision, but that the vision can never happen unless you take the first step.
“That’s what I’m trying to do now with the personal development stuff. In fitness, I used to give people three free classes so they could adapt to the environment and see how much they enjoyed it and come back.
“I fear the thing that holds people back in life, and it gets worse with age, is that it gets scarier and scarier, they want to get fit and go to the gym but the longer they wait the more intimidating it gets.”
The Galway-native knows a thing or two about how difficult the first step can be as it was only on the third attempt that his fitness business really got off the ground.
“I was in England for a year trying to get a one-to-one fitness business off the ground and it just didn’t work out for me so I decided to go home and give it one last chance down here (Barna).
“The community aspect of it just made it popular quickly and I soon took it from local here in Galway, to other locations, to opening a gym, to starting an online course and, of course, that’s been the big thing in having 11,000 people worldwide do that course for the past few years.”
While Divilly’s client base is varied, they tend to be people who have lost a little self-confidence and just need a nudge in the right direction.
“I think the reason my method works is that most people need some form of encouragement because often they don’t get it in other areas. Because of that, my focus is always on giving them a bit of momentum or a bit of encouragement.
“We have very different clients from 18-year-olds right up to 80-year-olds but, to be honest, most of our clients are a little bit older, maybe ten years out of college and who have lost a bit of confidence as they have not been in the gym in a while.
“For most of them, maybe the gym was a little intimidating so it’s mostly about giving them a little push and allow them to get the confidence they had when they were younger.”
In ‘Upgrade Your Life’ Divilly focuses on the five main pillars of life and how to go about making changes in any or all of them.
“The first pillar is your physical health and mental health. The idea there is that, if you don’t look after yourself, you can’t look after your family as best you can, you can’t have a great career.
I think people have this illusion that it’s somehow selfish to look after yourself but that’s not true.
“Pillar two is relationships. The relationships in your life need to be worked on. I’ve seen people who have long marriages come to an end because they haven’t been able to make the small changes needed to keep their relationship working.
“The third pillar would be career and finances. You spend a third of your life working but are you doing what you love? If not, how can you tweak things?
“I’m not telling people they need to quit their job in the morning, that’s not practical, but how can they improve their working life with subtle shifts to make it more enjoyable, profitable or purposeful.
“Number four is adventure. This is the so-called bucket list things, the stuff you always put off until tomorrow. Granted they tend to be things that cost a lot of money which means we can’t do them right now but, I know with myself, there are others that you can start acting on now that can come true some day.
“The fifth and final one then is contribution and how do you give back when you’ve achieved success. Whether that’s through charity or sharing your story. That’s how you’re going to be remembered after all.”
And, Divilly says, the key to it all is focusing on taking that very first step while keeping the end goal in mind.
“A year ago I would have been talking to people about having big dreams and big visions and that’s still true but if you’re stuck in a rut, or haven’t moved forward in any way in the past couple of years, it’s very difficult to have faith in yourself that you can achieve the big vision.
“But if you think about it on a day-to-day level, it becomes easier.
So if you’re trying to lose weight, you don’t focus on the amount, you say to yourself, today I’m going to do five sit-ups or five press-ups and then tomorrow you say ten and so on.
“But we’ve got this constant need to have a plan when, really, it’s about the smaller steps.”
Upgrade your Life by Pat Divilly is available to buy now.
