We all know that consistency is the key to achieving any fitness goal. What you do consistently is far more important than what you do sometimes. Lack of consistency is why a hard one hour workout once each week will never undo a consistently poor diet or why eating healthy once in awhile will never improve your health stats. But how do you even begin to build consistency if you have developed years of unhealthy habits? FitClub has three easy ways that you can begin to build consistency over and over again until consistently healthy ways are your new habits.
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Change the way you talk to yourself. Your goal to more consistently exercise begins to breakdown the minute you find yourself thinking that you don’t feel like exercising. While your habit might be to hit a drive-thru and binge a television series, your new goals require you to show up even when you have other interests. Reframing the way you talk to yourself can help. When you begin to tell yourself you don’t want to exercise or prepare a healthy dinner, question the voice. Why do you feel that way? Are you tired? Is your exercise routine stale? Might trying a different class or a different type of healthy meal motivate you to continue your healthy journey? Our thoughts are often nothing more than a reflection of the years of bad habits we’ve cultivated. If you begin to ask your inner voice more pointed questions, you might find that you can convince yourself to believe almost anything.
Be patient. Do you have a monster long-term goal that you just can’t wait to achieve? That’s great, but while you get there, making consistency a goal can help you maintain perspective and patience. You can’t accomplish a long-term goal today, but what you can do is build momentum, practice consistency and look for small ways to continue to take steps forward. Too often, people want impractical results immediately. When we don’t see those results, we’re quick to give up and throw away any progress we have already made. Practice patience, reward effort and celebrate consistency.
Eliminate unnecessary decision-making. Exercising willpower and making decisions can take a toll on your mental energy. The easiest way to stay consistent is to eliminate the necessity of willpower and decision-making when it comes to your fitness. Instead of figuring out when you’ll exercise today, make a plan in advance to work out at a certain time when you know you won’t be disrupted. If you’re able to work out before work, lay out your clothes before you go to bed, set your alarm and begin to act as if there is no decision to be made. You don’t need willpower or excellent decision-making to show up for a meeting with your boss, right? The decision has been made already and you treat that meeting as an obligation. You don’t have to exert any mental energy when there’s no decision left to be made.
How do you make consistency the goal? Share your tips and tricks with your fellow FitClub members in the comments!
