I'm Sam Wood, and this is your motivational moment for this week, and we are talking progress, not perfection. So I want to tell you a little story. When I first started my twenty eighth program back in twenty sixteen, I was two weeks into the program and I was doing a daily video to my twenty eight ers and sending it to them on their little app, something I still do to this day. And I pulled into the
supermarket and it was about nine o'clock at night. I was on my way home from my gym Snares and Eve hadn't moved to Melbourne yet, so I was still living the bachelor life where I could kind of go home at whatever time I wanted. It didn't really impact anyone else. I pulled into the supermarket to get dog food for my dog Hendrix on the way home, and I proceeded to not only get his dog food, but
also a lead of chocolate ice cream. And I sat there and I got my phone out and I did a video to my twenty eight ers where I showed them that I'd bought the leader of chocolate ice cream and that I was heading home and couldn't wait to get into it. And It was by far the most popular video I had done to them at that stage, and it was just so beautiful to see that people needed to see that I was real, and the relief
to people that we didn't have to be perfect. And it really really dawned on me at that moment that the reason I don't like so many exercise programs, not all, but so many, and the reason I think they do more harm than good in some cases is they are extreme and they practice perfectionism, which is the total wrong thing to do. If something isn't enjoyable, it's not sustainable, and if something isn't deable, what is the point in
doing it. That's where I've shifted my whole philosophy, my whole workout philosophy, particularly in my thirties and beyond I'm now forty one, has been to move away from that extreme lifestyle where you have to work out for sixty minutes plus every day, and every workout you have to smash yourself so you can barely walk down the stairs at the end of the workout, and you can't drink alcohol, and you can't drink coffee, and you can't eat carbs,
and you're depriving yourself of everything that you enjoy, and guess what. Eventually, some people last longer than others. The damn walls break, you throw the towel in, you feel deflated, you feel defeated, and you go back to a worse
position than when you first started. I always explain it to people when i'm explaining progress not perfection, that you should be a seven, eight, or nine out of ten with your food and a seven, eight or nine of ten with your exercise, not a ten out of ten in either, because neither of those are enjoyable, neither of those are sustainable. Now, the reason I give a seven, eight or nine range is it depends on where you're at. If you want quicker weight loss goals, then you probably
should be closer to a nine. If you're happy for it to take a little bit longer and you're a little bit more relaxed about it, you should be at a seven. Now. I'm sure some people are listening, going, well, i'll be at a two now. There's a point where you can't be at a two because that's actually not there's not going to be any progress there. It's going to be either going backwards. It's going to be regression not progression, or best case, you're going to stay where
you are. So I typically think you need to be a seven or eight out of ten, and you've got
to have the ability to change gears. If it's the start of a little challenge that you're doing to yourself, you might be a nine out of ten, and then you have the ability to change gears and go back to an eight out of ten or a seven out of ten once you've got that initial momentum and you've got those initial results, as long as you have the ability to go back a gear so that it becomes more enjoyable and more sustainable, because progress not perfection, I
promise you, is the only way to get long term habits and the only way to have long term success. Sometimes you might reach a level of your health that you're really happy with. I'm exercising three or four times a week. I'm lean, but I don't care about having a six pack. It's not for me, and I function and feel great because really, let's not forget how we feel and how we function is more important than how
we look. So my whole philosophy, the philosophy of my twenty eight program, the philosophy that I've lived by with my personal training over a two decade span has been progress, not perfection. And if I can leave you no other motivational moment than this one, this is the one I want to remember. So my task, as I always give you on with these motivational moments for this week, is simple.
I want you to evaluate where you are at from a food score out of ten and where you are at with an exercise score out of ten, and I want you to make an improvement. Unless you're already at a nine out of ten, then just keep doing what you're doing. But if you're at a six, go to a seven. If you're at a seven, go to an eight. And find that place where you are still enjoying life, but you are really proud of the results and the
progress that you're making. Because when you can find that balance, that's when you know you're in the right spot.