First of all the term ‘sticking to your fitness routine’ does not mean never enjoying a pizza, eliminating chocolate forever and working out everyday for the rest of time. In fact, if this is what you thought it was, no wonder you have never been able to ‘stick’ to a routine because this is absolutely unsustainable and an incredibly boring way to live, in my opinion.
So what do I mean by ‘sticking to a fitness routine’ and how can you do it?
1. Strategic Goal Setting
Take a look at your fitness goals.
Are you excited by them?
How do they enhance your future?
Are they achievable?
What are the short term benefits/rewards?
Setting goals is a great way to stay motivated and accountable, however you have to set them in a certain way. When it comes to fitness goals whether it is to workout 5 days week for 2022, run every other day until summer or gain strength and definition, you must make each goal much more specific than ‘just because’.
You have most probably set goals like this before, if I’m correct, I want you to make a list of why you gave up and why it didn’t work last time.
Now write down how you went about it last time, did you ban yourself from certain foods? Did you start off too hard with far too many changes?
Whatever you did last time wasn’t enough to keep you encouraged, engaged and excited to keep fit, continue to gain strength and remain working on your physical health.
So, do it a slightly different way this time, here are my 4 favourite ways:
- Stick to between 1-3 goals which require no more than 3 daily lifestyle changes – embed these new activities within current habits. Read more about habit stacking and how to do it here.
- Set a time to do these new activities each day (ideally keep it the same time each day).
- Set yourself daily reminders of why you started, why these are your goals and why you CAN do it. ‘Hey Siri, remind me tomorrow at 7.30am (just before my workout at 8am) that I CAN do it, nothing is holding me back and that I’ll feel so much better after!’
- Keep your goals written down somewhere you see them each day.
2. Be Kind to Yourself
Be less strict, be more lenient and don’t beat yourself up.
If you skip a workout, eat a little too much before bed or find yourself not wanting to get out of bed remind yourself YOU ARE HUMAN, this is OK and it is totally normal!
One day or week of putting all compassion for future you out the window does not mean you have failed and is not a valid excuse to now give up until next year.
It was 24 hours, 24 out of 8760 hours in the year. You are not going to let that 0.27% of your year affect the next 99.73%.
Repeat after me: ‘I am not going to let that 0.27% of my year affect the next 99.73%’
If you have one day or one week where you get no exercise done and eat more ready meals than fresh fruit, so what.
Tomorrow you get back on it. No matter what time of the week, month or year, YOU have to decide to get back to it.
3. Mental Results Over Physical
Why do you want to be more consistent?
If your answer is solely for visual results please try to shift this mindset. How can you do that?
After each workout, no matter how hard you found it, how much you wanted it to end or how tired you are, write down how you FEEL, MENTALLY.
Was it worth it and can you do the same again tomorrow?
Of course you can, JUST START.
Say to yourself you’ll do just 5 minutes then take every set, corner, step and rep as it comes. But you must start to give yourself the chance to finish.
and guess what.. if you focus on how it makes you feel (the short term win), the long term physical results will come hand in hand and you’ll be much more motivated to keep going – thanks dopamine.
End note
The first month or two will be hard, it isn’t easy, if it was I wouldn’t be writing this post. Once you realise the incredible mental benefits it has, you start feeling and seeing results, trust me, you won’t want to give up.
Lots of love, Your Forever Virtual PT xx
