Why You Keep Missing Your Workouts (It's Not Because You're Lazy)
- Hannah Breal, PT, DPT
- 5 hours ago
- 5 min read
About the Author: Hannah Breal, PT, DPT is the co-owner of Made 2 Move Physical Therapy in Charleston and Charlotte. She helps athletes and active adults rebuild strength, mobility, and confidence so they can move pain-free for life.
Made 2 Move Physical Therapy – Charleston | Daniel Island | Mount Pleasant | Charlotte
One of my patients is trying to train for her first half marathon.
She has every single run blocked on her calendar.
But she's still missing almost all of them.
I'm a huge believer in actually blocking off your workouts/runs and putting them on your schedule (if you aren't using google calendar to run your life, I genuinely don't understand how you function)
When we looked through her calendar together. I realized what the problem was:
I noticed her long runs were scheduled for Fridays at 5 PM, and her aerobic run was scheduled for Sunday morning at 6 AM.
The problem wasn't that she didn't have them on her schedule I could see the blocks on her calendar the problem was where/when she had scheduled them.
She travels at least two weekends per month and she works a pretty demanding job, so by friday evening, she's cooked and wants to rest.
It wasn't that she was lazy or wasn't trying she had set herself up for failure by scheduling her runs at times that were completely unrealistic.
She wanted to prioritize her training. But by putting these "priorities" on her schedule last, at the leftover times, she wasn't actually able to prioritize it.
Your schedule doesn't lie and that's the thing about your schedule.
It doesn't lie.
Your schedule shows your true priorities.
(And again, if you don't use a calendar well, that may be your first step.)
But we realized it wasn't enough for her runs to be simply blocked on her calendar.
If I put a "priority" at 5PM on Saturdays, but I travel most weekends, I'm unintentionally saying to myself "I will only get this done on weekends that I don't travel" aka "I will rarely do this"
When we're setting a new goal or feeling motivated, we often pick times that sound great in theory.
6am Saturday sounds disciplined. It sounds like the kind of person you want to be.
But if you travel most weekends, or Friday nights wipe you out, or you genuinely never wake up at 6am on Saturdays that time was never going to work. No matter how committed you are. There's already something scheduled during that time.
So the question isn't "when should I work out?"
It's "when do I actually have the energy and the space for this based on the life I'm actually living right now?"
What to Do Right Now (If You're Serious About Meeting Your Goals)
Step 1. Put Your Priorities on Your Calendar First.
If it's not on the schedule, it's not a priority. It's a wish.
That's why they're called priorities - they get first dibs.
Step 2. Schedule High Priority Tasks When You Can Actually Do Them.
If I put a highly important task at 9PM every night, then I'm sorry but that's just not getting done. (I say all of this with love because I've actually done that myself)
If your priorities always get scheduled in the leftover time blocks, then they aren't actually priorities, don't shoot the messenger.
Step 3. Plan in Advance.
If your workout is scheduled at 5PM on a Friday, but you're traveling at that time, then you need to move that workout to another time so it actually gets done. & I promise that if you wait til the week of to plan, it's already too late.
Hot take: I think most "I didn't meet my goal" problems can be solved by regularly planning in advance.
Step 4. Go Back and Consistently Reflect.
Go back to your calendar. Did you actually do the thing you planned on doing?
or do you need to move it to a different time so it actually gets done?
For my patient, we moved her long run to Sunday morning and her weekday runs to Tuesday and Thursday morning BEFORE her workday started.
For the weekends she was traveling, we rearranged her long runs based on her travel schedule.
and guess what! She started consistently completing her training!
Maintenance Season vs. Growth Season.
There are two completely different seasons when it comes to goals:
A Maintenance Season.
Your schedule/life is chaotic right now and you're just trying to stay consistent with your current priorities. You're focused on just getting the thing done, but it's hard because life feels all over the place.
You don't need to feel bad about being in a maintenance season -- this is where I'm currently at! I don't have the bandwidth to add more things to my schedule, but if I don't protect my non-negotiables, they'll start to slip.
Just because you're in maintenance doesn't mean you can let everything go: find a minimum requirement and stick to it.
A Growth Season.
You're going after something new. A new distance. A new PR. More frequent workouts. A new nutrition plan. A goal you haven't hit yet.
If you're trying to GROW you want something you DON'T currently have.
That means you're trying to change something.
If your current schedule/lifestyle/priorities could get you there, you would have already hit it.
We set growth goals based on something we aren't currently good at.
So when you set a growth goal without changing anything, you're not going to hit it.
You have to change an action, a habit, and your schedule. You have to change SOMETHING because your goal is TO CHANGE.
Take the Shame Out of It.
Missing a goal doesn't mean you suck. It doesn't mean you're lazy or incapable or not good enough.
It means you set a new target and kept running at the same pace. That's a strategy problem, not a character problem.
Stop beating yourself up about it and LOOK AT YOUR CALENDAR.
Does it reflect what you say you want?
Are your "priorities" scheduled in time slots that will actually survive the week?
Are you in a maintenance season or a growth season - and does your schedule match that?
We're quickly approaching mid-2026
If you haven't met your goals, the answer isn't more motivation or another vision board.
It's looking at your schedule and turning your goals and priorities into consistent action.
Need help building a training plan that actually fits your life? Our physical therapy team at Made 2 Move works one-on-one with runners and active adults in Daniel Island, Downtown Charleston, and Charlotte. Whether you're training for your first half marathon or just trying to stay consistent, our running physical therapy program in Charleston is built around your actual life. Hear from our patients who've hit goals they didn't think were possible.
If You’re in Charleston, Daniel Island, Charlotte, or Mount Pleasant…
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Written by Hannah Breal, PT, DPT, Co-Owner of Made 2 Move Physical Therapy, helping Charleston and Charlotte move pain-free for life.
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