Many of us know what we should do to improve our health, and we have the best intentions of putting these habits into place and maintaining them. 

But that becomes the challenge. Think about the New Year’s resolutions that have faded by February or sooner. And unfortunately, that’s where the weight cycling comes in. 

The issue I hear from so many women is that they put these habits in place, and that habit somehow doesn’t stick. So they fall back off the wagon and gain the weight back often even more. And it’s so frustrating, and we feel bad about ourselves, and we have so much shame and blame, and we think we don’t have willpower, we think we’re not self-disciplined, and we just don’t have the motivation to stick to our goals. And that is so damaging to our self-esteem. 

I will give you three reasons why what you’ve been doing isn’t working and how to create those habits that stick for good. But before I jump into those three reasons, let’s talk about willpower. 

What we interpret as willpower or lack thereof is actually habits.

So when our actions develop into habits, they eventually become second nature and don’t require a lot of mental and emotional energy, so they don’t require willpower. So I’m going to talk to you about the difference between willpower and habits because there are scientific reasons for this and what is happening inside your brain. 

Willpower is naturally going to ebb and flow. Nobody is motivated all the time. And when people create habits, it actually creates these strong neural pathways in your brain. So I am going to talk to you about the three reasons that you don’t stick to a habit and how you can make good habits consistent. 

Number One

Creating a goal that is too difficult. Most people want to make these changes and see them happen as quickly as possible. But if you’re trying to go from zero to four gym sessions in a week when you haven’t been going at all, or you’re trying to completely overhaul your diet, it’s too hard, it’s too big of a goal, and it’s almost impossible to sustain it. So the solution is to start small. Make small incremental changes because that makes it easier to adopt a new habit, and that’s going to set you up for success. You have to be patient with yourself. You’re going to build on your progress little by little. 

Number Two

We need to work on staying motivated, and we get frustrated if we aren’t seeing those big results quickly. So one of the ways that you can counteract that is by setting up some kind of accountability for yourself. One way that works great, proven to make you more successful, is using a buddy system. 

Go public with your goal, post it on social media, share it with your friends, and share it with your family because you will feel more accountable if you’ve put it out there and said that you will do that. Also, write down your goals, pen them to paper, and then post them where you can see them. This helps get you focused on that end result and consistently keeps reminding you of what you’re working for.

So no matter what it is that you’re setting out to achieve, go easy on yourself. You’re not going to be perfect. You are going to fail.

Number Three

Sometimes you’re going to take two steps forward and one step back. Forming new habits takes time. There’s going to be bumps along the way. And if you tell yourself this from the beginning, you’re much less likely to hit a bump in the road and just forget the whole thing. 

Don’t throw in the towel. Just get back on track. You can get back on track anytime. And if you lose momentum, you can always pick up where you left off. Like I said, everybody’s going to have setbacks. Everybody’s going to have what we interpret as failures.

Overall, consistency is what creates success.

So it’s not what you do once in a while that makes or breaks your health, wellness, or goals. Instead, it’s what you’re doing day after day that adds up.