The Secret to Developing Fitness Habits That Last
How to change your life for the better
It’s often easier to learn something new than it is to develop long-lasting habits.
As a fitness instructor, it’s part of my job to teach people how to perform different exercises and eat healthier, helping them to get in better shape.
And while this benefits a lot of people, it isn’t always what people need.
Virtually all of us know how to exercise already. In fact, if we just ate a little better and moved around some more, we’d all be in pretty decent shape anyway.
When people come to me to learn how to get in better shape, the problem isn’t usually that they don’t know how to work out. Often, it’s that they don’t know how to stay committed to their fitness routines.
It’s not about learning complicated exercises or having the most experienced personal trainer — it’s about having a solid fitness plan and actually sticking to it.
Plenty of research has been conducted into building lasting habits. In this article, I’ll be discussing proven ways to stay committed to your workout routine.
Take it Steady
I know full well how tempting it can be to go completely cold turkey with fitness habits and dieting, exercising vigorously every day and cutting out all junk food immediately.
It’s what most of us do. We want to speed up the process of getting in shape and start seeing results as soon as possible— so we train hard and make dramatic changes to our day-to-day lives.
And while this might seem like a great idea, it’s exactly this all-or-nothing behaviour that causes most of us to fail early.
Making sudden, immediate changes is often a recipe for disaster. We set unrealistic standards right from the get-go and only end up disappointing ourselves further down the line, landing us right back at square one before long.
If your goal is to eat less chocolate and you’re already eating chocolate on a daily basis, cutting it out suddenly and completely is going to be a massive shock to your system. Your body just isn’t ready for that kind of change.
It’s far easier to build healthy fitness habits when you introduce them slowly. Gradually introduce new behaviours whilst slowly phasing out bad habits to avoid exhausting your energy early on.
Don’t Resist Temptation — Avoid it
Believe it or not, those that we think have super strong willpower often have just as much as we do.
In truth, many of those people are just as prone to temptation as the rest of us.
The difference between those that stick to their fitness habits and those that don’t isn’t their self-control as much as it is their environment.
When we surround ourselves with the things we crave but are trying to avoid, like junk food, fizzy drinks and a Netflix subscription, we’re only setting ourselves up for failure.
You have to find a way to force yourself in or out of the habit you’re trying to commit to. Leave yourself with no other option.
- If it’s drinking less when with your friends, volunteer yourself as designated driver for the evening.
- If it’s going to the gym more, commit to paying $40/month for a membership.
It isn’t about training your willpower. It’s about forcing yourself to do what you know is best for you. When you remove all sources of temptation, you’re left with no choice but to make healthy decisions.
Manage Your Time
It’s much harder to focus on getting in shape when you have other priorities on your mind.
If you have other tasks to attend to, you’ll probably end up skipping your workout to take care of those.
In order to commit fully to developing new fitness habits, you have to take care of the big and important tasks first. I’m not suggesting that your health isn’t important, but if you’re trying to run 10KM at the gym whilst thinking about your tax returns, you’re probably going to justify clocking out early to get a head start on the paperwork.
And if you can’t get those things done right now, plan your day to ensure that you have enough time to take care of them later.
That way, you can rest assured knowing that one gym session isn’t going to jeapordise your entire business or lifelong career.
You can exercise with the comforting knowledge that you have time to exercise and leave yourself with no excuses for skipping the gym.
Prioritise Your Long-Term Happiness
When it comes to making any decision that concerns pleasure, there are two routes you can take:
- The path of the hedonist: Hedonism says that you should do everything that makes you feel good — eat cake, stay in bed, buy another pumpkin-spiced latte. Sometimes, even though we know a decision isn’t necessarily the healthiest choice for us, we do it anyway.
- The path of the rationalist: Alternatively, you might weigh up the pros and cons of the two choices ahead of you and make a more prudent decision. Perhaps you reason that you care far more about being healthy than you do about tasting cake, and politely decline.
Developing healthy fitness habits isn’t always something that grants instant happiness. Rather, we’re forced to work hard, suffering in the short-term knowing that we’ll reap greater rewards in the future.
In order to stick to our habits, we have to put our long-term happiness first.
When you’re tempted to make a decision that jeapordises your progress, remind yourself that you care more, far more, about creating long-lasting changes than you do about short-lived satisfaction.
Immediate pleasure just isn’t worth the future misery it brings.
‘We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act, but a habit.’ — Aristotle
The Takeaway
To summarise the points we’ve discussed:
- Take it steady: Don’t expect to transform your entire life in an afternoon. Instead of pushing yourself too hard in the beginning and risking early burnout, slowly integrate new fitness habits into your routine, gradually making changes.
- Minimise temptation: It isn’t always about strengthening willpower. Instead, minimise temptation by refusing to buy junk food or subscribing to an expensive gym membership, forcing you to fulfil the commitments you’re making.
- Manage your time: Working out isn’t easy when you’re juggling other priorities at the same time. If there are other areas of your life causing stress, attend to those first. And if you can’t, plan time to take care of them in future, allowing yourself to work out without worrying about having enough hours to manage to your to-do list.
- Prioritise your long-term happiness: Instead of succumbing to short-term pleasures like eating fast food or sleeping in late, remind yourself that your long-term happiness is what matters the most to you. Do something today that you’ll thank yourself for tomorrow.
Creating new fitness habits doesn’t have to feel like an impossible task. When you know how to commit to making long-lasting changes, becoming healthier and happier feels far easier to achieve.
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