The power of consistency

When it comes to achieving your health and fitness goals, being consistent with the positive changes you make to your lifestyle is the key.

We know we need to change our eating and exercise habits to have a healthier lifestyle. But we also have to be consistent in those changes over time to see results.

 That initial burst of enthusiasm and excitement we experience when starting soon fades, what can we do to keep ourselves moving forward?

 1) Find your WHY:

An important first step is to establish whether you’re sufficiently motivated to achieve the goal.

This is about a deep inner desire to achieve a goal. Finding your deep-seated reason for wanting to change.

For example, if you want to lose weight ask yourself WHY? Asking why will always help uncover the real reason for wanting to achieve that goal.

Nobody really wants to lose weight as such, but they want the feeling they’ll have as a result of losing weight.

Whether it’s the elation of playing with your kids without getting out of breath or that feeling of total body confidence when you wear your favourite dress to that upcoming party, that is the why behind your goal.

2) Addition Over Elimination:

When creating new habits, we often devote all our energy to stopping our ‘bad habits’ and replacing these with new ‘good habits’.

This is not necessarily wrong, and it certainly may be a successful approach for some people, but it often simply leads to overwhelm and frustration.

Focusing on adding new habits rather than trying to eliminate and replacing old habits may work better.

These new habits will naturally replace your old habits in time anyway.

3) The habit loop,

The Cue , This could be your alarm clock ringing, an email coming through or on your daily ride home from work. This cue is typically subconscious, which means we’re not consciously aware of it.

The Routine (habit) , is the routine ie go and exercise on my way home from work.

The reward, this is so important, what is your reward? A self congratulatory pat on the back every time you do your new routine OR something more concrete, like a hot bath or a nice dinner? You decide, but don’t undervalue the reward part of the cycle.

When creating a new habit, there is of course a ‘ramp up’ period, where the aim is to create a new loop. This will require conscious effort and require the discipline of repetition over a period of 30 days or so, but it will eventually become habitual and automatic, which as you now know is where the magic happens.

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Cue -> Trigger -> Reward. No reward = no habit created = no consistency = no results.

4) Keep It Simple – One habit at A Time

Another obstacle to creating new habits is taking on too much at once.

It’s common for multiple areas of your lifestyle to require adjustment in order to successfully achieve your health and fitness goals, but tackling them all at one time rarely works. This somewhat depends on your unique ability to handle change (often linked to your stress levels) focus on one or two habits initially but maybe try a high impact habit.

An example of these ‘high impact’ habits include:

– increase your exercise  or movement (walking/gym class /riding to work).
– High quality sleep of at least 7-8 hours.
– Daily hydration with 2+ litres of pure water.
– More High-quality nutrition based on whole, unprocessed foods.
– Stress management strategies to reduce the impact of stress.

5)     Keep A Habit Tracking Worksheet – to help you track and record the new habits

Print and stick this on your fridge