Ever wake up in the morning and tell yourself you will not do the bad habit you do, only to find yourself doing it later that day?
You’re not alone. Will power sucks.
Breaking bad behaviors can feel impossible. And your inability to control yourself to stop it makes you feel even worse about yourself. Am I right?
So what’s the key to long lasting change? Building rituals that stick.
But how?
Rituals are little actions you take all the time that you don’t even think about. Like taking showers. Brushing your teeth. Drinking your coffee every morning. These are things we do everyday that we always seem to make time for no matter how busy we are or what’s happening in our lives.
Yet when it comes to fitness, we tend to view it differently. We tend to see it as this extra thing we feel pressured to have to do.
But that’s simply not true. You don’t have to do it. Just like you don’t have to take a shower. But if you don’t take a shower what happens? You get smelly and gross. So you make the time to shower.
What if we viewed fitness the same way? If we don’t make a little time each day to move our bodies, they will get stiff and immobile, old and possibly diseased. Does that make you feel like going for a walk or a jog today? It does me!
So why is it so hard? Because we feel like each workout has to be epic and amazing. Well it doesn’t! It just has to be something.
Some days you might have extra time and energy for an hour long, powerful workout. And other days you are swamped and can only fit in a 10 minute walk. Guess what? Both workouts count and both are awesome because you did them.
So the key is to stop thinking your workout has to be amazing, and instead accept that any movement or purposeful recover is all you need to complete your daily fitness ritual.
Try this, set a time of day you will make your fitness ritual happen no matter what and take the action to do something at that time every day. Big or small, you’re winning!