The Key Ingredient To Success

This week I’ll be heading down to Orlando for the National Strength and Conditioning Association National Conference. This will be my first time going, so I’m pretty excited. It should be a great weekend filled with lots of learning.

Before I left, I wanted to write up a quick article for you. This is something that I’ve been noticing lately, and needed to share.

I talk about forming habits all the time. Habits are important to rely on when you have something to accomplish.

When you have a goal, like losing 30 lbs, you won’t achieve that overnight. It requires effort, patience, and most of all consistency.

John Maxwell, in his book The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth: Live Them and Reach Your Potential, has a great quote that states, “Small disciplines repeated with consistency every day lead to great achievements gained slowly over time.”

I really love that quote, because it encompasses the key ingredient to success.

Accomplishing your goals won’t happen by going all out nor by trying every little new fad. It will only happen once you make a change and repeat that change consistently every day.

I have seen so many people try a diet for a week, not lose weight and make a comment like ” well that didn’t work.” Then they jump ship and move on to the next diet.

A 30 lb weight loss goal, will happen slowly by making small changes. I know, I know that’s not what anyone wants to hear. But it’s the truth.

The cool thing is not only will you accomplish your goal by doing it this way, you will be able to maintain it. Why? Because you have built up some solid habits over that time.

Habits are so powerful because they control our everyday lives. Did you brush your teeth this morning?  I hope so 🙂 This is a habit you have been doing for years and years so it’s easy to do and it’s built into your schedule.

Nutrition and fitness habits operate the same way. As you do them more and more, you build your schedule around them not the other way around. This makes it easy to sustain your progress.

There are so many different habits you could work on to accomplish a weight loss or fat loss goal. You could:

• Cut out all calorie containing beverages.
• Stop eating when 80% full
• Eat a vegetable with each meal
• Eat protein with every meal
• Eat on a smaller plate
• Go to bed 30 minutes earlier
• Get to the gym 2-3 times per week
• Snack on fruits and veggies
• Take a fish oil supplement
• Take a protein powder supplement
• Have one glass of alcohol instead of two
• Have half a dessert instead of a full dessert
• Instead of eating dessert every night, eat it every other night
• Buy real food at the grocery store

The list could go on and on. The point I want to get across is that you should try one of these things, just one, for 1-2 weeks. Be consistent with it.

Then, once you feel you have that under control, move to the next habit. That doesn’t mean forget about the previous one though. Continuing doing it while you work your way through the new habit.

If we were to break John Maxwell’s quote down even further it could say this, “consistency every day leads to great achievements“. And that’s what I want to leave you with.

People in today’s society are consistent with inconsistency. They jump from diet fad to diet fad. But I challenge you to be different, to go against the norm.

Do something that will help you get to your goal, then repeat that every day. Add in new habits when the time is right but always stay the course. The end result will always be more satisfying and more sustainable.

Photo Credit:

1. http://strengthcoachtaylor.ca/uncategorized/can-youth-weight-train-obviously/

2. http://georginawalsh.com/my-approach/courses-programs-2/positivity-and-profit/