Have you ever had moments of dissatisfaction with how your fitness level is progressing, but the feeling seems to come out nowhere?

Let’s say you have been making better decisions with your food choices, you’re not pulling through the drive thru as often as you have before, and you’re spending more days of the week being physically active than not. The gym seems like a second home, but, for some reason, in the quiet moments at night, you get this out-of-the-blue feeling of dissatisfaction and it consumes you. Why is that?

Do you want to know a little secret?

This feeling is triggered by actual marketing strategies used against us. The single most applied marketing strategy “outside” influences, such as magazines and TV commercials, use is known as the Degree of Dissatisfaction. If it is implemented correctly, this strategy creates a subtle feeling of being unhappy with yourself in the hopes that you go and spend money on attaining some better level of life.

A perfect example of this strategy can be seen in your everyday, run-of-the-mill exercise infomercial.

Pretend you’re at home late at night, and you’re channel surfing. You come across a commercial with an attractive person with perfectly chiseled muscles posing for the camera.

Now pause for a moment and notice that before you stopped on the commercial you really weren’t thinking about yourself or your body. You were content scanning the channel listings, but, as you continue to watch this amazing Greek god, you begin to compare yourself to the image on the screen.

Suddenly, the narrator of the commercial starts a conversation with you asking a series of introspective questions.

“Are you happy with how you look? Wish you had the body of your dreams?”

This is how it starts, and all the work you’ve done to make good choices begins to crumble.

You begin to critique and criticize yourself because you don’t look like the actor in the commercial. Now, remember, the commercial is not responsible for you questioning yourself, so they cannot be held liable for anything other than reaping the benefits.

As the commercial continues, you go from being neutral to now being displeased in your current state of mind as you find yourself agreeing with the TV. Then, just before you go into a state of hopelessness, the commercial promises a solution to your dissatisfied body and offers you opportunity to mold yourself into a better body and a better life. While you’re considering the solution, you’re inundated with examples of other people who were once like you and are now living and feeling better about themselves — all thanks to an incredible product or service.

The infomercial is just one example where you’re attacked and made to believe that you’re not good enough and that somewhere “out there” a better and happier version of you exists.

We need to break through these false entrapments. We need to remain satisfied with who we are in our uniqueness and start loving ourselves again.

Fitness begins with being able to love all of you and only you.

The next challenge is to find a gym or a coach who cares for the betterment of you and who can bring out the strongest version you.

I believe you can do it.