You may have tried to change your daily routine and bring in new habits but have gradually slipped back into your old ways. This is normal, so many of us struggle to stick with our new gym regime or healthy meal prep, especially when we are so busy with work and family. I want to offer you techniques for increasing your resilience, take a read, they’re all simple and manageable.

Amanda nutrition and fitness coach based in Naperville, IL running

Systems to Build Your Resilience

Before you reach this stage of system implementation and resilience, you need to have decided on achievable goals. If you read my blog ‘The Secret to Making Behavior Change Easy’ this will set you up with a good foundation to slot your new behaviors into your life relatively seamlessly. But for these behaviors to stick and become habits? This is where resilience systems come into play.

As I tell my clients, resiliency is the number one characteristic embodied by those who I watch succeed in their health goals, and really, that goes for anything you want to accomplish, like my desire to connect with each of you weekly and share my thoughts, knowledge and tidbits to support you on your wellness & weight loss journey.

So, in efforts to support your resiliency, I'm sharing about one way you can help yourself become resilient.

IF there was a SECRET to reaching your goals, THIS would be that secret.

👉🏼 Focus on your systems!

If you have a goal you reallllly want to achieve, but so far have completely failed, I’m going to guess that you are focusing WAY. TOO. HARD. on the goal & not nearly enough, on your systems.

What is a System?

A system is the action steps you take and the environment you create which enable you to achieve your goals.

We usually choose a goal because of what we believe it will give us by achieving it. It’s the reason we get motivated & find the initial drive to change our behavior in the first place. But as we all know, that stick-with-it attitude can fade (fast) and those new behaviors too.

Which is why, what matters MORE than the goal itself, is the PROCESS.

👉🏼The process is what CAUSES us to achieve goals as it is made up of the habits & the systems we create.

Listen, it’s been proven that the more effort & thought a task requires the harder it will be to execute it, which means, you need to put systems in place to make achieving your goal as EASY as possible.

You are MUCH, MUCH more likely to stick to an action consistently, if you make it easy & those actions you want to do less of, make them HARD.

An image with a dumb bell, and a sign written "wake up & workout"

Here’s an example of putting systems

(action steps/environment) in place:

Goal: You want to start working out in the morning

▪️ What needs to happen to support you in doing this?

✔️ Get to bed earlier (it’s easier to wake up if you get enough sleep in the first place)

✔️ Set your clothes and shoes out the night before

✔️ Decide the exact workout you will do (the easier you make anything, the less thinking that you need, the more likely you'll do it)

⭐ Tip: As you are setting up your systems, aim to think about all the reasons that would stop you from doing that thing, or the excuses you could possibly come up with to turn your cheek the other way. Then, use those listed items to create your system. ⭐

Habit Stacking

This is a concept talked about in ‘Atomic Habits’ by James Clear, it’s absolutely one of my favorite books. I recommend reading this to understand the power of amending habits that you are able to stick to.

We all have routines we stick to everyday: showering, having breakfast, making the bed. These are a fantastic foundation for building new habits on top.

“How?
When it comes to building new habits, you can use the connectedness of behavior to your advantage. One of the best ways to build a new habit is to identify a current habit you already do each day and then stack your new behavior on top. This is called habit stacking.”

If you haven’t read the book, I urge you to go read it. There’s so much to unpack in there and offer support around habit stacking and it has helped a lot of my clients succeed in their health goals.

So, after reading this, how are you going to focus on your systems? Look into your processes and start small, lay out the initial manageable steps you need to take to reach your goals and stick with them.

You may feel confident to try these methods out alone, but it’s always more enjoyable to be part of a sisterhood. Join my Facebook She Strong Community for advice and support. Already a member? Reach out and ask questions or share your weekly wins!

Goals and Discomfort

If goals were an easy ride, as comfortable as a Sunday morning on the couch then we wouldn’t need them, would we? We would all have reached our personal perfection already.

No, the journey towards our goals is gonna be uncomfortable. Once we acknowledge that and have systems in place to push past the point of discomfort, our destination will be within our reach.

Remember, easy doesn’t equal strong.

A pep talk to remind you that your goals are CHOSEN. They aren't assigned to you, they are decided by you and with that comes empowerment. Understanding that discomfort is going to be part of the journey but your why for choosing your goal can help you overcome and persist.

HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR ABILITY TO “STICK WITH IT”