Your biggest barrier may even not be lack of money to pay for expert help, gym memberships or getting hold of the right information you need to train effectively.

Your greatest challenge may simply be down to being courageous enough to make the changes to your current life!

Admitting defeat and being brave enough to tell yourself that it is your own mistake that has got you in to the worst body shape of your life!

Being brave enough to make substantial changes to your eating habits, especially around your friends and relatives who expect you to eat the way you always have eaten is hard. The conversations I have with many of my clients about sticking to nutrition plans usually revolve around how they struggle to get through social occasions, family meals or business lunches without having to explain why they will not eat certain things or avoiding alcohol.

You see it takes courage to admit you are following a specific nutrition plan, different to your usual!

Rather than getting support from close friends and family, quite often you get the exact opposite.

Many people fear alienation or ridicule from their social circle when they start a new program. It takes courage to say no to the “few” beers after work. I truly believe this is tougher for guys … “What do you mean you’re not drinking, are you turning in to a light weight!”

Telling your wife/husband/significant other that you are trying a new training regime is difficult for many people. You may be worried they will not give you the support you are looking for, you just ‘know’ they are going to sabotage your efforts!

One particular client insisted that she would not tell her husband about her new training program or the work she was doing with a personal trainer. It was not until she had lost 8kg and dropped 2 dress sizes that her particularly non-attentive husband started to ask questions!

Stepping in to a gym for the first is also very daunting for many people. That first time sat in the changing area, pulling on your trainers, wondering if you are doing the right thing, is damn right scary. It may surprise you to learn the author of this article HAS been there! I am NOT a gym kinda guy and I believe the majority of people in the world are also NOT gym kinda people!

Joining a gym class for the first time is horrific, not knowing any of the moves, worried that you will do something stupid. It is no surprise that many people just don’t turn up to classes they have signed up and paid for! I never underestimate what it is like for our first timers at our group classes in the forest… it’s scary!

So how do you get over these fears?

Many psychologists will tell you, in a bold and commanding way, to “CONFRONT YOUR FEARS HEAD ON”, OK great advice, but that really doesn’t help if you are petrified by the actions you are about to take.

Your way to success and developing courage may be a slightly more softly, softly approach, by simply expanding your comfort zone just a little bit at a time. This doesn’t necessarily mean your results will be slowed, it just means exposing yourself to those situations where you need courage, bit by bit.

If you commit to cutting alcohol for 30 days for example, will mean skipping a few social occasions, and when you do go out, just be smart about how you ‘manage’ the drinks in front of you. Nobody is really watching you to make sure you are “keeping up”.

Telling your husband or wife may be as simple as telling them a little bit about what your are doing each day rather than telling them out right that you are changing your nutrition, social activities, joing a gym and hiring a coach all in one go. Just mention a class that you have started doing to get a little more exercise in your life, adapt your nutritional habits by saying you want to try doing a little more REAL cooking for example.

But at some point you are going to have to tell all, but by them you’ll be so confident of the new you, you will certainly not lack the courage needed.

This is not easy, courage for new fitness goals is massively underestimated and misunderstood by those people that have never had to worry about their body, we are not all ‘natural’ gym goers, exercisers or good with our nutrition.

Be a little bit brave, pushing your comfort zone slightly each day and you’ll find your courage will develop with your confident new body shape and quick weight loss.

Taking the first step is often the hardest which is why Tim Goodwin, fitness professional from luxembourg, provides a simple workbook to set some exciting new goals and a step by step guide to go about achieving them. Download your copy of the Goal Achievement Strategy by entering your name and email address in the boxes below:

I mean really WANT to lose weight?

Ask yourself honestly, what are you willing to do to finally shed those extra kilos that cause you so much pain!

Many people will ‘say’ they will do anything, but when it comes to the crunch they are rarely willing to DO what is necessary to achieve the desired results.

You see, for many people the barriers for not exercising regularly every week, or eating and drinking the right stuff, or making some fundamental changes to their existing lifestyle habits are not physical limitations that are impossible to get over, it is purely psychological.

You may say you ‘can’t’ train 3-5 times a week, the reality is you mean to say you not willing to devote the time to do this! You WILL NOT give up the glass of wine or the treats you give yourself, rather than you CAN’T give them up. Yes it is semantics but the truth is you can make these changes its purely down to if you want to.

Pretty much in every case, you will need to make a sacrifice in your current lifestyle to really make a long lasting difference in your body shape. That means cutting out the habitual glass of wine in the evening, the regular treats as well as changing your day to day schedule to fit in the regular workouts.

The real question is are you WILLING to make these sacrifices?

The problem we have today is the expectation of results, and fast! Our media and the fitness industry has perpetuated the belief that anybody can get miraculous results in incredibly short time frames. And whilst incredible results ARE possible AND in a short period of time they do require substantial (and I really do mean substantial) sacrifice and effort on your part to achieve this. Sorry it doesn’t come for free!

There is a magic pill, and it is called SACRIFICE and EFFORT.

The quick fix culture we have become used to in every other aspect of modern life is now translated in to our health and fitness needs, the problem is many of the quick fixes are not particularly healthy or permanent. Starvation diets, body wraps, diet pills, cosmetic surgery and other extreme measures CAN produce visible results in the short term, but they are certainly NOT long term strategies and not healthy in any way.

Now for the contradiction!

On one hand I say that quick fixes for your health are not healthy, there is a way to get a quick fix that you can start today which CAN have a healthy and long term effect.

Peter Poulsen is a 26 year old guy heading for a heart attack before the age of 40! Despite having an active lifestyle in his late teens and early twenties, his weight ballooned when his career took priority, and a horrendous diet of takeaway foods and beers with his mates became the norm. At 108kg something needed to change.

The effect was almost immediate, when his diet was completely turned on its head and a rigorous training regime was implemented. In the first week he lost 2.1 kilos and 4cm from his waist.

12 weeks later Peter was a different man, losing 18kg and over 40cm from the combined circumference measurements of his waist, hips, thigh and chest! When his grandmother saw him for the first time in 6 months, she burst in to tears, should couldn’t believe the transformation in her grandson!

BUT, the transformation was due, in no small part to the the magic pill of SACRIFICE and EFFORT! It was hard work, but the habits Peter adopted in the first few weeks will stay with him for the rest of his life.

So what are these habits?

To be honest when I tell you they will sound obvious. The HARD part is actually being ready to SACRIFICE what has gone before and to make an EFFORT to implement the new habits!

• Follow a diet rich in unprocessed, unrefined food and drink
• Exercise at least 3-5 times a week in a way that BOOSTS your metabolism (this doesn’t include jogging, aerobics or crunches!)
• Make BIG sacrifices of the lifestyle habits that are currently working against your efforts.
• Setting and then taking daily action on a BIG goal that drives you towards your vision of the perfect you!

WARNING, do not dismiss this as obvious or simple, you do need to ask yourself if you are willing to do everything it takes to achieve your ultimate vision. There is no half-hearted attempts, no picking and choosing one or two elements, no “trying it on” for a week or so to see if it “works for you”. Only total dedication PERIOD.

If you’ve ‘tried’ everything else, now is the time to ‘DO’ this. Good luck!

Knowing where to start is the hardest part for many people, which is why Tim Goodwin, coach and personal trainer from Luxembourg, makes his Goal Achievement Strategy workbook available to those willing to take action starting today. Visit http://goalachievementstrategy.com to get your copy of the workbook right now.