When you experience inconsistent results with your health and fitness goals it can be extremely frustrating.
You worked out, you followed the meal plan, (well for a bit anyway) why aren’t you getting the results you want?
If you look at people who have achieved what you’re trying to achieve, they all likely have one thing in common. They have excellent habits.
Habits are the small decisions you make and actions you perform every day. According to researchers at Duke University, habits account for about 40 percent of our behaviors on any given day.
Your life today is essentially the sum of your habits. How in shape or out of shape you are? A result of your habits. How happy or unhappy you are? A result of your habits. How successful or unsuccessful you are? A result of your habits.
Often when we (humans) attempt to undertake a transformation of some sort we go ‘all or nothing’ or ‘Zero to 100’ approach. You’re motivated and excited and that’s great.
You may start to eat lots of salads, workout, go to bed early, stretch, meditate, cut all the chocolate and booze out of your life just to name a few things. But what happens when that motivation wears off? What happens when life gets in the way or you have a bad day?
If you have good habits you’re able to break through, but if you don’t you usually chuck it all in because its overwhelming and end up back at square one.
So let’s talk about building habits:
First of all, what are the habits that you need to develop to achieve your health and fitness goals? (If you’re not sure book a free consultation with one of our coaches and we will happily give you advice)
Chances are you know what you need to work on, and chances are it’s more than one thing, usually it will be lots of little things.
For example “eating healthy” is very broad and not specific but breaking it into some some smaller specific actions it could look like this:
-
Eating vegetables twice per day
-
Having some protein with each meal
-
Drinking 6 cups of water per day
-
Reducing alcohol intake
Then when we are working on improving habits of our clients we like to use a technique we call layering.
You start with one or two things, we like to start with something that you’re 100% sure you will be able to achieve. Something you’re so confident that you can achieve that it almost seems too easy. Why do it if it seems easy? Momentum. Im sure you know you’re not going to get fit and achieve your goals in 1 week, change takes months, even years and momentum is going to be what gets you there, think of a snowball rolling down a hill, its starts tiny but as it picks up momentum it becomes an unstoppable force.
So nail them and then when you are doing that consistently you start to add more, you add another layer. So that could look like: Week 1: Eat Protein with 3 meals per day
Once you’ve done that constantly for two weeks add another layer
Week 2; Eat protein with 3 meals per day and eat vegetables with lunch and dinner
Once you’ve done both of those constantly for two weeks add another layer.
Week 3; Have a large glass of water with each meal
Etc, This process may seem slower but its sustainable and you’re going to build extremely good habits
Give this process a try and download our habit planer worksheet. Once again if you need help please reach out to us for a FREE consultation.
