The other day, a friend asked me, you know I want to be healthier and go to the gym more often, how do I do that?
I feel like I’m consistent maybe for 1 or 2 weeks, and then I have a stressful week and then I end up losing the consistency.
My first thought, is create purpose. Create a vision that you believe in that’s guiding you.
Why do you want to go to the gym healthier? If it’s for a north star and selfishly like I want a six pack, say that. I want a six pack. If you want it to be more altruistic, that I just want to be living my healthiest life.
When you have a purpose, it becomes easier to do things consistently because there’s a reason for doing the things you’re doing.
People ask me how I stay consistent with Grateful Living Podcast — the fact that I’ve lost 3 people to suicide in the last 6 years creates a level of purpose in terms of knowing the real life effects of lack of destigmatizing mental health.
Second, I would say understand creating a habit is hard. Depending on what science article you read, habits can take 1–2 months to create. So, know that going in.
I would say realize the first 1–2 months will require willpower.
One of the ways you can sort of eliminate the amount of willpower necessary is to schedule in the time.
Like Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, 6–7 PM I’m going to the gym. Pencil that into your calendar.
Creating systems is ultimately how you stay consistent.
I think once you do that — i.e. have a time to go to the gym consistently, after 1–2 months it’ll become hardwired into your schedule and rhythm of life, that it’ll become easy to be consistent.
I think people undervalue the easiness of habits. Like once something becomes a habit, it’s easy to do. At a certain point in my life, I started posting 7 days a week on social media. People look at me like how do you do it? But once you do it for like a month or two, it’s not that big of deal mentally for me.
I think of the same thing with runner who run like 5 miles a day, for those of that don’t run at all, we look at them with amazement but honestly, they’re process was the same thing. Certainly hard to get to 5 miles a day of running, but once they started doing it, it stopped becoming a big deal.
Third, realize the execution part is on you. You can create a system on your schedule of
If you’re finding in that 1–2 months of creating the habit, you’re having trouble. You need to come with creative solutions. Maybe you need to put your laptop in the gym locker and so in order to get to your laptop, you need to go to the gym.Or maybe it’s having a buddy system.
How you’re motivated, what will get you out of your room and to the gym, only you know that.
So, hope this helps. To create consistency, create purpose, know the 1–2 months of building a habit is hard, but know that creating a system can help, then just execute. Let me know what you think.