In order to achieve your health and fitness goals, there’s a powerful force you can harness:
Consistency.
At face value, this seems obvious. Of course you need to be consistent in order to reach your health goals! But being able to harness the power of consistency is a skill that you can learn. With practice, you can improve your consistency, and be able to reach the targets you set for yourself.
In this article, I’m going to take you through how I’ve been able to stay consistent with my health goals, like finally being able to do a pull-up from a dead hang.
Here's how to actually stay consistent:
1. Know Your Why
The most important thing about being consistent is to get really specific about the reason why you’re trying to do so in the first place.
For instance, my current goal is to weight train at the gym three days a week for 2024. Seems like a good goal. But when things get tough, I need to look back at my Why. The whole reason I set this goal is because I want to get stronger so that I can keep up with my toddler. It’s a huge motivator for me.
Here’s a great article on Medium about finding what motivates you to stay healthy. Once you have your Why, write it down. Then look at it. Often. Set reminders on your phone, or put a sticky note on your bathroom mirror. Whatever works for you.
2. Choose a Reasonable Goal
This is one of the biggest pitfalls of goal-setting that I see in Family Medicine, and that I saw as a former physiotherapist. People are good at setting goals that look reasonable on paper, but aren’t realistic IRL. I bought a yoga mat that I said I would use every evening, but I’ve only busted it out a couple of times.
The main way to stay consistent with a health behaviour is to make it a reasonable one that fits into your life. Not some idealistic version of your life – your life as it is right now.
So, how do you actually set a realistic goal?
After you write your Why, write down what you’re currently doing for the health behaviour you want to change. For instance, if your goal is to workout more, write down how much you workout now. A good goal would be to add 10-20% to that amount. That’s pretty realistic for more people.
Let’s say you workout for 20 minutes, three days a week. Your goal could be to make one of those workouts 30 minutes long (going from 60 to 70 minutes of total time in a week).
Once you’re consistent with that change, add another 10 minutes to another workout. Pretty soon, you’ll be consistently working out for 30 minutes, three times a week.
This same idea applies to cutting unhelpful things out of your life too. If you’re trying to cut back on ordering takeout, write down how many times a week you order it now. If it’s six days a week, try five. Then four.
You may be tempted to say, “I’m only going to order takeout once a month now.” While this sounds valiant, it may be unrealistic compared to what you’re currently doing.
In other words, for any goal, start where you actually are.
3. And Make Sure Your Goal is Effective to Help You with Your Why
I don’t think this is talked about enough in the health & fitness space.
If you’re setting a goal that requires consistent effort to achieve, make sure it’s effective.
Here’s what I mean.
My Why is being able to keep up with my son. I want to be strong and fit in order to do so. A good way to do that is to go to the gym three times a week. My consistency will pay off towards my Why.
Now, let’s say my goal was to walk three times a week. My Why is the same. Would walking be an effective way to get stronger so I can swing my son around and carry him up the stairs? No, not really.
Don’t get me wrong, walking is amazing for your health. But your goal needs to be an effective way to realize your Why if you want the best chances of sticking with it. That’s because you’ll be able to see all your hard work pay off over time.
When I was able to lift my son above my head (much to his delight), I felt like all those shoulder presses were worth it.
If your goal is to be consistent with something for the long haul, make sure that goal is worthwhile.
Which brings me to my final tip.
4. Be patient. So. Very. Patient.
I used this guide from Nerd Fitness to get my first pull-up. Guess how long it took me to be able to do just one?
I’ll give you more information: I worked on my pull-up goal twice a week. I did multiple variations, like banded pull-ups, scapula pull-ups, and eccentrics. I drank a protein shake after every workout (get those gains!) I even found places to keep working on pull-ups while I was on vacation.
And yet, it took me more than a year to achieve one pull-up from a dead hang. Just one.
When people set health goals, they often get the timeline for achieving them way off. It takes months and years for the good stuff to happen. So be patient, and stick with it!
Consistency + time = magic. That’s the secret sauce for reaching your health goals.
Stay well friends,
- Dr. K
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