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Have you ever started a fitness journey with so much excitement, only to find yourself back at square one a few months later?
You're not alone.
Studies show that approximately 80% of New Year's fitness resolutions fail by February, and nearly 95% of all fitness goals are abandoned within 6 months.
But here's what most people don't understand: this massive failure rate isn't due to a lack of desire or even discipline.
The real culprit is something different in its entirety.
After years of helping people on their fitness journeys, I've discovered that the gap between intention and action isn't random.
In fact, it's predictable.
The good news? This means that it is preventable.
Most fitness advice focuses entirely on what to do.
And for you reading, you probably know what to eat less of and what to eat more of.
You know you have to be a little more active.
What you're looking for is not the what, but the HOW.
Fitness advice typically ignores the psychological: the mechanisms that determine whether you'll actually do things consistently.
In this post, I'm going to share with you why the majority of fitness goals collapse, and how to strategically improve your chances of success.
Let's dive in!
In looking into the many small reasons people quit on their fitness journey, three psychological phenomena commonly emerge:
1. Focalism: We drastically underestimate how other life demands will compete with our fitness goals.
2. Fantasy Effects: We confuse visualizing success with achieving success, which ironically decreases motivation.
3. Delay Discounting: We struggle to value the future rewards of exercise over immediate comfort.
These are fundamental aspects of human psychology that affect everyone.
Understanding each is the first step toward overcoming them.
"I'll start on Monday."
Focalism is a cognitive bias where we place too much importance on one aspect of an event while disregarding many other factors.
When it comes to fitness, we focus intensely on our goals without accounting for the other demands in our lives.
And in planning our fitness journey, we imagine having so much time, energy, and willpower in the future.
However, we fail to consider how family obligations, work stress, social commitments, and daily fatigue will compete for those resources.
The truth is: future time always looks wide open, but it is as just busy and demanding as the present.
The best fitness plan for you takes your lifestyle into consideration.
Here's something that is sometimes counterintuitive: visualizing your future results too vividly can possibly decrease your likelihood of achieving it.
Dr. Gabriele Oettingen conducted groundbreaking research showing that focusing on positive outcomes without considering potential setbacks can actually hinder goal achievement.
When we fantasize about having six-pack abs or getting leaner, our brain experiences similar satisfaction to having already achieved the goal, which saps our motivation to put in the actual work.
And when we experience a setback that we haven't considered, we fall off the consistency train.
This also explains why consuming endless "motivation porn", inspirational fitness videos and motivational quotes, often leaves us less likely to do the work.
Oettingen's research shows that individuals with concrete, step-by-step plans for achieving their goals are far more successful than those who merely fantasize about the end result.
The best fitness plans have a specific implementation plan.
One of the most powerful forces working against your fitness goals is what behavioral economists call "delay discounting".
Delay discounting is our tendency to value immediate rewards more highly than future benefits, even if the future benefits are significantly more rewarding.
Our brains are wired to prioritize immediate rewards over delayed gratification, even if the delayed rewards are a lot larger.
This explains why the immediate comfort of staying on the couch usually wins the motivational battle with exercise.
The rewards of fitness (better health, improved appearance, increased energy) take months to materialize, while the discomfort of exercise is immediate.
Studies from the Journal of Health Psychology show that delay discounting is one of the strongest predictors of exercise adherence.
The more someone discounts future rewards, the less likely they are to maintain an exercise routine.
The best fitness plans hack their reward system to leverage our inclination of immediate gratification to work towards satisfying our long-term goals.
Now that we understand the psychological barriers, let's build a fitness plan specifically designed to overcome them.
Dr. Carol Dweck, Stanford psychologist and author of "Mindset," emphasizes the importance of process over outcomes: people with a growth mindset focus on the process of what they're doing, not just the end result.
Process goals focus on behaviors you can control, not outcomes that depend on many factors.
So set processes to get you to your outcomes.
Instead of setting a goal like "lose 20 pounds," break down that goal with processes.
How are you going to lose 20lbs?
This might be broken down into daily and weekly actions like "lift weights 3 times per week" and "eat protein with every meal".
Consider breaking down your outcome goals into processes and then into daily actions that help you get to your goal.
The Fogg Behavioral Model teaches that "for a behavior to occur, three elements must converge: motivation, ability, and a prompt."
Motivation being the desire to engage in the behavior.
Ability being having the necessary skills to execute.
Prompt being a trigger that encourages the person to perform the behavior.
When a behavior doesn't occur, at least one of these elements is missing.
From this, you can see why it can be hard to have all 3 elements occur simultaneously.
Since the physical benefits of exercise can take months to occur, we can't use that as a motivator.
However, we can consider focusing on the immediate psychological benefits of exercise.
A meta-analysis found that exercise can reduce negative emotions and improve positive ones, with these mood-lifting benefits lasting up to 24 hours.
With exercise triggering the release of the neurotransmitters that create feelings of happiness and well-being, this is one factor that we can prioritize to influence positive behaviors.
Choose a style of exercise you enjoy, and frame it as your daily mood lift.
Research shows that moderate-intensity exercise (like brisk walking) typically produces more positive feelings than high-intensity workouts, especially for beginners.
This creates a stronger mental association between exercise and positive emotions.
Research also supports that people who prioritize intrinsic benefits of exercise have an easier time maintaining their routines compared to those who exercise primarily for physical appearance or health.
Towards the end of the workout, consider ending it on a positive note as an added bonus.
This can be some sort of exercise you enjoy doing, or a healthy post-workout treat.
On my leg days, I sometimes will grab some frozen yogurt with berries nearby the gym and enjoy that with my protein shake.
It has become a motivation anchor for me for when I'm not excited about going to the gym.
This is leveraging instant gratification to my benefit.
If you do the same, make sure it aligns with your goals (watch those calories)!
In Dr. Stephen Guise's book, Mini Habits, the author emphasizes the power of making habits so small that they're pretty much impossible to fail.
When you make habits bite-sized, you can make it easier to eliminate the need for motivation.
From personal experience, this has been one of my major tools for consistency on my fitness journey.
This is where the Minimum Viable Workout Plan comes in.
A Minimum Viable Workout Plan is a simple workout plan that you can do even on your worst days.
Maybe it's just 5 minutes of movement or a quick set of 10 pushups.
For myself in the past, it was going to the gym and doing the first 2 exercises and assessing if I could do more.
If I couldn't, I would stop there, and if I could, I would continue with the next 2 exercises on the plan.
Sometimes committing to just the first 2 exercises was all I needed to feel better, leading to me completing the entirety of the workout.
Never overpromise - overdeliver. ;)
This helped me create that consistency when life got chaotic.
When I have those rougher days now, I either follow the lifting plan above, or for Jiu-Jitsu, show up after the drilling is done and get into the live rolls.
Dr. Peter Gollwitzer, psychology professor at New York University, found that people who use "implementation intentions" (if-then plans) are up to 300% more likely to stick with their goals.
So have a contingency plan in place to maintain consistency.
Create specific if-then plans for common obstacles, similar to the Minimum Viable Workout Plan.
For example: "If I feel too tired after work to go to the gym, then I'll just do a 10-minute workout at home instead of skipping completely."
Do this not only for your exercise goals, but your nutrition goals as well.
This will allow you to establish a habit or practice of working out and eating better regardless of how motivated you are.
In a world of competing motivations, the most frictionless one is the one that typically comes out on top.
James Clear, author of "Atomic Habits," mentions environment as an "invisible hand that shapes human behavior."
Under certain environmental conditions, our behaviors can be influenced - good or bad.
This is why it is so important to take change of not only your physical environment, but your mental one as well.
Consider the following to hack your environment to conquer your fitness goals.
In order to succeed with exercise consistency, start by designing your physical environment to make exercise easier and inactivity harder.
For example, put your workout clothes next to your bed.
Pack your gym bag the night before.
Put your workout clothes in the passenger seat of your car when you're going to work to remind you that you've got to get to the gym after.
Do whatever it takes physically to drive your motivation.
Your mental environment is just as important as your physical.
With hundreds of push notifications and distractions on your phone, it's quite easy to get pulled in an unproductive direction.
Consider turning off notifications of the most distracting apps on your phone that divert time and energy away from your fitness goals.
Then, leverage a calendar app or a timer of the sort to schedule your workouts throughout the week.
This notification reminds you that it's time to get to work, and it makes exercise enter the forefront of your mind.
There are a plethora of ways to do this, just consider what works best based on your schedule and routine.
"Fall in love with the process, and the results will come." - Eric Thomas
The most important thing to understand about fitness success is that consistency matters first over intensity.
Research even suggests that people who maintain moderate, consistent exercise routines achieve better long-term results than those who cycle between intense workouts and complete inactivity.
Simply put: the best workout is the one that doesn't obliterate your body and make you so sore that you can move for days.
The best workout is the one that allows you to get slightly out of your comfort zone and make you feel good after accomplishing it.
When you shift your mindset to overcome these barriers, you transform what was once a chore into a reward.
Sustainable fitness is never about willpower or discipline.
It's about leveraging your brain's natural tendencies rather than trying to fight against them.
Apply these principles consistently, and you'll find yourself in the successful 5% who maintain their fitness goals long-term.
And I guarantee that you will have a blast achieving your goals.
Thank you for reading!
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