Mental Blocks

Let’s talk about the “mental block.”

“I have a mental block around tracking calories.”

“I know what to do, but I have some kind of block around starting.”

Here’s what I’ve noticed after years of coaching: it’s rarely a block.

It’s actually a feeling that hasn’t been named yet.

A block sounds like something that happened to you - it’s out of your hands and you have no control.

But most of the time it isn’t a block.

It’s simply discomfort.

And discomfort has a cause.

Strength training can feel exposing when you’re new. Tracking can feel exposing when you’re scared of the number.

Those are real, but they’re not blocks. You just feel uncomfortable.

A block means stuck, whereas a feeling means uncomfortable - and uncomfortable is not the same as impossible.

(Important note: if your resistance runs deeper than discomfort, tied to real trauma around food or your body, that’s a different conversation, and it deserves real support from a professional, not a pep talk from a coach)

The following is a cliché, but it’s the truth: there's no growth without discomfort.

You have to do the hard thing if you want the results.

If you don't want to do the hard thing, you don't get to complain about not getting the results.

But you don’t get through discomfort by white-knuckling it once and hoping it never comes back.

You get through it the same way you’d get through anything unfamiliar: in smaller doses than you think you need.

Even if it feels like it wouldn’t lead to any results.

For example, you could go to the gym and walk on the treadmill for ten minutes. That's it. You don't have to touch a single dumbbell. Just get comfortable in the gym environment.

Or you could do the first beginner-level bodyweight workout you find on YouTube.

You could do ten bodyweight squats right now, wherever you’re reading this.

You could track protein only today. Just protein - nothing else.

None of these fix anything by themselves. But that’s not the point.

The point is proof. Proof that you can do the small, uncomfortable version and survive it.

Do that enough times, and the discomfort stops being the thing that decides what you do. It probably won’t disappear, but it will shrink.

After all, the women who get results aren’t the ones who stopped feeling uncomfortable. They're the ones who stopped waiting for it to disappear before they started anyway.

So next time a “mental block” comes up, ask a different question.

Not “why can't I do this?”

But “what am I actually avoiding, and what's the smallest version of it I could do today?”