I’ll be honest: I haven’t written a blog post for a month.
I felt guilty about that. As a personal trainer, a mom, and the founder of NakaNaka Fitness, I felt like I had to be a constant source of “perfect” motivation. But the truth is, the last few months haven’t been perfect. They’ve been real.
Life happened. Between difficult family discussions, business rejections, kids getting sick, and the weight of feeling like nothing is moving forward, I found myself in a bad cycle. I was overeating, skipping my workouts, and feeling stuck at the “bottom of a jar.”
The “Bottom of the Jar” Feeling
My fitness journey was going so well until a medical procedure forced me to stop for a week. That one week of required rest was the pebble that started a landslide. My routine collapsed. As a trainer, the guilt was heavy: “If I’m lost, how can my clients trust me to lead them?”
But I realized that being 100% transparent is more professional than pretending to be a robot. Because if I can find my way out of the jar, I can show you how to do it, too.
I also remembered the core of why I started NakaNaka Fitness. NakaNaka (なかなか) in Japanese suggests that something is “quite good” or “more than expected,” even if it isn’t perfect. We aren’t robots. We are humans.
The Solution: The Power of the “Micro-Win”
I’ve realized that the most important step to breaking a bad cycle isn’t a “perfect day”—it’s finding one small achievement.
There is a massive psychological difference between doing nothing and doing one thing.
- Doing nothing keeps you in the cycle of guilt.
- Doing one thing proves to your brain that you are still in control.
Today, I couldn’t run because of my medical condition. In the past, I might have used that as an excuse to give up on the day entirely. Instead, I did the elliptical. It was low-impact. It wasn’t my “best” workout ever, but it was a Micro-Win. Even though my lunch wasn’t ideal, I feel completely different tonight because I chose that one achievement.
Moving from Guilt to Grace
We don’t live in a perfect world; we live in a real one. In the real world, things drag us down. When that happens:
- Take a Deep Breath: You are a human being, not a programmed machine.
- Solve One by One: Don’t look at the mountain of problems. Just look at the next hour.
- Find Your One Thing: Maybe it’s a 10-minute walk. Maybe it’s drinking one extra glass of water. Maybe it’s one smile.
- Accept the “NakaNaka” Good: My line has always been that nobody is perfect, but everyone is nakanaka (quite) good at something.
To my fellow Moms, Wives, and Dreamers
As a woman wearing many hats, I’m learning to embrace my own advice. Emotions will sometimes take control of how we behave, but they don’t have to define our future.
If you’ve been out of track, don’t wait for Monday. Don’t wait for the “perfect” energy. Just find one small achievement right now. That is where the climb out of the jar begins.
NakaNaka Fitness: Real life. Real struggles. One small win at a time. Because “quite good” is the best way to start toward “great.”
