Here’s a hard pill to swallow: it’s impossible to stop your mind from generating thoughts when you’re training, even if they’re really negative.

And here’s another: you’re gaslighting yourself if you constantly tell yourself that it’s stupid to think these things; and anyone who tells you that “you should just block the thoughts out” is also gaslighting you. Because let’s be real, when was the last time you proactively chose to passionately attend to thoughts such as “why the f*** do I look like a gremlin in the gym, whilst everyone else looks so classy?”?… Thought so.

The reality is that it’s perfectly normal to struggle with unwanted intrusive and aggressive thoughts that revolve around self-comparison of performance and/or physique, and self-criticism. And yes, we’ve all been told (or told ourselves) that most people don’t care about what you’re doing in the gym… (when did that ever stop you from worrying about others’ opinions?! It rarely works for me, that’s for sure).

But some people do care, and some people will judge you! And although you have literally no control over what other people think of you, you can choose to control whether your assumptions about other people’s thoughts get in the way of you showing up and doing what matters, or not.

So what on earth am I supposed to do then when these thoughts paralyse me?

Start with ACCEPTANCE
The first and most important thing I suggest you do in order to overcome the fear of “what will others’ think” at the gym, is to ACCEPT that you will have some critical intrusive thoughts, and accept that you cannot control other people’s minds and judgements.

I usually break down acceptance into three steps, called the 3As of acceptance (of note, I didn’t make this up – this is a technique from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy):

(1)Acknowledge the thoughts that are there
Name what you’re noticing (e.g., thoughts of other people judging me, critical thoughts of “why the f*** did I eat that chocolate last night because now my clothes are clinging to me, etc).

(2)Allow the thoughts to be there – 
Don’t fight them or get tangled up in them, as often they behave like quicksand (become harder to get out of the more you fight them)

(3)Accommodate those thoughts 
Metaphorically (and spiritually, I guess) can you make room for those neggy thoughts? Do you feel able to tolerate them, if it means that in their presence you’ll also be showing up in a way that’s meaningful to you?

The bottom line is that you always have a choice: do what matters in spite of your thoughts, or not do it because of them.

Follow it up with DEFUSION

Defusion is all about creating a sense of “distance” between you and the thoughts you’re having. In a way, it’s about realising that having thoughts is not the same as being had by your thoughts.

We have millions of thoughts a day, but only some of them feel sticky, intrusive and aggressive, and since we cannot stop ourselves from thinking, then the best we can do is create a bit of breathing space between our thoughts and us.

One of my favourite defusion techniques involves a little bit of paraphrasing:

Let’s suppose your mind is fixated on telling you you’re too unfit to be at the gym. You might think something like “I’m too unfit to be at the gym”, which isn’t a very motivating thought.

You can try and paraphrase that same thought, by stating that “I’m having the thought that I’m too unfit to be at the gym”.

And you can take it one step further and say “I’m noticing that I’m having the thought that I’m too unfit to be at the gym”.

You can repeat these three sentences out loud or in your mind’s voice, or even repeat this process with any of the intrusive/unhelpful thoughts you experience when you go to exercise.

In this way, you’re not telling yourself that you should stop having thoughts, but you’re simply noticing that you’re having a difficult thought – and that you have a choice in terms of how you respond to it.

Opening up is the key

When you accept that thinking is a core part of being alive, and that you can gently push your thoughts away – enough to create a bit of breathing space between you and the thoughts –  you’ll realise that what you do is entirely up to you.

Perhaps an inevitable reality of going to the gym IS to have some self-judgemental thoughts emerge in your mind. Of course, you could avoid encountering them by not going to the gym, but then you wouldn’t be showing up and living in line with your values, and your mind might find something else to judge you for… So why not give it a go the next time you go and work out?

If you do try these techniques of acceptance and defusion, email me and tell me a bit more about how you found it!