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4 Simple Keys to Consistency

Nutrition, FitnessHaley HansenComment

Whether you’re working towards fitness, nutrition, work, or general life goals, it’s important to maintain consistency during the process as well as after you achieve the goals. “Just keep doing what you’re doing” sounds great, but it isn’t all that easy. Here are four simple and practical keys to maintaining consistency in your everyday life. 

Build upon small goals. 

Starting with small, attainable goals builds confidence, and over time, this confidence is key to challenging yourself and achieving larger and larger goals. These small goals also help to create useful habits that accelerate your achievements and expand your capabilities. Think about setting daily and weekly goals to broaden your healthy habits. 

Set up your environment for success. 

So much of what we do everyday is based on our environment. Common examples of this are eating mindlessly, constantly checking our phone or social media, and forgetting to drink water throughout the day. By creating a healthy, goal-oriented environment, we can set ourselves up to more easily achieve our goals, small and large. 

Create an accountability system (or community). 

Just like our physical environment influences our behaviors, our social environment can do the same. Call on close friends and family members for accountability simply by sharing your goals with them. Take it one step further and ask them to join you in the process! Never underestimate the power of unity. Over time, this accountability support system works to keep you inspired and focused on your goals. 

Fall in love with the process, not the product. 

Last but not least, learn to fall in love with the process of achieving your goals. Cultivate confidence as you achieve your small goals and set up your environment for success. Find joy in challenging yourself alongside family and friends. 

Falling in love with the process, not just the product or your ultimate goal, helps to solidify your new healthy habits, and to continue cultivating confidence in your ability to challenge yourself, set new goals, and achieve them. 

4 Keys to Consistency

Focus on the Process Before the Product

Fitness, NutritionHaley HansenComment

We set goals with the purpose of achieving an outcome. And in order to achieve that outcome, we must implement certain behaviors, habits, and routines into our lifestyles. Maybe we want to run a 5K, or eat fewer processed foods. Maybe we want to get that promotion at work, or save more money each month. Whatever the goal, there is an outcome, and there is a process we must go through in order to achieve that outcome. It’s common to focus on the outcome, or product, when we are chasing our goals - and this isn’t a bad thing to do - but it’s much more beneficial to learn to focus on and appreciate the process. 

Focus on the Process

Focusing on the process teaches us discipline and consistency.  

By shifting our attention from the product to the process, we learn to develop the discipline and consistency required to achieve and maintain the outcome for the long-term. Embrace and enjoy this! Developing discipline and consistency can be challenging, but so rewarding. Learn to love the discipline and crave the consistency to maintain your outcome. With discipline, we gain the skills needed stick with our habits even when we aren’t feeling motivated. With consistency, we’re able to reap the rewards of our hard work for the long-term.

Focusing on the process builds confidence and creates healthy habits. 

By shifting our attention from the product to the process, we present ourselves with small opportunities to practice discipline and succeed in our everyday goals. Over time, these small successes add up - we build confidence and confidence, and we can challenge ourselves more and more to continue progressing and achieving. 

Setting and achieving goals shouldn’t be only about achieving that goal. Setting and achieving goals should be about changing behaviors - evaluating your current habits and areas of improvement, and then creating the healthy and sustainable lifestyle you want to live. 

Fall in love with this process, and you’ll learn to stay disciplined and consistent, creating a more sustainable and enjoyable product

Focus on the Process

Some final thoughts…

You might be thinking, “okay, this all sounds great, but how do I just switch my mindset from product-focus to process-focus?” Not to sound annoyingly cheesy or sales-y here, but this is where working with a certified coach or trainer is SO beneficial. We can help you set long-term goals and then strategize short-term goals to lead you there, all while sticking by your side to encourage you, support you, and help make any adjustments along the way, if needed. Focusing on the process takes practice and time. It’s sometimes easier said than done, too, but it is by no means impossible.

You have what it takes within you.

Discipline Over Motivation

Nutrition, FitnessHaley HansenComment

Preface: 
7 years ago, as a high school senior trying to please others and herself through my physical appearance, I thought discipline signified power and perfection in diet and exercise, which I so badly wanted. 3 years ago, as a college junior wanting nothing to do with any sort of diet or the word itself, I thought discipline signified disordered eating and an unhealthy relationship with food and exercise. Now, I finally understand what discipline really means. (read more about my story here)

It’s not as “black and white” as I had thought, both when I was in high school and college, but from different perspectives. I understand what can lead people to believe both of these definitions of discipline - diet culture for one (power and perfection in achieving a certain body shape/size) and the strong intuitive eating and body positivity movement for the other (disordered eating and an unhealthy relationship with food and exercise). Neither of these are totally wrong. Discipline can certainly become a desire for power and perfection, in which case it would very likely lead to an unhealthy relationship with food exercise. Many, many people experience that, myself included. 

However, discipline can be healthy. Discipline can advance you toward your fitness and nutrition goals without morphing into a restrictive diet and exercise plan… or worse. 

You might be reading this and wondering why I need to point that out. It’s because I know a portion of people reading this have the same background that I do, and for some it may not be a background - it may be the current situation, in which case I recommend clicking away from this post. I need to recognize both viewpoints - those who have experienced disordered eating and those who have not.

Discipline Over Motivation

It’s January, which means goal-setting is trendy and motivation is high. Most of us are setting goals this time of year, fitness- and nutrition-related or otherwise. This is great! Let’s use this high-energy motivation to get rolling, making a structured plan to progress towards our goals. However, we also need to think about how we will keep progressing in a couple months, when motivation has waned and the temptations to revert back to old unhealthy habits seem much stronger than they do now. That time will come - it’s inevitable because we’re human and we live in the real world - but that doesn’t mean we need to give in. 

We need to develop discipline.

First, I want to point out that discipline does not mean extreme restriction. Here’s what’s different about discipline versus motivation. Motivation is external, meaning that most of the time, we need to find it and that takes a lot of energy. It’s like willpower - it’s a great kick-start fuel, but eventually, it runs out. Then what do we do? 

Then, we rely on discipline.

Discipline is internal, meaning that by developing healthy and productive habits that progress us towards our goals, we will always have it within us. 

Discipline is the act of implementing behaviors and creating healthy and productive habits that provide long-term support in achieving our goals when motivation is low. Improving discipline through behavior change and habit creation pays off later in the year. With discipline, we can still feel focused on our goals later in the year, and by this time, have already made and continue to make significant progress in our journeys to achieve the goals and resolutions we set in January. 

Discipline is a habit, motivation is a feeling. Discipline is a long-term support system, motivation is a short-term tool. Both are helpful, but it’s important to recognize the purpose of each, and to cultivate healthy levels of both to support us through the journeys to achieving our goals.

Discipline Over Motivation

How can we develop discipline?

Because discipline is internal, it’s individual. When thinking about ways to develop discipline, we need to think about our own goals and the habits we can create that will progress us towards achieving those goals. For example:

Goal: get to the gym 5 mornings a week.
Habits:

  • lay out your gym clothes the night before and have everything packed and ready to go.

  • get in bed by 10PM, without your phone or other devices.

  • invite a friend to come workout with you a few days to promote accountability and make the workouts more fun. 

Goal: reduce consumption of processed sugar.
Habits:

  • don’t keep treats made with processed sugar in the house.

  • replace those with snacks and desserts made with dates, so that you can still satisfy your sweet tooth and prevent feelings of restriction and deprivation.

  • balance each meal with lean protein, complex carbohydrates, and healthy fats so that you feel full and can limit other cravings. 

Notice how each of these habits are specific and sustainable - specific so that we can monitor them and hold ourselves accountable, and sustainable so that we can continue them year-round and for years to come.  

Discipline is a habit, motivation is a feeling. Discipline is a long-term support system, motivation is a short-term tool. 

Both are helpful, but it’s important to recognize the purpose of each, and to cultivate healthy levels of both to support us through the journeys to achieving our goals. 

Discipline Over Motivation

Goal-Setting: Be S.M.A.R.T.

Nutrition, FitnessHaley HansenComment

‘Tis the season for setting new-year goals and resolutions! I’ve never been one who absolutely needs to set goals, but I do enjoy the process of thinking through what I want to accomplish and how I can push myself to achieve that. This year - after a challenging and eye-opening year like 2020 - I AM setting intentional goals. Some will be small (ahem… make my bed every morning) and some will be big (gather resources needed to start and succeed in my business). 

WIth goals and resolutions, and high hopes for a much better year than 2020, on my brain and everyone else’s, I wanted to share a tool to help us set challenging, achievable, and sustainable goals. It’s called being SMART. 

Specific

Give me the details! What exactly do you want to achieve this year? When do you want to accomplish this? How do you plan to do so? Goals are specific when a third party (not you or your friend, let’s say) is able to understand exactly what the intended outcome is. For example, I want to make my bed every morning. A less specific version of this goal would say “I want to make my bed more” while a more specific version would say “I want to make my bed every morning before I make breakfast.” Now I’ve also attached my goal to another activity I already do everyday - make breakfast. This will make it easier for me to simply take one extra minute before making breakfast to make my bed.  

Measurable

Because monitoring progress is one of the best parts! How will you track progress towards your goal(s)? Without a measurement point, it’s impossible to determine whether or not a goal was achieved. For example, a goal that says “I want to increase my strength” can become measurable by instead saying “I want to bicep curl with 20-lb dumbbells by the end of January.” I’ll know I achieved my goal when I’m able to consistently curl with 20-lb dumbbells at the end of the month. Use measurement points as a source of encouragement, too! For this goal, I can add a measurement point halfway through the month - performing 2 reps of bicep curl with 20-lb dumbbells, let’s say. When I achieve that, I’ll know I’m on track to achieving my ultimate goal. 

Attainable

Challenge yourself, of course, but think realistically. Is the goal you are setting actually attainable within the specified time-frame and with the resources you currently have? For a very “2020” example, let’s assume gyms in Minnesota stay closed through the end of January and into February. If I don’t have access to a treadmill, but my goal is to run a 10K on January 31st, my goal is most likely unattainable. I should set a goal for which I have the resources and time to achieve, and one that will challenge me without defeating me. If you’re still working out from home, think of creative ways to challenge yourself with the equipment you have on hand. 

Relevant 

What matters to YOU? I’m predicting many start-up business-related goals for 2021, since 2020 was what it was. Just because you see that all over social media doesn’t mean you need to start your own business and scale it to 6 figures by June. No no no. If cooking isn’t your favorite thing and you can afford takeout everyday, don’t set a goal to cook every meal you eat. Think about your job - are you ready for a promotion, or did you just start at the company? Think about your hobbies - do you enjoy reading? What kinds of books? Think about your daily routine - do you want to wake up earlier and write in a gratitude journal before work, or would you rather get a workout in? This is your life and these are your goals. 

Timely

Most importantly, set a time frame around your goal. When do you want to achieve it? Of course, be realistic - don’t expect to achieve a goal overnight (unless your goal is one good night of sleep). But also, challenge yourself. For fitness / nutrition-related goals, work with a certified personal trainer / registered dietitian to help you determine a realistic time frame for creating an action plan to achieve your goals. 

Do you feel SMARTer about setting goals this year? Good - you are! Before you go, take a moment to read through the following questions to help you think more about your goals. 

  1. What is my goal? 

  2. Why is this goal important to me?

  3. What is one actionable step I can take towards achieving this goal?

  4. When do I want to complete this goal?

  5. What obstacles might arise during this process, and how can I work to overcome them?

I’d love to hear what your goals are. Leave a comment below!

Goal-Setting: Be S.M.A.R.T.