Prioritization of Goods

The Prioritization of Goods

Where do you prioritize health/fitness in your life?

In my 5 years of coaching, I've found new clients' approach to fitness and nutrition splits into two camps.

Either caring WAAAAYYYY too much — tracking and managing everything until "optimization" becomes the sole goal and making it known it's the face of your life becomes the whole project and the only motivator is the next streak, the next reward, and they can't train for the sake of enjoying the process of training — or caring WAAAAYYYY too little, from information overwhelm, a bad experience, or not wanting to leave the comfort zone.

Both are logical fallacies. Caring too much means missing what fitness is for — complementary to the rest of your life — unless you're (A) a beginner, or (B) prepping for an event or competition.

In the beginner case, there's no room to negotiate with yourself — you're forming new habits (and breaking old ones), and the first weeks are when your brain rewires how it sees the gym. You've likely come from the "I don't need this, it's scary" camp, and moving fitness up your hierarchy takes some obsessive drive just to get off the ground.

Even in the competing case, look at Roger Federer — one of the greatest tennis players ever, who's said keeping tennis in its place helped him. Asked how he sustains success, he didn't say "I outwork everyone" — he said he makes his kids breakfast, drops them at school, then trains two hours in a routine that doesn't destroy his body. We can't all live like a pro athlete, but we can take the wisdom in how he fits training into the rest of his life.

I've found that those who care to much suffer from the over-justification effect: expecting external rewards — prizes, recognition, clout — for something already intrinsically rewarding reduces your motivation to do it. Fixate on the next PR and you miss the joy of the journey itself.

I've lived the other side too, the one where it's your identity — when fitness was my HIGHEST good, no matter how much I said "it's you vs. you," it became "me vs. everyone else, and I have to prove I'm better." Caring too much swings both ways: sometimes it's overexerting, other times it's caring so much about others' expectations that it tanks your performance — overthinking heavy lifts or new movements, playing it safe so you don't get embarrassed.

Caring too little, meanwhile, is just a defense mechanism — not wanting to change, content to watch from the sidelines. It shows up in people who've been injured before, or who either (A) don't really want to put in the work but still want results, or (B) have fragile egos where looking silly or failing feels like too much, so "I don't care" becomes the default.

For most of us, the answer's in the middle. Fitness matters, but it's not the ultimate good — it enhances the other goods and lets you enjoy them guilt-free.

So as you close out 2026 and build your 2027 frameworks: where does fitness sit in your hierarchy of goods? Have you overweighted it, or been too nonchalant? Whatever your goals, the aim is integration — fitness complementary to your life, not competing with it.

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