Did someone say consistency?
In this article I’ll be covering 3 main topics
- Why consistency is valuable.
- Common challenges to overcome while trying to be consistent.
- Practical tools to be more consistent.
The value of consistency.
Have you ever been disappointed in yourself for not following through on something that you had committed to?
Don’t worry, it happens to all of us.
Before I start to talk about why consistency is important, it’s MORE important to say this: there’s grace and you need to free yourself from the uncontrollable outcomes of failing to meet the expectations you set upon yourself.
You’re not perfect, I’m not perfect. But the good news is, we can still make progress.
In your health and fitness journey, consistency is the primary variable that should be considered when determining whether or not you should be able to expect results.
No one makes a change in their health and fitness journey unless they want to see a different result right?
So consistency will do 3 things for us: Consistency breeds results, consistency tells us where our limitations truly are, and finally consistency can make us the best people we can be.
3 Common challenges in trying to become consistent
- Over committing with the other priorities in your life…
Oftentimes when we overcommit, we feel overwhelmed. This sense of overwhelm is usually a result of our inability to assess what was realistic with the current commitments that exist in your life.
- Biting off more than you could chew!
We are human beings that will do what it takes to get to where we want to be. It’s the beauty of what makes us so GREAT. However, what we don’t always consider is where we are at relative to where we want to be. Put simply, if I want to run 1 mile in 10 minutes but I currently run a 20 minute mile – it would be unrealistic for me to expect myself to run 10 minutes tomorrow. Progress takes time and we need to respect the time it will take.
- Plateauing and not knowing what to do.
One of the most common challenges we face is seeing progress and then all of sudden, we don’t. Sad face. What happened? I thought what I was doing was working? Plateauing is a normal thing to experience when we don’t regularly re-evaluate the plan we made for ourselves.
3 Practical tools to become more consistent
- How to decide what is realistic
Being realistic with what you commit to will determine whether or not you can be successful with your goals! Here’s one practical trick I’ve developed over the 10 years of coaching to help you decide what’s most realistic in your season of life: Calendaring. Write out the greatest priorities in your life and define how many hours you have committed to them.
If you know that being a healthier person will positively impact those priorities, define how many hours you can give a week to your fitness regimen in order for you to commit to something realistic. This is a strong first step to deciding what to do for your fitness plan!
- How to decide what is attainable
In order to decide what action is most attainable you have to assess where you’re currently at and commit to a step that is more challenging than what you’re currently doing but not SO challenging that it completely defeats your desire to continue going! Here are few examples of what a small but sustainable step might look like:
Week 1: 10lb Squats
Week 2: 15lb Squats
Week 3: etc.
What most people don’t realize is that though these are incremental changes week to week, by the end of a 6 week period you would be at 30lbs! 30lbs compared to 10lbs if a 3x increase from your starting point and is tremendous progress. Stick to small and sustainable.
- How to decide the timeline you’ll commit to
Building a concrete timeline for yourself is the final aspect that you need to decide in order for you to regularly re-evaluate your progress and stop old actions that aren’t serving you anymore. Generally speaking, if you are consistent with what you’ve committed to in a nutrition change, don’t add anything new for 7 days minimum in order for you to feel confident about the changes you previously made.
Example) At the beginning of Sally’s nutrition journey, Sally was not eating any protein in her day causing an inability to see development in her muscle tone. In week 1 Sally began to eat a palm size of protein every morning. In week 2, the recommendation we made was to add a palm size of protein at lunch. And in week 3 we recommended adding a palm size of protein at dinner time.
The timeline for Sally was a 7 day consistency period before she changed anything about her plan.
In summary…
Consistency is the cornerstone for change. But HOW you become consistent matters.
If you’re not happy with your consistency in your fitness routine, nutrition, or health habits at the moment– we want to help.
Book a call with a professional coach here and we’ll chat over the phone!
Stay Happy, Stay Healthy.
Coach Luke
