The Biggest Reason Most People Fail
The fitness / diet industry sadly has an exceptionally high rate of failure.
It is estimated that following a period of weight loss:
80% of people will regain that weight within the first 12 months
90% within 2 years
95% within 3 years
So, the question is…
Why?
This may sound like an oversimplification, but I think it boils down to:
No longer practicing good habits.
… and most likely developing some bad ones too.
“We are what we repeatedly do… Excellence therefore is not an act, it is a habit” - Aristotle
A successful and long-lasting transformation hinges on a persons ability to build and maintain habits that serve their desired outcome.
Doing 1 workout won’t get you in shape…
But becoming someone who trains every week will.
Eating 1 nutritious meal won’t improve your health…
But always nourishing your body with quality food will.
1 Good nights sleep won’t make you a high energy person…
But consistently getting 7-9 hours of good sleep every week will.
You see where I’m going with this.
The 2 questions we need to answer are:
How do we build an effective habit?
How do we maintain our habits?
Building An Effective Habit
Start Small
When introducing a new habit…
We want to set ourselves up for success from Day 1.
Which means we need to Start Small.
For a habit to be improved upon it must first be established.
I was wise to this very early in my coaching career.
When I’d sit down with a new client for a consultation, one of the logical questions to ask is:
“How many times per week can you train?”
And you might get an answer like, 4 maybe 5 times each week.
The problem is… you’d then go away and write a 5 day training programme for somebody and they’d only manage to get 3 workouts in.
Soon the person begins to get demotivated, lose confidence in themselves and if that were to continue to happen, they’d more than likely quit.
So a much better question to ask is:
“What is the minimum number of times you could get into the gym each week and never miss a workout?”
And they might say… 2 or 3.
Now you can programme a 2 or a 3 day programme, that the client is CRUSHING every week.
After a few weeks, they start getting some results, get more motivated and they’d usually ask if there was any more they can be doing!
Create an environment that triggers habits
The easiest way to explain what I mean is to share an example.
At the most foundational level of being a heathy human is our hydration.
If you feel thirsty at some point in the day, you are already dehydrated.
Yet many of us don’t think to get a drink until we become thirsty.
So…
We need to create an external reminder to drink water…
As oppose to our bodies internal reminder of being thirsty.
The most effective way I’ve found to do this is to make it visible.
Fill up a bottle of water and leave it somewhere you always see it e.g. your desk at work.
That way you will always be reminded to practice the habit of drinking water.
It sounds so simple and yet most people aren’t doing this.
REMEMBER: Environment Dictates Behaviour.
If you’re trying to create a healthy habit, first create an environment that makes the new behaviour easy!
Anchoring
Habit Anchoring is perhaps my favourite way to be consistent with a new habit.
This is the practice of anchoring a new habit to an existing one.
We all have habits that are firmly established in our everyday lives, so we can use these to our advantage.
I have a great story of just how effective this method can be.
A client at Fitness Studio 46 was dealing with shoulder pain.
One of the main reasons for this was weakness in his upper back… which meant his shoulders were rolled forward and this was creating pain.
We sourced him a resistance band and gave him some exercises to do everyday.
The problem was, he just kept forgetting.
So I asked him if to run me through a typical day, step-by-step.
I discovered that twice per day he would walk his dog.
So I asked where he kept the dog lead?
Which was on a hook by the door.
I told him to put the resistance band on the hook and before he could walk the dog, he has to spend 2 mins doing his resistance band routine.
As the days and weeks went on, his shoulder pain was gone!
To me this is the perfect example of habit anchoring.
Maintaining An Effective Habits
Now we know how to build a great habit… what are some keys to maintaining them.
Never miss twice
A well designed habit, should be a lot easier maintain than a habit that was poorly designed in the first place.
But no matter how well constructed your habits are…
Life will always find a way to make you miss a habit occasionally.
Having a realistic mindset that this will happen is going to stop you getting disheartened when it does.
Should you miss a habit for whatever reason.
Try to maintain the viewpoint that you will never miss twice!
We definitely don’t want to build the habit, of missing our habits.
Have a contingency plan
Have you got a plan B?
There is the thought that having a backup plan obviously means you’re not very confident in plan A.
However I think having some alternatives for when life gets in the way is a good idea.
I like to apply the If… Then rule.
For example,
If I can’t make time to prepare a healthy meal for tonight, then I’ll order a healthy option from a local restaurant.
If I can’t get my workout done today, then I’ll do a 10 minute bodyweight workout at home.
Back-up plans should be exactly that…
Back up!
Don’t let your back-up plans become a regular occurrence.
Do something Small
Remember Aristotle’s quote at the start…
“We are what we repeatedly do”
It doesn’t matter if on occasion we aren’t able to fully execute our habit, what matters is that we consistently do it.
For example,
There are times where I have a workout scheduled in my week and I get held up for whatever reason.
Let’s say my workout was supposed to take 1 hour… but now I only have 30 mins.
I’m still going to train.
Yes it will be a smaller workout, and potentially not as valuable as what I had planned.
But I know that the value of maintaining my habit is worth more than an individual workout.
Something is always better than nothing.
In Summary
The goal of everybody listening to this, should be to be a part of the 5%
The 5% of people who make a successful change and can also maintain it.
To do that… we have to master our habits.
It starts with building good ones, remember to:
Start Small. A habit must first be established before it can be improved upon.
Control your environment. Because environment dictates behaviours.
Anchor your habits.
Then in order to maintain them forever:
Understand that on occasion you will miss a habit.
Try to never miss twice in a row.
And if you can’t do it all, do something small.
Think of a habit that you want to build. Apply the tips I just shared & enjoy the benefits for the rest of your life.