Did you know that only 20 percent of people that start a workout plan, actually manage to stick to it for longer than 60 days?
We all know how important it is to do physical exercise, countless studies have shown the benefits regular exercise has on our health and mental well being, the brightest mind all around the world tell us in interviews how their best ideas come to them while working out and we are bombarded with pictures, videos and stories of incedible and inspiring physical feats.
Nevertheless, even when we start working out it usually lasts for a couple workouts and then miss a workout because of work/wedding/other bullshit excuse and in a couple of week we stop going altogether.
How is it possible to stay consistent with a workout program?
The problem
The problem starts with the reason due to which we started working out in the first place.
Most people start working out because they think it something they must do, this thought is caused by the media - both social and traditional media tell us hunderds of times everyday how we should look and feel. Just think about the feeling you get seeing a Victoria's secret model when you're a girl or Ryan Reynolds if you're a guy, it makes you feel less of what you really are.
To add insult to injury, everywhere we look there are workout programs, supplements and wonder products that are supposed to turn you into a lean and beautiful super model in a couple of months.
When we start working out, weather it's in a gym or a group or at home we expect to get unrealistic results, and when we see that we can't achieve those impossible results, we simply quit lessening the chance to consistently workout in the future because we simply don't believe in ourselves.
The solution
The only way to workout consistently is to create a good reason to workout, although it sounds simple it is defenitly not easy. A good reason to do anything in our lives is always built on passion and desire. If we workout because we have to there is no passion and desire present there. We need to work out because we want to achieve something, something that will makes us feel strong, confident and successful.
I want to share with you 5 steps that will make you consistent.
Step 1 - find the fun
The first step to create a passion that will drive you to workout consistently is to dig into your past and find something physical you really enjoyed doing. It can be dancing with your friends or playing soccer in high school, we all have those blissful moments in which we had fun doing physical activity.
Once you found such an activity really try to recreate that feeling of joy and fun in your head, once you have that feeling anchored in we can move on to step 2.
Step 2 - choose the mountian
The second step to create a passion that will drive you to workout consistently is to find something physical you want to achieve. Something that will make you feel acomplished, confident and powerful.
Last year after quitting smoking, I looked for an achievement that will cement my new status as a non-smoker, and will be something that is really hard and almost impossible to acomplish for a smoker.
I decided to run a marathon and on February, 23rd, 2018 I successfully completed the Tel Aviv marathon. I felt incredible and all the long hours of tedious training paid off.
When you choose an accomplishment, make it something incredible that you know will make you feel the same way I felt, but keep it realistic, if you're having trouble walking for 5 minutes choose a goal to simply walk 1 kilometer and work your way up from there.
Once you chose the feat you want to acomplish, visualize yourself completing that feat and reaching that goal, this will put your brain to work on creating the circumstances that will lead you to your goal.
Step 3 - Educate yourself
Step 3 is to educate yourself on what is required to reach your goal. To run a marathon it is understanding the workouts you need to do and how to build up the volume. If you want to learn how to dance the Bachata like a pro, it requires joining a dance group and finding a partner and going to classes regularly.
Step 4 - Create Alignment
In step 4, after you educated yourself on what it takes to reach your goal, we need to choose the frame work in which you will be training. This is a crucial step because, it will determine your ability to stay consistent.
Here we need to go back to step 1 and understand why did that activity we did as kids was so fun for us -
Was it the group or the quality time with yourself?
Was it the activity itself that made it fun or the braging rights that came with it?
If you had fun doing something in a group, you should join a group that practices together and if you prefer being alone than just work out alone.
I preferred gettin ready to the marathon alone but if you perfer groups you can join a running team. With dancing it is a little different since you can't practice the Bachata alone effectively but you can join a group or work one on one with a partner according to your answers.
Step 5 - Create a habit
Once you got through all 4 steps, take action and go and start working on your achievement. After a couple of workouts you will see if you made the correct choice. The achievement and the method need to align so you can become consistent. When you find the activity and the achievment just stick through it for at least a month, this will create a habit and we all know that it is hard to kick a habit.
Conclusion
To sum things up, in order to stay consistent in physical activity we need to find an activity we enjoy and pair it with an achievment in that field - once we got it the way to the top is faster than you think.
Thank you for your time.
With love.
Eugene
