How to Be More Consistent & Start Seeing Results.

CINDY POLE
Jun 18, 2019
5 min read

How would things be different if your #1 priority was to be more consistent? For most of my clients, they have a mindset that body transformation comes with a pause button. When we go on a trip, have summer plans, work deadlines, family demands- we can hit the pause button on our fitness and health goals and resume when these things go away or subside.This way of thinking does nothing for your consistency game or your progress for that matter. Changing your body, however, does not require 100% consistency every single day for the rest of your life. There are ebbs and flows and a better way of thinking about consistency is learning to dial it up and dial it down vs. relying on the pause button.

How do you start to be more consistent and keep those good hard-earned results? I have 10 tips that will help you identify your patterns and start prioritizing consistency as the #1 strategy to crush your goals and build on your progress over the long haul.

Stop identifying yourself as busy. It isn’t a badge of honour if you are busy doing minutia and avoiding the important work. Chances are if you identify as being busy, you constantly put yourself on the backburner. Are you not important enough? When things are less busy, that is when you become hard core about everything. It’s just another way of keeping your busy status up-to-date and your way of filling the gap between one busy week to the next. Let go of the title. Start doing the important work worth doing.
Finish what you start. Do you stop working on your current plan for something new? Are you constantly changing plans without sticking to it long enough to see if it works? If you are constantly changing your mind and the plan, it is hard to build in continuous progress. Try finishing what you start, set realistic goals, manage your expectations and choose a workable plan.
Address your limiting beliefs. If you have the belief that this ‘should’ be easy, come fast or it’s too hard, too much work and too much of a time commitment, then you are setting yourself up to fail before you begin. Are you caught up in all-or-nothing thinking? It doesn’t take perfect action to see results. Let go of what you think ‘should’ happen. Choosing healthy food or working out, for example, doesn’t have to be about trying to look like a cover model. It can be about living the life you deserve and feeling awesome in your body.
Match your goals with your level of self- acceptance. You want to love yourself more and have more self-acceptance. But you aren’t there yet. Exercise and eating healthy is something you do; it isn’t who you are just yet. It takes thinking and planning and sometimes taking undesired action as you start out. Start where you are. Right now, you are caught up in a cycle of breaking promises to yourself, wavering between; “I am worth it” to “I’m not worth it.” When we first start out, we can feel selfish when we prioritize ourselves. We believe that by doing this, it takes us away from other people and we fear being left out, missing out or feeling not good enough. Prioritizing yourself makes you open and capable of more and most importantly present.
You’re banking on motivation vs. action. Flip the script. Take action. Even if it feels small or hard or you don’t feel like it. Take the action and motivation will flow from there. Sometimes it feels like you are dragging your ass to the gym. You might not be able to give it your all and even feel a bit uninspired and slow, but you always feel super when you’re finished. No one has endless supplies of motivation, but we always have the choice to take action...inspired or not.
Change the way you reward yourself. Do you reward yourself for what you do or what you expect? For example, do you reward yourself for exercising today and drinking your protein rich, tasty smoothie after? Or do you reward yourself based on when the scale tells you- you are doing well? Break it down- focus on the how, the why and build chain links for the action you take on the exercise and nutritional side of things. Reward yourself for the chain links not for what you expect.
Assess your readiness. On a scale of 1-10- how willing, able and ready are you? If what you write down feels too hard, reduce the action to what you are prepared to take until it feels easy enough. You are more apt to do it when it feels easy. This also builds your confidence. Once your confidence is up, you are more apt to build on that action and take another.
Stop piecing it together yourself- When you doubt yourself; “Am I doing this right?” “Is this the right thing for me to do?” “What order do I do them in?” your commitment and consistency waivers as you keep second guessing yourself. You aren’t confident in the plan making it harder to be consistent. Ask for help! Relinquishing control to coaches, who offer the practical lifestyle advice, the expert plan, the daily habits and accountability to give you the real change you are after.
Look for the success already in your life. Where do you already have great rituals and habits in place? Think back to how you got there. If purposeful and meaningful rituals and habits already exist in other areas of your life, repeat the process when it comes to nutrition, exercise and overall health.
Call out your excuses- Calling yourself out holds you accountable and honest. Your excuses are just that…excuses. Start thinking about solutions and stop identifying with them. Once you call out your excuses, think about this question: ‘If quitting wasn’t a choice, what would my consistency plan look like?”

Precision Nutrition has a great dial method that will help you start thinking about building your consistency plan. Try this when it comes to fitness, nutrition and overall health.

Think of your fitness like a dial that goes from 1 – 10.

If you were to dial it up to “10”…

What would your workouts look like?

What would your nutrition look like?

What other actions/habits would you practice in that scenario?

If you were to dial it down to “1”…

What would your workouts look like?

What would your nutrition look like?

What other actions/habits would you practice in that scenario?

Giving thought to your life right now, where is your dial set?

Would you like to make any adjustments?

Could you move the dial up a channel, or even half a channel?

If so, what would that look like?

We can get caught up in new and shiny and with old stories that tell us “It won’t happen for me”. We want the result but not what it takes to get there. We also see progress as a straight line, but it just isn’t. We need to explore this whole consistency thing in new ways. From there, we can begin to identify our patterns and become solution focussed. If you are reading this and still thinking it is about willpower, it isn’t. It is about skills. No matter how much you know or what you have tried, if you aren’t living it, then you’re missing out on something. Chances are it is fundamental skill building. Try shifting your priorities and making consistency rank higher on your list.

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