“I Know What To Do, Why Can’t I Make It Happen?”

Are you frustrated by your lack of consistency and progress towards your fitness goals? You’re not alone.

I think most people know what they should do when it comes to their health and fitness. You might not know all the details, but for the most part I’m sure you know you should move more and make healthy food choices.

But it’s one thing to know something and another thing to actually do it.

Why You Don’t Follow Through On Your Good Intentions

Changing your behavior and your lifestyle isn’t easy. There are so many things that can derail you.

Modern society encourages a sedentary lifestyle and the consumption of ultraprocessed foods.

Your individual physiology might make it hard to move more and eat less. You might feel tired and hungry all the time if you have a genetic predisposition to conserve energy and ignore fullness signals.

Then there’s your brain itself. Our brains are wired in a way that prefers immediate and emotional rewards more than long-term benefits. That makes it really hard to give up something pleasant now, like that ice cream or your comfortable couch, for a potential benefit sometime in the future.

To learn more about why that wiring makes it hard for you to follow through on your plans, check out this article: Why Is Change So Hard?

Alright, so that’s the bad news. Change is hard, and it’s hard because of things that are largely outside your control.

It’s not your fault, but it is your responsibility to do something about it if you want to get all the incredible benefits of leading a healthy lifestyle.

If you’re struggling to stick to your workout or eating plan, here are a couple of things you may not have gotten right yet. They have nothing to do with the workout program you choose or the diet you’re following.

You Haven’t Connected With Your Immediate “Why”

Since your brain prefers immediate rewards to long-term ones, your reasons for leading a healthy lifestyle have to be really powerful if they’re going to motivate you to get moving.

If you have a long-term goal, like avoiding a chronic disease or living a long and healthy life, there’s too much distance between what you need to do today and the possibility of that future health benefit.

You need to connect with a deep and meaningful motivation that affects you today, right now, in a tangible way.

To uncover that motivation, I like to ask my clients for their five “Whys”.

First, ask yourself why you want to make a healthy lifestyle change. What’s your main goal? That’s your Why #1.

Now ask yourself again: “why?”. What does your Why #1 mean to you? Why is that goal important? Dig a little deeper to find your answer.

When you’ve figured that out, ask yourself why again, and again, and again, until you have five “Whys”, each one deeper and more immediate than the last.

The idea is to connect your goal to something that strongly resonates with you and allows you to live the life you want every day.

For example, I might initially say that my motivation for exercising and making healthy eating choices is to improve my mental health and wellbeing. But if I dig deeper, I might realize that I really want to decrease my anxiety so I can feel more relaxed and make better connections with the people in my life. That would make my daily daycare pick-up and drop-off much more pleasant and make me feel more confident every day.

You’re Not Working On Changing Your Self-Identity

Something I learned in therapy is that there are layers of beliefs and feelings. You might think your goal is important to you, but if you have a deeper belief that doesn’t line up with that goal, you’re going to struggle to follow through. You’ll always be finding excuses.

If, for example, you had some bad experiences in gym class and deep down you think of yourself as someone who’s not good at exercise, you’re going to subconsciously resist trying too hard.

You need to face the underlying stories you tell yourself, especially the ones about who you are and what you’re capable of.

To align your goals with your self-identity, the first step is to decide who you want to be. Think about the kind of person who has the results you want.

If you want to get fitter and healthier, you need to become an active person. That’s the kind of person who chooses to move at every opportunity and who never misses two workouts in a row.

Once you decide you’re going to become an active person, the next step is to “shrink the change”. Set yourself small, easy goals that you can accomplish frequently.

When setting those goals, think about any negative core beliefs you have about yourself, and set goals that help you challenge those beliefs.

If you don’t think you’re good at exercise, practice until you do feel capable and confident. You may not have been the most coordinated kid in gym class, but you don’t have to hold on to that identity. You can get better at the skills of exercise.

You might start with a goal of taking a 5-minute walk three times a day, or doing one incline push up every hour.  Think of your workouts as practice sessions for getting more comfortable with the basic exercise movements.

You could also adopt some other characteristics of the kind of person you want to be. Dress the part, start reading fitness-related publications, follow evidence-based fitness accounts on social media. Take the stairs and play active games with your kids. Do what an active person would do.

Each time you achieve your small goals and make an active choice, you’re casting a vote for your new self-identity. You’re proving to yourself that your new identity is true. Become an active person, and the results will come.

To learn more, check out my article on The Power Of Changing Your Self-Identity.

If You Need Help

Start with my FREE Goal-setting eBook. It will walk you, step-by-step, through the process of setting effective goals and creating plans to achieve them.  

For more personalized assistance, my personal training programs come with built-in accountability and coaching to help you connect to your deep and meaningful motivation. I also design every program with each unique client in mind, emphasizing the moves that make you feel strong and empowered, so you become an exerciser as we move towards your long-term goals.

To learn more, schedule a FREE consultation!