How To Maintain Your Training Consistency When Life 'Gets In The Way'

Being active is great for our mental health, but sometimes life gets in the way and we lose motivation or can get out of the habit of exercising. We can miss the feeling we get from physical activity and often beat ourselves up for not getting it done. To combat this, there are three areas we can explore to help maintain consistency.

This article was originally published by Strava.

Photography by: Donson/peopleimages.com

Managing your belief system

Firstly, we can look at the beliefs we hold. Beliefs are often automatic, so we don’t always know what they are or if they are serving us or not. An all-or-nothing belief is when we think in extremes. “I missed a session, so this week’s training is a write-off, I will start again next week” or “I didn’t tick off everything on my plan, so I have failed.”

A helpful way to look at a missed session is to view tomorrow as a new opportunity, and that you can still make improvements during the rest of the week. Elite athletes I work with accept that a training plan is a starting point and sometimes it must be adapted due to illness or life situations. This does not equal failure; it is about consistency over long periods.

Another unhelpful belief is when we think we must invest a large amount of time into an activity, and if we can’t do the whole session then it is not worth doing. ‘Something is better than nothing’ is a more beneficial viewpoint. If you only have ten minutes, there are plenty of movements and exercises you can do that will help progress you towards your goals. All of these add up over time. A ten-minute run is better than not going for a run.

The belief that we need to feel motivated to do physical activity is another one that holds us back. It is great if we do feel motivated but that feeling comes and goes.

Elite athletes learn to commit to their training sessions despite how they are feeling. By completing the session, they learn to ignore the voice that says, “I don’t want to do it”. Once we get started, we often end up enjoying it. Practice doing things you don’t want to do and resisting the things that you do want to do. You can start with small things such as not checking social media when you have the urge, going for a short walk when you would rather sit down, or having a cold shower and staying in longer than you want to. This skill is like a muscle, the more you do it the easier it gets, and the brain region called the cingulate gyrus becomes larger.

If you make 'getting out the door' as easy as possible, you are more likely to train. Photography by: Siyavuya M/peopleimages.com

Managing your behaviour

Next, we can look at our behaviours. Make getting out the door as easy as possible by having your kit ready and equipment charged. This is called removing friction as you get rid of any barriers that make life more difficult. This might include joining a gym that is close to where you live or work or finding exercises to do at home. Some people incorporate movement into their daily routine by getting off a stop earlier on the train or going for a walking meeting with a colleague rather than sitting in the office.

Habit stacking can also help us to weave movement into a busy day. This is when you link a new behaviour such as stretching or running with an established one such as cleaning your teeth or making a coffee. You do the new habit straight after the old one until the new one becomes ingrained.

Celebrating your efforts and measuring progress is also key when we want to maintain consistency. When we experience something that is rewarding, the feel-good chemical dopamine gets released into the brain. By recognizing and celebrating wins, no matter how small, we can utilize this reward system. We will want to experience more of that good feeling, so it encourages us to repeat those behaviors. For example, if you go for a walk and record it on Strava, you will get a dopamine release. Give yourself a mental high five whenever you do a behavior that helps you progress towards your goals.

The role of social support

Finally, social support can help to maintain consistency when life is busy. Arranging to meet other people means we are less likely to cancel as we don’t want to let them down and it makes it more enjoyable. Other people can provide accountability for the training we say we will do and encourage us to stick to our plans. Similarly, following friends or inspirational people on social media will help to build and maintain motivation.

Finding the strategies that work for you will help you to be active regularly, which will contribute to good mental health.

Acceptance and being in the moment can also help manage anxiety. Acceptance means that you acknowledge your thoughts, feelings, and sensations, and recognize that they will pass. The more you fight them or wish you didn’t have them the longer they can stay around.

We know anxiety is worry about the future, so if we can practice being in the moment and being fully engaged with what we are doing, this can bring relief to an anxious brain. Try finding a flow activity that is not too easy or too hard and where time feels like it is flying. Often sport and movement act as flow activities for many of us, but it also includes things like gardening, cooking, or yoga.