Consistency in Everyday Life
The idea of consistency, or rather, inconsistency, has been on my mind lately. Have you ever stopped to think about how inconsistency is the enemy of everything you’ve ever tried to tackle?? Eating better, exercise, getting up earlier, chore charts for your kids, on and on and on. You start strong, right? Such high hopes when you start out! But what tends to trip us up?? Inconsistency! The minute you start letting your new habits slide, the harder it becomes to stick with them long-term.
We’ve all heard the statistic: it takes 21 days to form a new habit. I don’t personally know how true that is but I will tell you what I’ve seen in my own life regarding fitness.
Consistency in Fitness
When new clients start at GirlPower Fitness, they have all the best intentions. We start strong and everyone is super gung-ho. As time goes on, there are the clients who will start to frequently skip sessions and there are clients who will rearrange their entire schedule to never miss a session. Even if they have to miss on their scheduled day they’ll make it up somewhere else.
Some clients can’t quite get past seeing exercise as one more dreaded thing they have to do. (Even though they’re working out at GirlPower and, seriously, how much fun do we have?!?!) But some clients see exercise for what it truly is: therapy, stress relief, fun, endorphin releaser.
Clients in the first group often fall into the inconsistency trap because they really don’t want to do it in the first place. And the more inconsistent they become, the easier it is for exercise to slide off the schedule completely. Clients in the second group feel icky when they don’t work out – sluggish, slouchy, lethargic, icky. And that’s when they realize that working out is now a part of who they are. They’ve reached the stage where inconsistently working out is no longer an option. They’ve felt the endorphins fire, they’ve experienced the pride when they prove to themselves they can accomplish their goal and they don’t want to go back.
If you haven’t ever felt that way about fitness, chances are you just haven’t found what you really like to do. I’ve said before and I’ll say again that I believe our bodies inherently enjoy movement. Go to any playground and watch kids and you’ll see that we are born enjoying movement; we just lose it along the way as adulthood takes over. That’s why we need to find what we really like to do! Find that inner child from the playground!
Aligning Your Schedule with Your Priorities
Take a look at your life and ask yourself: where am I being consistent and where am I being inconsistent? Next, ask yourself what you’d like to accomplish in 6 months, 1 year and 5 years. If you compare those two lists, do they match up? Are you being consistent with the things that really matter to you? If not, maybe it’s time to shake up the schedule and move some things over to the “consistent” column.