You want to lose weight. Gain muscle. Adjust your diet to really feel better…
But creating new habits is HARD.
So many of us have thought…
“I just don’t have the willpower.”
“I don’t have the self control or discipline!”
But what if it isn’t that you don’t have enough willpower or self control?
What if it is that you’ve been approaching how you make workout and diet changes all wrong?
What if you need to embrace that discipline is BUILT?
Because so often we are sabotaging our own results in how we go about making healthy habit changes, I wanted to highlight 6 mistakes I often see clients making and how you can avoid these same issues!
The first mistake most of us make when looking to work toward a new goal is not first pausing to assess where we are at CURRENTLY.
So often when we want to lose weight or gain muscle we look for what we “should” be doing.
But searching for some ideal workout routine or diet is often what keeps us stuck in this yo-yo dieting cycle, never really seeing results build.
Because often we aren’t considering whether those ideals are actually even doable right for us right now or even sustainable.
And while we do need to embrace change if we want a new and better result, the more these changes are far from what we are doing currently, or what we feel capable of doing, the less likely we are to even do them or stick with them.
Often in trying to make these massive changes far outside our comfort zone all at once, we also just ultimately overwhelm ourselves and stop ourselves from even starting!
Instead approach making changes like you would approach driving to a new destination.
You not only enter your destination into your GPS. You put in your current location.
This gives you the fastest, most accurate route.
So before you start to make any changes and create a plan, really understand where you are starting from.
What does your lifestyle look like? What is a schedule that is realistic for you?
What are easy changes you could easily make today based on your routine and habits?
When you truly take a look at your lifestyle, you can make the changes YOU.
One size doesn’t fit all and by knowing ourselves we can find the things that will yield the biggest impact for us personally over wasting energy making changes that really don’t matter for our situation!
And then start with something SMALL first to get that momentum building.
Because that is often the second mistake I see clients making…and one I’ve made myself a ton…
We don’t start small.
I don’t know about you, but when I want a goal, I want it yesterday.
So often in my attempts to get results as fast as possible, I try to do everything at once.
But this can not only lead to me overwhelming myself, but also burning myself out on all the new things I have to do.
This is often what causes me to feel like I just don’t have the willpower or self control to keep implementing all the new habits.
But really it is just too many big things all at once.
By breaking down habits and even starting with the smallest changes that meet me where I’m at currently, I find results more easily snowball without me falling off my plan or feeling constantly stressed out.
So today write out all of the things you “could” do to make a change and circle the easiest one.
Do that.
Don’t worry about the other changes that you should or will eventually have to make.
Focus on one you can do right now.
The success of getting started, of moving past that first hurdle, will lead to you even WANTING to do more.
And this focus on small changes can even help us embrace the fact that often something is better than nothing.
I mean how often do you just simply skip a workout because you can’t get to the gym for a full session and think, “What’s the point of just doing 5 minutes?”
But if instead we had the view of one small thing adds up, we may do that 5 minutes anyway.
And not only may that 5 minutes lead to a 30 minute workout, it is also still 5 more minutes done that week than we would have done otherwise.
And 5 minutes more, week after week, adds up!
So focus on small changes.
Especially changes that don’t mean restricting the things you love most first!
Because that is a BIG mistake many of us make…
We cut out all of the things we love first.
We often do this because the things we generally like the most are lifestyle habits that are the least healthy for us or the most in opposition to our goals.
For me…dessert was always what sabotaged me.
I loved dessert.
But I also knew those high calorie, carb and fat loaded foods, were probably working against my body recomp efforts.
So because it was the most obvious thing to cut out, I would always restrict that first.
But the second I cut out dessert, I found myself wanting even more.
I would look at dessert food porn constantly on Instagram. It took over my feed.
And eventually, I would give in and not only eat the dessert I was craving…I would eat until I had food twins and couldn’t sleep I was so full.
Then I would struggle to make any diet changes again for awhile and end up not only regaining any weight I lost but even more.
It was only once I stopped that cycle and planned in my dessert FIRST that I was able to make changes that snowballed.
I first focused on ADDING in more protein over cutting things out.
I focused on small swaps to foods I didn’t care about as much, using a lower carb tortilla over a regular.
Swapping in greek yogurt with more protein for a regular yogurt.
Changing up berries for mangos in a smoothie.
Little things to hit my macros that didn’t make me feel like I couldn’t have something.
And on top of deciding to make those changes, I realized how much I could work in whenever I wanted which made when I DID cut something out really feel like a CHOICE.
Because often when we are looking to lose weight or make a change, we feel like we are being FORCED to do things we don’t want to do.
But…who’s forcing you?
Often NO ONE is technically making us do those things.
We are CHOOSING to.
But we don’t see it that way as it feels like we HAVE to do certain things to see results. We’ve been conditioned to believe that dieting means deprivation.
And this is a big part of what hinders us from making lasting changes…OUR MINDSET.
We need to recognize that mindset matters most.
As odd as that sounds, this is mistake that holds us back from seeing results…
We put this emphasis on new tactics, macros, workouts, meal timing, best moves…
But we never consider our mindset behind the changes.
And I can tell you, you can have a less than perfect plan and see results if your mindset is in the right place.
Or you can have the perfect plan and never move forward because mentally you hold yourself back.
As cliche as it is….
Whether we believe we can or we can’t, we’re right.
We can doom ourselves with doubt or help ourselves achieve amazing results because we trust in the process.
But just blindly believing in something is hard to do. What if it doesn’t work?
So often nothing really HAS worked, so why should this?
This is why we need to realize that we can create motivation through actions.
We can MAKE ourselves feel successful by how we approach change.
This means boiling things down into easy to manage bite-sized actions that allow us to get moving forward and feel successful right away.
Instead of overwhelming yourself with a ton of changes you feel bad at so you don’t want to do them any more, take one action that would make you feel successful and start with that.
Because when we feel successful with what we are doing, we want to do more. And we become open to bigger and harder changes.
We build confidence in our ability to even overcome.
So start small with actions you know you can do…even easily…
Maybe it’s 2 10 minute workouts.
Just writing down your food.
Just eating one more serving of veggies.
But realize you can create that motivation by allowing yourself to make those small changes that meet you where you are at.
And this motivation will allow you to BUILD.
Because so often we jump to trying to do everything we “should” be doing over trying to stack behaviors.
This is what leads to us falling off and feeling like we’re constantly not strong enough…like we just don’t have the willpower or self control to make the changes we need to see results.
But instead…
We need to focus on that habit build.
What’s one small habit you can do right now?
Can you go drink a glass of water to improve your hydration?
Now once you add in that glass of extra water every day this week, how can you build off of that habit?
Can you add in another?
Can you now move to adding in 1 more ounce of protein to your lunch?
Can you then make a swap to another food in a meal to lower carbs or increase them?
The more you make habits that allow you to stack more off of them, the more you will prepare yourself to make bigger and bigger changes.
And 1% improvements add up the more you make.
So while it may not yield the immediate sexy results you want, it creates a snowball that ultimately leads to better results long term and ones that truly last.
Now…just because you’re making small changes and avoiding cutting out the things you love most first…
This doesn’t mean that everything will always feel easy or fun.
Too often we try to oversell changes to ourselves.
We tell ourselves this program will be soooo easy or fun.
That this is the best lifestyle EVER.
Instead of recognizing that there is a downside to every upside.
Not embracing the negative is a BIG mistake.
This is often why we feel like there must be something wrong with us when we can’t make changes other people have made.
But the only thing wrong is that we didn’t recognize that doing something different than what we’ve always done WON’T always be easy or fun!
I mean…why should something feel easy to start?
It is new…
It is awkward…
We’re probably bad at it…
It isn’t what you’ve always done.
Things outside our comfort zone, many habits we do to get a great result, simply aren’t sexy or cool.
I mean who wants to wake up with an alarm?
No one. But who wants to miss their 4 am flight to their beach vacation?!
That’s a downside to the upside.
And there are lots of those.
But the more you do those habits, the more you don’t even think of them in a negative way.
They are just the downside to the upside.
The cost to get the reward.
So if a change right now feels unsustainable, don’t just give up on it.
Assess the benefit it is providing. Consider if it COULD be worth it enough to give it a chance.
Then realize that just because it is awkward now, doesn’t mean at some point it won’t feel good or at least be tolerable and WORTH IT.
We need to recognize that what feels sustainable right now is simply what you’ve always done until you’ve given the new habits and behaviors time.
Because often if we embrace that things can stink a bit to start and we push through that immediate mental barrier, we’ll see results snowball and find ourselves thinking…
“Why didn’t I make these changes sooner?” as the habits become normal and even enjoyable!
Changing habits is hard.
And often we are our own worst enemy.
We sabotage ourselves in how we approach making changes.
But by understanding these 6 mistakes, you can help yourself avoid them and see results snowball!
Apply to my Online 1:1 Coaching if you need that kickstart to see the results you deserve and avoid these mistakes!
–> Apply Today
