At Monaro Physio, the team is ready to change the narrative people are lazy.

The team has a simple but powerful message - people are not lazy, they are living in a system that never taught them how to move.

If you have ever looked in the mirror and told yourself, you’re ‘lazy,” undisciplined, or just not an exercise person’, you are in good company. Most people who walk into Monaro Physio carry some version of that story. And almost every time, it is wrong.

What looks like a personal flaw is usually the downstream expression of something far bigger: the social, cultural, and environmental conditions that shape us long before we ever lace up a shoe or step into a clinic.

These are the upstream determinants of health, and they influence our behaviour far more than willpower ever has.

This is not about excuses. It is about accuracy. Because you are not lazy you are human. And you have been shaped by systems never designed with your long-term health in mind.

How we learned to see exercise as punishment

For many of us, the earliest lessons about movement were anything but joyful.

School conditioned us to believe movement happens when a bell rings. You run when you’re told. You stop when you’re told.

You play only in the narrow window allocated for it. Movement becomes something controlled, not something chosen.

Sport layered on hierarchy. The ‘athletic kids’ were celebrated; everyone else learned to associate movement with embarrassment, comparison, or failure.

Then fitness culture arrived and turned exercise into a moral test. You exercise to ‘burn off’ food, to fix your body, to redeem yourself for being ‘bad’.

No wonder so many adults carry a quiet dread around movement. The conditioning runs deep.

The modern environment is not built for health

Zoom out, and the picture becomes even clearer.

We live in an environment engineered for convenience, comfort, and consumption. Ultra processed foods are cheap and aggressively marketed.

Work hours stretch longer. Commutes drain energy. Screens compete for every spare moment. Many neighbourhoods are not designed for walking. Social media distorts what ‘healthy’ looks like.

Healthy choices are not hard because you are weak, they are hard because the world around you is designed to make profitable choices easy.

When someone struggles with exercise or lifestyle change, it is not a character flaw. It is a predictable response to the conditions they are living in.

Upstream determinants shape everything

Upstream determinants of health - social, environmental, cultural, and historical forces - shape behaviour long before motivation even enters the room.

They influence whether you feel safe exercising, whether you have time, whether you have energy, whether you believe you are ‘the kind of person’ who moves, and whether movement feels nourishing or shame-based.

Once you understand this, the question shifts from ‘why can’t I stick to it?’ to ‘what is getting in the way and how can we work with it rather than against it?’

You do not need more willpower, you need better conditions

People don’t succeed because they’re more disciplined. They succeed because their environment supports the behaviour they want.

Small, repeatable actions. Positive experiences. A sense of safety and belonging. Movement that feels good, not punishing.

When exercise fits your life, rather than fights it, everything changes.

Rewriting the story

At Monaro Physio, we see this every day. When people stop blaming themselves and start recognising the upstream forces shaping their health, they become more compassionate, more consistent, and more empowered.

You are not lazy, broken nor behind.

You have been conditioned by systems that never taught you how to build a healthy relationship with movement. But conditioning can be rewritten with curiosity, support and with a bit of self- compassion.

If you want help building a movement routine aligned with your life, Monaro Physio is here for that work.