How To Build A Fitness Mindset: Four Mindset Shifts To Help You Stick To Exercise

Why do some people manage to stick to their exercise routines all the time while other people struggle?

It’s not that consistent exercisers are less busy, less stressed, or even more disciplined. It all comes down to their fitness mindset.

Beyonce also has a lot of advantages, but you get what I mean...

Here are four fitness mindset shifts to help you stick to your exercise habits.

I’ve written full articles for each of these mindsets, click the links to learn more.

Instead Of Pressing Pause When Things Get Tough, Always Do Something

Full Article: Break The Start/Stop Cycle And Actually Stick To Exercise!

One of the most common fitness mindset mistakes I see: The “Start/Stop” mindset.

This is when you go all in on your fitness goals when things are easy and convenient, but press pause anytime life gets in the way.

Of course, life gets in the way a lot. There are vacations, work deadlines, a busy kid’s activity schedule, an injury or illness in your family, that month of the year when everyone has a birthday…

When you feel like you can just press pause on your exercise routine, it’s not really a part of your lifestyle. It’s temporary. You think you can go all-in for a little while, and then you’re finished.

That’s not how fitness, or anything important in life, works. It takes consistency and commitment.

If you want results, you need to learn to navigate obstacles, not wait for them to magically go away. That builds not just your fitness, but important skills and habits.

You learn what works and what doesn’t, under real life conditions, not just when it’s easy. You build confidence by stacking up small successes.

Press pause, and you get the opposite: bad habits, lost skills, and less confidence.

How To Build A Better Fitness Mindset:

Next time life gets in the way and you’re tempted to take a break from your workout program, don’t stop altogether. Just scale down your effort instead. 

Think about your effort on a scale from 0-10. 10 is your maximum dedication and effort, and 0 is nothing at all.

What does a 10/10 effort mean to you when it comes to your fitness? If you had nothing but time, money, energy, and motivation, what would you do?

Six intense workouts a week? 10,000 steps a day?

What would a 1/10 effort be? What’s the minimum you could do towards your goals?

Two push ups when you first wake up in the morning? Park a little farther away from the office and walk the rest of the way?

Once you know what your maximum and minimum effort would be, fill in the rest of the scale. You should end up with a list of 10 actions that you could take towards your goal, each one a little bigger than the last.

For more ideas, check out this infographic from Precision Nutrition.

When you’re able to, turn up your effort. Give it an 8 or 9 out of 10, or whatever is the most you can do.

But when times are tougher, turn down your effort. Give it a 1, 2, or 3 out of 10. Just never give up completely.

Stop Trying To Do Too Much

Full Article: Forget The All Or Nothing Approach. Small Steps Are The Key To Lasting Results!

When you decide to commit to your fitness goals, it’s tempting to want to jump right in and change everything all at once. That’s what most people think of as “starting a workout program”.

If you want long-term results, going “all in” and doing too much from the start is likely to blow up in your face.

Total overhauls and grueling, extreme exercise plans don’t stick because they take too much willpower. They’re too much of a change, for both your body and your mind. Our brains are wired to resist change, especially big changes.

Honestly, in all of my years as a personal trainer, I have yet to see someone totally change their lifestyle overnight and maintain it for even a year, let alone indefinitely. It usually falls apart after just a few months, if not weeks.

How To Build A Better Fitness Mindset:

Instead of triggering resistance in your brain by trying to make huge changes all at once, work with your brain and make small, simple changes. Choose one small positive step at a time and build on it slowly.

When you inevitably have a slip up and miss a workout (it happens to everyone), you’ll be able to see that for what it really is: a small bump in a long road that leads to your overall goals. It will be much easier to course-correct and get back on track, instead of quitting altogether.

Start by taking a 5 minute walk each day, or doing just one set of one exercise in your workout.

Start even smaller and easier than you think you need to, and something kind of amazing will happen. You’ll feel a pull to do more.

In fact, try this little experiment. Every day this week, just put on your workout clothes. Don’t even do any exercise, just change into your gear and lace up your sneakers. After a few days, you’ll think: “I’m already dressed for a workout, I want to do something!”

I cannot emphasize enough how precious and valuable that feeling of wanting to exercise is.

You need to cultivate that feeling, and starting very small helps you do that. Soon, you’ll be motivated to do more, and you’ll have built a sustainable exercise habit.

What happens if you try to do too much all at once? The exact opposite.

You get ready for a big workout and you think: “Oh man, I really don’t want to do this.” Or you get halfway through and there are alarm bells going off in your brain saying: “I hate this, I never want to do this again.”

That’s the exact wrong position to be in if you want to become a consistent exerciser. You won’t last long if that’s where you are.

Remember: small steps, not big changes.

Get Specific And Don’t Change Goals Too Often

Full Article: The “Moving Target” Mindset: What It Is And How To Overcome It So You Can Get Fitter And Healthier

Here’s a common pattern I see with personal training clients:

They decide they’re going to make some healthy lifestyle changes. They vow to start walking every day, eat more fruits and vegetables, drink more water, and get more sleep.

These are all great goals. But when I check in with them, they haven’t followed through.

There are always reasons why. They got busy, there weren’t any fruits and vegetables at home, at lunch with their coworkers everyone else ordered a soda so they got one too. Bedtime came and went, and they were still scrolling on their phone.

The following week, they get motivated again. This time they’re excited to try some at-home yoga videos, they’ll pack a salad for lunch and turn off their phone at 9pm.

But again, they don’t follow through. And the cycle of setting new goals and then forgetting them continues.

This mindset is a tricky one, because it fools you into believing that you’re doing something positive for your health, when you’re really not.

The act of setting goals feels good, and that dopamine hit in your brain distracts you from the fact that you’re not actually taking action.

This often comes from a place of fear. When you set goals but don’t actually work on them, you can avoid having to confront some uncomfortable realities.

Maybe you’re not as committed to your health and fitness as you think you are. You might value your health, but you value something else more. Maybe you’re not really ready, willing, or able to do what it takes to achieve your goals.

So instead, you just keep setting new goals. If you don’t really try, you can’t really fail.

How To Build A Better Fitness Mindset:

The first step here is to figure out what’s truly holding you back. The next step is to focus your effort and work on just one small goal at a time.

For help with finding your deep motivation and setting effective goals, download my FREE Goal-Setting Guide. This eBook will walk you, step-by-step, through the process of setting goals and creating specific action plans to achieve them.

Resist the urge to keep changing your focus, and instead commit to at least 1 month of working on one specific goal at a time. Start with a very small version, and be prepared to have setbacks. That’s ok. Just get up and keep working on that small goal every day.

After that, you can build on that goal or add another one.

Don’t Put It Off, The Best Time To Start Is Right Now

Full Article: The “I’ll Start Tomorrow” Mindset Holds You Back. Here’s How To Change It.

Have you ever said: “I’ll start tomorrow”? I know I have. It seems like a good idea to wait until the time is right, so you can give your best effort.

But there’s a problem. With this mindset, it’s easy to keep putting your workouts off.

Tomorrow, when it’s time for your gym session, what will stop you from putting it off again? What if you’re even busier? What if you’re still tired or stressed? Maybe you’ll decide to wait for the next tomorrow.

This can go on forever, and in the meantime you’re no closer to your goals.

How To Build A Better Fitness Mindset:

When you commit to exercise, don’t wait. Start building momentum right now.

Do a simple workout today. Take the next opportunity to move. No matter how small the healthy behavior is, do it immediately. I mean it. Step away from your device and do 5 squats right now.

Make sure you don’t overthink it. You might assume you need a sophisticated workout program, but you don’t. Waiting to figure out all the details is just another way of delaying your goals.

Just move more and lift something heavy. That’s really all you need to do to get started.

Of course, it is more complicated than that, but you can figure it out as you go along.

For help setting up your strength training program, download my FREE Strength Training 101 eBook. This guide will teach you everything you need to know to create an effective strength training program, including which exercises to do and how to make progress over time.

Finally, focus on today and forget about tomorrow. Give yourself the mental freedom to stop whenever you want. This prevents you from getting overwhelmed when you think about the fact that you should be exercising regularly for the rest of your life.

Don’t worry about that right now. Just do what you need to do today.  The next day, do it again.

Keep that up, one day at a time, and before you know it you’ll have strung together several days of healthy habits. Each of those days brings you a little closer to achieving your goals.

No one ever regrets starting sooner. It’s the time you lost procrastinating that you’ll want back.

If You Need Help

If you need more personalized help, contact me. All of my in-person and online personal training programs focus on helping you build physical strength and mental resilience, as well as creating a healthy fitness mindset.