I know it would be really nice to wake up tomorrow and suddenly have reached your goals. Just wake up and have a different life, whether that means having lost 10 pounds of fat or adding three zeros to your bank balance or being in a steady relationship with leafy greens.
However.
We both know – despite all of the “hacks” and waist trainers and pills and potions on Instagram and elsewhere – that this isn’t possible.
It’s just not…or is it?
One day you will wake up and suddenly have reached your goals, if you keep working toward them consistently. One day, that day will be here. It just doesn’t happen over one single night.
So how does it happen?
What change looks like.
Here is what change looks like: confronting the same mundane situations in a new way.
You need to eat? Eat in a way that serves your goals instead of the same old way.
You want more endurance or strength? Fit that workout into you evening instead of brushing it off until “tomorrow”.
Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
That is the boring truth about change.
It is small by nature. It is made of the individual choices you make about boring things that are already in your life. It is not the montage from a romcom in which you rip off your glasses, let down your hair, and are suddenly a supermodel.
How to change.
1. Remember how you will feel when you have reached your goal.
Will you feel proud? Energetic? Strong? Cute? Invincible? All of the above? Something else? Let that be your motivation.
Do not emphasize to yourself how frustrated you are that you aren’t done yet – it’s totally valid to feel like that sometimes, but it’s really demotivating to focus on the negatives. No one is “done”. No one is perfect. We all keep going anyway.
2. Do things that make sense for your goal; measure progress in a way that makes sense for your goal.
Trying to get strong? Strength train, and measure progress by your improved ability to lift heavy things. Trying to build endurance? Work out for longer blocks of time, and measure progress by your ability to sustain intensity and work. Trying to lose fat? Eat in a way that supports your body, and measure progress by your bodyfat percentage (instead of that lame old unreliable scale).
Do not do things that you know won’t work! If you need to do cardio, don’t go to yoga and say it was “good enough” – that’s like buying shoes when you’re hungry (yes, you bought something, but no, it doesn’t solve the issue at hand). If you need to lose bodyfat, don’t starve yourself and then fixate on the scale – you already know that doesn’t work, or everyone would just be at the perfect bodyfat percentage all the time because undereating is pretty easy (just ineffective).
Do not look for a magic “hack” that will do the impossible! (Hint: the impossible is impossible!) You will just undermine your belief in yourself even more and end up further behind your goals than when you started. There are efficient ways of doing things, but there are very few “hacks” that are going to help you finish the job.
3. Keep going.
Just keep going. Effort x time = success.
Don’t quit unless it’s because you decided your goals didn’t matter to you after all. All changes, whether they are physical changes like fitness improvements or life changes like getting a degree or a new job, take longer than we wish they would, but we are just an impatient species.
You don’t have to be so hard on yourself. If you’re not succeeding yet, you’re not a failure, a lost cause, or a medical mystery – you’re just not doing the right thing, measuring the right way, or working hard/long enough to get there. So make a tweak, maybe, but keep going! You can do it.
