Struggling With Inconsistency? Get Excited To Focus And Reset For The Positive!

No one is consistent 100% of the time, how do we get back on track if we fall off?

The Fall Off and The Come Back

We’ve all been there. This time will be different.

I’m gonna go to the gym 3x a week. I’m going to read every day. I’m going to eat better. Everyone has their thing they said they’d do and didn’t, and I do too.

I told myself that I would write an article a week…

I haven’t posted in over a month.

Life happens. It’s tough to be consistent when life gets in the way.

First, recognize that that’s okay, and let’s get rid of our guilt. It’s not helping us. You’re allowed to need a break. You’re allowed to adjust when life gets difficult.

It’s time to bounce back. We’re going to do it together.

The first thing that we need to do is build some positive momentum. I’m doing it by writing this article. You’re doing it by reading it.

Let’s get back on track together. I’ll show you the rest of the plan.

Are you ready? Let’s go!

Getting the Wheels Turning

Think of yourself on a bike.

Is it easier to pedal if you’re standing still or if the bike is already in motion?

It’s usually easier if the bike is in motion. Unfortunately for us, we’re at a standstill.

That’s ok though. Every beginning starts somewhere.

Something that I struggle with is trying to just jump back into the swing of things.

“I used to go to the gym 3x a week so, that’s what I’ll do now.”

“When I was reading every day I was reading 30 mins a day. I’m gonna set that as a goal.”

We are NOT going to do this. It’s important for us to not only build some momentum but to also do something sustainable and flexible.

Why did we stop the last time? Too many days a week? Volume too high? Too much of a commitment to do the full length of your activity?

Let’s start with a goal of going to the gym 1x a week. If we go more great but let’s start at that 1 day. As we get into it we can change it to 2x or 3x.

What we also need to learn and take into account is doing the opposite. Let’s say we work and we get to 3x a week. Life gets busy again. Crap. Here we go again, right?

WRONG!

Let’s scale it back. Who made up the rule that you had to go to the gym 3x a week?

You did! So give yourself some grace. You’re busy. If you need to lower your goal. Do that! Just keep moving forward.

If you need to scale it down further try the 2-minute rule by James Clear. I’ll link the article but, the gist is that you should scale whatever thing you’re trying to do down to 2 minutes.

Take my reading example from earlier. Instead of setting a goal for 30 minutes, I set a goal for 2 minutes. Even on my busiest days, I have 2 minutes. It’s not about actually reading for 2 minutes. It’s about showing up for myself and keeping the momentum going!

Keep your momentum going at all costs!

We have a habit of being very black-and-white with things. It’s all or nothing. We need to get that out of our systems. Something is better than nothing.

Start introducing the thing that you’re passionate about doing slowly into your routine.

As a very wise fish once said “Just keep swimming, just keep swimming.” — Dory

What’s the Plan?

Alright. We’ve built some momentum. We don’t want that to go to waste now, do we?

I think it’s time that we made a plan for ourselves. I’m not talking about I’m going to do y, x times a week or for however long.

What are you trying to attain? Let’s come up with your goal, let’s come up with your why, and work backward.

Now, why take this approach? I’m motivated to get back on the horse and start getting my life back on track. Isn’t that good enough?

Well, yes… and no. It’s good enough for the short term. As for getting us started and building up some momentum. That’s amazing and there’s probably no better fuel.

I’ve written about that before and if you want more on that you can find it here.

What I’m getting after is a little different though. We want measurable quantities that we can work towards. We work better with deadlines and goals to shoot for and we can make those for ourselves if we set an end goal.

We also don’t want a black-and-white plan.

Personally, I’m also trying to take care of my health more. I turn 30 next year and want my 30s to be amazing. Instead of telling myself that I have to go to the 3x a week, I’m telling myself the goal is better health.

There’s a lot of room to work. It’s not all or nothing.

Whether that’s going to the gym more, eating better, drinking a little less, reading more about the human body, or stretching more. It all counts.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’d love to see some weight come off the scale and my body fat percentage go down. I also realize that when I only have paid attention to those 2 metrics in the past I yo-yo-ed right back into bad habits.

Make the process more enjoyable. We want to fall in love with the process so it becomes effortless. If it becomes work we won’t want to do it. Plain and simple.

Now that will be the overarching goal that we work towards. We need to set some smaller milestone goals that can help us get there.

Getting SMART-er

Alright, we talked about needing milestones. What about setting them? How do we do that?

Well, something that is nice to do is set a regular check-in date. This will give us a designated time to think about our journey and what we’re doing to reach that end goal that we just came up with.

For the longest time (Sorry for another health-related example) I had avoided taking progress photos. I thought “Why do I need those? I see myself in the mirror every day.” What I didn’t realize was it was actually much more than that.

I have to take the time to set up a camera, get into all of the positions for the pictures, and think about what I did last month and what I did differently this month. I really had to think about what I’ve done in the last month to work towards my goals.

This put things into a different perspective. I really loved having the time to sit and think about all of the work that I’ve put in the last month. It was something to be proud of. To sit and pat myself on the back for a second.

I know what you’re thinking. That’s great and all but what about me?

I want you to set SMART-er goals. What does that mean? SMART goals are something that I use as an engineer to get things done. SMART is an acronym that stands for:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Relevant
• Time Bound

As we’re setting goals for ourselves going forward we should try and make them SMART. The plan that we set in the last section was loose and is the umbrella that these will sit under.

These milestones should be:

• Specific enough that I don’t need more information. What I’m doing/after is in the goal. — (I’m going to take progress pictures)
• Measurable enough that it can be quantified. Specificity is great, and taking pictures is great. How many? Is one picture of me at a bar a month later good enough? — (I’m going to take at least 10 progress pictures, from the front, rear, sides, and a few fun poses.)
• Achievable enough that I don’t feel overwhelmed trying to complete this goal. You need to be real with yourself here. This isn’t a shoot-for-the-moon and reach-the-stars scenario. You want things you can check off! Keep the momentum! — (I’m going to take at least 5 progress pictures, from the front, rear, sides, and a fun pose.)
• Relevant enough that it doesn’t seem like you’re performing the task for no reason. Your time and effort is valuable. You don’t want to work towards something that isn’t going to be conducive to your efforts! — (I’m going to take at least 5 progress pictures, from the front, rear, sides, and a fun pose. This way I can have a visual metric of my health and am not only relying on my weight.)
• Time Bound enough that you can’t just keep pushing things off or say that you didn’t have enough time to take action. We need to give ourselves time to work. We also don’t want to waste said time. — (I’m going to take at least 5 progress pictures, from the front, rear, sides, and a fun pose. This way I can have a visual metric of my health and am not only relying on my weight. I’ll do this once a month on the 15th of every month)

Now, I have a (repeatable) milestone that fits in with my overall health goal that I can use to help keep me on track.

Hopefully, you can use this to build smarter goals. Get back into the swing of things and get back to being consistent!

I hope that you enjoyed this article! If you did please hold down the applause button as long as you can 👏🏽 (Really! Hold it! 😉)! Leave a comment to let me know your thoughts! Share with a friend or colleague! If you’d like to hear more from me please follow! Finally, please buy me a beer to keep me motivated! It all means the world to me! Cheers!

Check out another one of my articles if you have the time!