Ending Stop-Start Movement and Exercise Patterns

One of the absolute key things most people miss out on when it comes to workouts, exercise and general movement which leads them to the frustrating stop-start cycle year on year...

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So, when it comes to consistency around your movement, your general daily movement, your structured workouts, so this could be strength and conditioning or any other particular type of workout that you want to do, and any other exercise and the consistency around those things and the happiness that those bring, a huge thing that people miss out when it comes to this sustainable movement and exercise and workouts is really getting to know themselves and understanding their values, understanding their needs, their wants, and things that make them happy. Often people make the mistake of just following a trend. They often just go through the motions, they often never enjoy any exercise or movement or workouts. And they just do these things because it's something that somebody's telling them to do. It's an external pressure or force, and it's something that they see others doing so that they should do it, or in the back of their head somewhere, they know that it's going to be good for them somehow, so that they should do some. But this all feeds into an all-or-nothing approach, it feeds into a stop-start cycle, it feeds into an inconsistent behavior pattern around movement, exercise, and workouts. And like I touched on there, one thing that's missed out that can really help with this consistency and really help with your overall happiness around movement, exercise, and workouts is getting to know yourself and understanding your values. I'm going to give you some examples of me and mine. So when it comes to exercise and workouts and movement, I've been there in the past where I have been externally motivated. So it might have been that I've been training for a half marathon, marathon, or ultramarathon, purely to try and boost or stroke my ego to say that I've done this in a certain time. I have followed very strict strength and muscle building programs again because I've been told in this industry as a PT I should look a certain way. And both of these times when I was training for these different goals that were externally pressurized and externally driven, I didn't really enjoy the training for them. And what this did was if I didn't have an event signed up for that year or in the next few months, I didn't actually do any running training, I didn't do or much at all because I wasn't driven internally. If I didn't have an external pressure around looking a certain way, or achieving a certain amount of weight that I was lifting, or a certain amount of body fat, again I used to absolutely dread or not really enjoy any form of strength and conditioning training. And it was very stopstarty for a long period of my late teens, early 20s, mid-20s, even. And the change that happened was me getting to know myself, understanding what I enjoyed, understanding what exercise can bring to my life and how it impacts, how it positively impacts my values. So again, using myself as an example here to help you understand how that how I made this transition and made this change to be more driven internally, to then help me with for the past, I would say, five to probably longer, maybe eight years of consistency across my movement, exercise, and workout habits, apart from you know illnesses, injuries, um, and things like that. But on the main, on the whole, very, very consistent compared to where I was 10, 15, 20 years ago. So my values example, I realized that things that I found very valuable and that brought me happiness were adventure, fun, my health, my family, self-mastery, and also service to others. Those are some of my key values. So then now what I do and what I've done for a long period of time now is link what movement, what exercise, what workouts are going to allow me to live in line with my values for as long as possible. So if we go to adventure, I love hiking, I love going into the mountains, I love snowboarding, I love doing fun physical challenges as well and push my body to limits. So for me, then my strength, my cardio conditioning, my mobility, I need to keep on top of those things, otherwise, I'm not gonna be able to enjoy that adventure for much longer. It's gonna be very injury-ridden, it's going to be very stopstarty. So I can link, right? I'm doing this strength training because I want my joints to be strong enough so that I can climb these mountains, I can continue to snowboard. I can learn new skills doing some sort of different physical activity, some sort of hobby, whether it's paddle boarding, paddle tennis, all of these things are types of adventure and fun for me, which are very valuable to me, bring us a lot of happiness. So I link my workouts, especially strength, conditioning, and mobility to those things, and that fuels my motivation and it helps with the consistency. If I think about service, so obviously I'm in this industry because I love helping people, I can also link my movement to that value of service as well. I know that I need to get outside most days, move, because that's gonna boost my productivity, it's gonna boost my focus, which is needed, it's gonna boost my mood as well, which is needed to be able to support and serve others. So, again, linking not just structured workouts, but also general daily movement to things that are valuable to me. When it comes to my value of family, I want to be able to play with my girls for as long as possible, whether that's in a park or doing new things that they're trying, both into gymnastics, trying handstands, learning new skills. I want to be able to run around with them for as long as possible. So, again, I can link this to my mobility workouts, my strength workouts, my cardiovascular workouts, all of these things are going to fuel that value of me wanting to be able to spend as much time with my family in a fun, another value of mine, an adventurous, another value of mine way. So, for me, this is an absolute key that so many people miss out. If you can start with your values, and part of the reason why, at the very beginning of anybody joining our coaching programs, you go through the getting to know you process where you spend a bit of time getting to think about things that are valuable and purposeful and fulfilling for you to help you get out of a rut and live more in line with those, but you can also link those to motifs around your exercise and movements. That is gonna fire your consistency to another level, and it's also going to help you enjoy the movement more as well, it's gonna give you another motif rather than it always just being about shape change and how we look. That might be a value of yours, which is absolutely fine, but try and link it to more motifs than just one. The stronger you can build those foundations, the better that's gonna fuel your consistency long term. So, get very clear on your values, write down how the different types and forms of exercise that you're gonna do are gonna fuel those values for as long as possible. That's gonna bring you happiness, it's gonna bring you consistency. And then the last thing, something that we go through again in the getting to know you reflection process at the very beginning of anybody joining our coaching program, is thinking about movement that is outside of the gym that you might have done when you were younger, or that you thought about that you wanted to do when you were younger and you never did. Trying something new, stepping outside of the comfort zone. That's gonna build confidence, it's gonna improve your self-worth, it's gonna improve your overall happiness, just some fun, enjoyable movement that you can maybe do alone or with others, whatever it is that you prefer. If you can couple those two things, linking your values and including some new enjoyable movement, that is gonna bring so much more happiness and so much more consistency when it comes to your workouts, exercise, and movement.