How much do you trust yourself to follow through when you say you are going to do something?
Do you hype yourself up and say, “this time will be different! I’m going to make myself do X” but deep down you wonder if you’ll be doing said habit at the end of the year?
I often hear from clients when they first start that they don’t feel they have discipline, are lazy, or have bounced around from diet to diet and are looking for the right “fix.”
But what if there is something deeper than lack of discipline, laziness, or confusion around the “right diet?”
A lot of times, the issue boils down to a lack of trust in the individual. They have made false promises to themselves over and over and have created a deep seeded belief that they won’t follow through on their word to themselves.
Isn’t that interesting? They are more likely to do something for others but will cancel on themselves and hurt the relationship with the person who matters most–themselves.
This is why focusing on motivation or trying to use willpower to follow through on something for 21/30/90 days doesn’t work to get lasting results. We still use the phrase “I fell off the wagon” because we didn’t address the deeper issue–making a change and knowing that if we say we will do something for ourselves, we will actually do it.
This is why building a healthy relationship with yourself is so important. Not canceling on yourself, checking in with your thoughts, practicing positive self-talk, etc all go a long way toward building trust and therefore being able to change and sustain that change.
This is where getting results come into play.
Whether you want to gain muscle, lose body fat or have a peaceful morning routine to start your day, these results require discipline and consistency. There are many habits that have to be executed each and every day to accomplish these outcomes and need to continue being executed to maintain the results. The internal dialogue in your head should sound something like “I am a person who does X” instead of “am I going to do X today?” We don’t want to question if we will get something done, but how we will get it done.
We also need to know ourselves and what we can truly handle to accomplish certain goals. Maybe you are in a stressful season and not getting a lot of sleep, and now is not the time to whittle down to a super lean body fat percentage, which is another stressor to your body. If you know your capacity and what you will follow through in this season, you can make appropriate goals and trust that you will indeed accomplish them.
So where do you go from here?
Take note of your thoughts surrounding your habits. What is your internal dialogue saying about who you are as a person and your consistency in showing up for yourself?
What is the realistic goal you are working towards, and what habits specifically need to be done each day to accomplish your goal?
Pick one of the habits to start implementing, and practice following through on it. If your habit is to go to the gym 4 days per week, make it an appointment in your calendar and treat it like you would when meeting with a friend or going to the dentist’s office–don’t cancel on yourself. This inherently builds trust that if you commit to something, you know you are going to see it come to fruition.
Pretty soon, you’ll be able to look back and see how much progress you’ve made, and you won’t need to rely on the feeling of motivation (which inevitably comes and goes) to try and accomplish your goals. The habits needed will just be something you do, because it’s the kind of person you are. You won’t have to question if you’ll get there, but instead, you’ll get to ask, what do I want to focus on next?