Whether you want to lose weight, build muscle, train for a sporting event, or improve your overall health, achieving your health and fitness goals requires a long-term commitment. It’s never a quick fix.

Your degree of success depends on your motivation, which can be summed up in three words: psychological, physical and visible.

• Psychological: Exercising can be a mental challenge as much as it is a physical one. Oftentimes, it is one of those things that we let slide. We say to ourselves “tomorrow,” because we’re just too busy or too tired today.
  
  Don’t make excuses. Set yourself up for success by creating an environment that allows you to fit exercise into your daily schedule. A good way to do so is to hold yourself accountable to someone else. Get a gym partner or a personal trainer, and schedule time to work out in advance. When you know someone else is counting on you to show up, you’re less likely to bail out.

• Physical: Exercise has many advantages: You’ll have more energy, burn more calories, feel better, become stronger, and decrease many health risks along the way.
  
  If you’re starting out with an exercise plan, you might find your workouts are physically challenging. It’s tempting to want to give up, but don’t. You will get used to exercising, but it takes time. Set realistic short-term and long-term goals for yourself, and don’t be hard on yourself if you’re not performing how you’d like. Give yourself time.
  
  As you get used to working out though, your body adapts to the stress exercise puts on your body. That’s why you want to keep your workouts physically challenging. Change up your exercise habits every 4-6 weeks to keep them from becoming routine. Keeping your workouts fresh will keep you excited and moving toward your goal. A personal trainer or health professional can help you devise a new workout plan.

• Visible: When you see something you like, you want more! And seeing your body change for the better is a wonderful thing! Be patient. If you’re eating and exercising properly, change will come – both on the inside and outside.
  
  Don’t let the scales be the only way you measure success. Change comes in many different forms. Increased strength and endurance, muscle growth, and looser-fitting clothes, lower blood pressure, and lower cholesterol are other examples.
  
  And if you are looking to lose weight, it might be more important to pay attention to your body fat percentage than your weight. Consult with your doctor or a personal trainer on how you want to measure your progress in this regard. Weight fluctuates on a daily basis and might not be the best weight-loss indicator.

I think a recent client of mine embodies all three of the above components of success. When he first started working out with me a year or so ago, he was at almost 300 pounds and at high risk of developing heart disease.

Like many people, he had tried dieting and exercising but had failed in his attempts. Exercising was intimidating to him because he wasn’t used to it. He had unrealistic expectations, and when he didn’t see results, he gave up, thinking his attempts were fruitless.

He recognized that because he wasn’t used to exercising, he did not think he could lose weight on his own. Although he was skeptical, we started meeting twice a week, working out and talking about his lifestyle and steps he could take, including changing his diet, to make it healthier.

Today, he’s not the same person. He’s lost nearly 100 pounds and has gone down two shirt sizes from an XXL to a L, and has dramatically lowered his cholesterol, blood sugar and blood pressure. He has more self-confidence than he had when I first met him. We still train together, and he now pushes me to push him harder. He says he has fun at the gym, likes the challenge, and continues to set new goals for himself.

In my 15 years of personal training, I have had the pleasure of seeing many success stories like his. Some people I’ve worked with have made more progress than others in reaching their goals, but they are all winners in my eyes.

Rebecca Greer is a certified personal trainer at O2 Fitness in Raleigh. She is certified through the Interactive Fitness Trainers of America and has 15 years of personal-training experience.