Can you relate to this? You found a great workout plan for beginners and decide it’s time to get serious about getting yourself in shape. You set a start date and commit to getting fit by exercising at least 5 times a week. Maybe you even join a gym, so the financial obligation will keep you motivated. And then...

Inside of three weeks it hits you that you haven’t darkened the door of the gym in days. What happened? Where did your commitment go? Where did your motivation go? What about the money you’ve already spent on a gym membership?

Unfortunately, this happens every single day. Gym rosters are full of people who are locked into a membership and haven’t seen the inside of the facility for weeks, sometimes months. Your intentions were good...where did you go wrong?

There are many reasons why you didn’t stick with it. One of the most common is not choosing the right workout plan. For beginners, it’s important to start slow, start small, and take baby steps until you’ve achieved a slightly higher level of fitness than the one you currently have.

What typically happens is that your initial enthusiasm gets a cold hard punch in the gut from reality. Maybe you go all-out for two or three workouts and you wake up the next morning so tired and sore it hurts to drag the covers off your body. So you blow off your workout for that day.

Once you’ve skipped the first one, blowing off the next one is a little easier. You rationalize, you come up with valid sounding reasons (to you!), and swear you’ll get right back to it in a day or two. First thing you know, that fantastic workout plan for beginners is little more than an uncomfortable memory of something you started, but again, like so many times before, never finished.

There are three huge mistakes that beginners make when they first start working out. One is in not choosing the right workout plan for beginners in the first place.

1.A good plan will take into account that not everyone is at the same fitness level. It should include varying levels of the workout so you can find the one that best suits your current level of fitness and experience. It should also include information on nutrition. If you don’t give your body the fuel it needs to meet the demands you’re placing on it, it just won’t work.

2.The second mistake is trying to whip your body into shape too quickly. It’s unreasonable to think you can get up from the couch, wipe the potato chip grease off your fingers and stroll into the gym for an hour-long intensive workout, and live to tell about it. If you’re just starting out, or have let your workouts slide for a very long time, you must introduce your body slowly to these new activities.

3.The third mistake, and this one is huge...before you ever set foot in a gym or put a hand on a dumbbell or step onto a treadmill, your mind has to be right. You need it concretely implanted in your brain how important this is to you and how committed you are to being successful. Ask any bodybuilder in the gym how they got into shape and they’ll tell you it’s 20% physical effort and 80% mental focus.

So choose a good, balanced workout plan for beginners, commit to it mentally before you commit to it physically and you’ll be on your way to creating the body of your dreams...for the last time.