While the saying “consistency is key” is true, it’s not always as easy as it sounds. After all, we’re not robots. We’re people who sometimes have bad days, or have things happen that make us want to put our entire life on hold. The truth about consistency is, you’re not always going to be motivated. Which is why discipline is more important than motivation.
1. Discipline Over Motivation
Progress isn’t always tangible. If you aren’t seeing results as quickly as you were hoping, it’s easy to fall back into older habits and give up entirely. Let’s say you’ve been going to the gym and eating healthier to try to lose weight. You’re looking at photos of yourself from a month ago, and you don’t feel like you look all that different. This might make you feel like it’s easier to just cancel your membership and sit at home instead.
But in reality, visible results aren’t the first result you’ll see from the gym. Sticking with the same scenario, if you don’t look entirely different after just one month, that’s not a bad thing! It means you’ve been eating enough to keep up with all the calories you’re burning. As you gain more muscle in the gym, excess fat will shed in its own time. Meanwhile, you’ll get to reap the mental benefits that come with going to the gym.
Not only are you keeping yourself disciplined when you get up and exercise, even when you’re feeling lazy, you’re also keeping a promise to yourself. Both of these things create a better self-image and will make your problems seem just a little bit smaller.
2. Keep Your Thoughts Consistent
Maybe you don’t have enough physical energy or time to go to the gym right now. But everything starts with our thoughts. If you feel guilt start to creep in about how you could be doing more, remind yourself of the progress you’ve already made. It’s not easy to build habits, especially healthy ones. As you change your mindset, it will be easier to accomplish things in the future, if not today.
If you can’t go to the gym today, that’s okay. But it doesn’t mean you can’t do anything that is good for you which could help you reach your goals. When the self-doubt starts to set in, combat it, both physically and mentally. Replace a negative thought with a positive one, or find something different to focus on entirely.
For example, if you’re having thoughts that you failed because you didn’t make it to the gym, get up. Movement can distract our minds. Even 20 push-ups or jumping jacks will shift your mind’s focus from “I didn’t do anything,” to “I’m doing something!” Try turning on some music that lightens your mood.
3. Give Yourself Grace
As much as we want it to be, progress isn’t always linear. But this doesn’t mean it’s not consistent. Consistency might not always look like going to the gym every single day, because self-improvement is not tied down to one thing. Instead, if you didn’t to go the gym, you can work on being consistent with your kindness towards yourself.
Forgiveness is important but forgiving yourself is the most important. Instead of feeling bad about yourself that you didn’t get everything done today, feel proud that you even started a fitness journey in the first place. We all have bad days, and that’s okay. But if you believe that it’s not okay to have bad days, this will only make consistency harder.