Staying Consistent in the Gym

You can picture it perfectly: it's a Tuesday, you've finally made the decision (again) to start going to the gym, you're planning everything out only to wait until Monday to actually do it... then Monday rolls around, something comes up, and you say you'll try again next Monday.

There are various factors that contribute to why you might be struggling to stay consistent in the gym. It's not a you problem, or a low level of motivation problem; it's a planning problem. Behavior change takes intentional effort. Read that again and say it out loud. Consistency is something that we've all struggled with at some point, whether it be with exercise, finances, spirituality, etc. Take your pick. Below are practical steps to help you stay on track and crush your goals.

With any goal, first you need to determine the outcome you want, and silence any external expectations. What do you actually want to achieve? Take time to reflect on this step; you want to be as clear and concrete as possible. Exploring your intrinsic motivations will help you align to meaningful goals. Intrinsic motivation comes from internal satisfaction, whereas extrinsic motivation comes from external rewards or pressures to achieve a specific outcome. When our goals have deep meaning to us, we’re more likely to stick to them. Ask yourself "why?" until you get to the root.

Ok, now that you have the destination, we need to set it in your GPS. When you put an address in a GPS, a list of directions comes up to get you to your destination. This step is where you establish the behavior changes necessary to achieve the outcome you desire. For every outcome, there are dozens of behaviors that can move you in that direction. Let's take weight loss for example, there are multiple levers to pull in regards to weight loss; nutrition, increased movement, sleep, stress management, and time management to name a few. Pick ONE lever that fits best into YOUR life and start there. Habits first, results later. 

Let’s say the behavior change that you choose to work on is increased daily movement, now you need to take action. This is where Habit Stacking comes into play. The idea with habit stacking is that you identify a habit you already do each day, then stack your new habit on top of it. An example could be, "After I take off my work shoes, I will immediately change into my workout clothes." Once you’re in your workout clothes, you can complete  whatever daily movement you have planned for the day.

This segues you into your next step: make it so easy that you can’t say no. One of the surest ways to fall off a new habit is by overloading and making it as hard as possible in the beginning. If you don’t go to the gym at all, why do you think you’ll successfully start a new gym routine 5 days per week? Let yourself succeed and if that means making it easy at first, then make it easy. Again, habits first, results later. To tie this into your habit stack from above, "After I take off my work shoes, I will immediately change into my workout clothes, then I will go for a walk around the neighborhood for 15 minutes."

Once you get into a groove, you’ll want to evaluate how it’s going. Our brain thrives off of feedback and evidence of progress can be extremely motivating. What you measure, you can improve. Track how many days per week you're able to habit stack and take a walk around your neighborhood.

Lastly, evaluation might lead to a pivot and that’s okay. Be flexible and give yourself grace if your original plan is not what works best for YOU. 

However, make choices over excuses. You can do this.