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Where fitness and outdoors meet. In this space we chat all things hiking, exercise, wellness, adventure, motherhood, and metabolic health from a female perspective! Get ready to learn + be inspired to live your fullest, most adventurous life!
I Know What to Do, I'm Just Not Doing It" — How to Break the Cycle of Inaction for Good (copy)
Hi, my name is Brady and I'm a long time fitness professional and Midwest girl turned mountain living
hiking addict. In combining my knowledge of fitness and passion for hiking, I've helped hundreds of
women get lean and strong for the trails. Think of this as your one stop shop for both education and
inspiration on all things female wellness, trail talk and adventure. Hiking, female metabolism,
motherhood, nutrition, travel and fitness are all topics you'll hear discussed here. If you are outdoorsy and
active, looking to level up your health, unlock your potential and become inspired to live your most
vibrant life. You're in the right place. You're listening to the fit for hiking podcast. Hello, hello, welcome
back to the show. My name is Brady. I'm your host. And today we're going to be talking about what to do
when you know what to do, but you just aren't doing it. I think we can all agree that we've been there at
one point or another. Maybe you find yourself there cyclically, or just kind of perpetually, like you'll
have one good week followed by a bad month, and you basically are just constantly in the state of, I
know the things I should be doing for the most part, but I'm struggling to actually get myself to do them,
and I don't know why. I don't know how to break these cycles. If you are relating to this, you are not
alone. This is a very, very common problem in the fitness space. When we're looking at fitness and
health, we also have to look at behavior change mindset patterns. It is so much deeper than just getting
yourself to the gym. Um, the reality is we have way more information at our fingertips than ever before
in history. ChatGPT can throw together a meal plan for you. You can get free workouts all over
Instagram or TikTok. There's how to guides everywhere you look. Yet somehow health is declining
worse than ever before. In the US, 72% of American adults are overweight. And 40% are categorized as
obese. Those are not small percentages. 64% of American adults are on medications for lifestyle related
diseases. These are things that can be prevented through daily choices. Okay. So why is there this
disconnect? Like if we have so much information, hypothetically, if information was all we needed, we
would all be crushing it. We'd all have sex. We'd all be perfectly following these meal plans from
ChatGPT. We'd be doing the workout. But that's not the issue. It's not a matter of not having the
knowledge or the access to knowledge. We have plenty of resources and we know that we should be, you
know, doing some strength training a couple of times a week. We know protein matters. We know we
need to eat more veggies. We know we need to move more. But yet why? Why are we going by. And
we're still going to stuck in the same routine of of knowing what we should do. Maybe even really
feeling motivated at certain moments to do it. But then when it comes to the day to day follow through,
it's not happening. We're not happening consistently enough to actually become routine, become habitual,
and really create lasting changes and results. Okay, so the problem isn't a lack of information, it's the gap
between knowing what we should be doing, consistently executing it. This is probably the biggest
struggle point for people, myself included at time when it comes to fitness, nutrition, health, really doing
these things. So why knowing isn't the same thing as doing. There are reasons why we get stuck in these
cycles of inaction. One you're waiting to feel motivated so you'll have these moments of divine
motivation where you're like, oh my gosh, it's time. Maybe you see yourself in a photo and you're like, oh
crap. Like, I gotta get it together. Or you go on a hike and you realize how out of shape you are, whatever
that moment is for you. It sparks momentary motivation, but it's not deep enough yet, maybe to, like,
really feel this ongoing. Like, hey, I gotta do this long term, right? The problem with motivation is that
unreliable is temporary. It's fickle. It changes depending on what you have going on. You can't build a
lifestyle around how you feel on a given day. That's just the reality. The same way that I can't say I don't
feel like picking my kid up from school today, or I don't feel like working. We have to do these things
right. We have to just push through and do them anyway. Healthy routines and habits really kind of need
to fall into that same category, and motivation cannot be part of the equation. Emotions really can't be a
part of the equation, because we're not always going to feel like doing something. So if you're really only
working out when you're feeling energized, when you have the free time, when you're in the mood,
whatever that looks like, you're going to end up kind of stuck in this cycle of struggle. The next reason
why knowing isn't the same as doing is because you are feeling overwhelmed trying to do everything. So
maybe overwhelm is kind of this big hurdle for you more than even just like feeling motivated, you want
to lose the £30 that you keep, like losing and then regain. Or you want to build muscle. You want to eat
better and have more energy, but the thought of changing everything at once feels so overwhelming that
you're just like, I don't know where to start. So then you end up kind of just being your own worst enemy
and doing nothing. I know I've definitely felt like that was like productivity or work, or at least tasks that
we like build up in our head. And then it becomes overwhelming because we're trying to do 50 things at
once, that we just end up like avoiding all of it, and then nothing gets done, and then it becomes even
more overwhelming. Um, so this kind of all or nothing speaking really ends up biting us in the butt and in
multiple ways. And that and that's a really big one is it just keeps us overwhelmed where we're like, I
either have to do everything or what's the point? I can't do anything at all and I'll just fight it. Um,
number three is that you're comfortable with your current patterns, and I think many of us probably fall
into this category. Your brain is going to naturally gravitate towards familiar routine, even if those
routines, you already know how they pan out, you know that they're not giving you what you want. You
know that you don't feel great and energized when you scroll Instagram until midnight. You know that
skipping the gym and going for happy hour multiple times a week does not lead to the body composition
or the things that you want out of your fitness and health. Okay, but instead of changing these patterns,
we just lean into what's comfortable because we're tired, because it's overwhelming, because we're just
kind of okay with doing what we're doing. And change requires temporarily being uncomfortable. A lot
of times our brains will do anything to stay comfortable, and so it's really hard. And that's why behavior
change is not as easy as snapping our fingers and saying, hey, well, here's the meal plan. I'll just do it
right. It's so much deeper and much more layered than that because of how our brain really prioritizes
avoiding discomfort. Number four is that you're using your circumstances as a reason to keep delaying. If
you are that person that's constantly on and off because the kids got sick again, because work got crazy,
because the trip derailed you, because you had a temporary injury, whatever that looks like. I really want
you to hear me on this. There's always going to be something like, these things are legitimate excuses.
And I'm not saying that they're not. I've been there. I've had two kids that were bad sleepers. I've had, you
know, starting a business while being a stay at home mom. I have no family. I don't have much child
care. It's not easy. But if I always was like just using the kids as an excuse or using lack of sleep or using
being busy or travel or anything like that, I would never have been working out for the past four and a
half years, right? Like, these things are legitimate challenges, but waiting for life to slow down means
you're just going to keep having to push this off. You kind of have to decide, are you attached to your
excuses, or are you more concerned with actually figuring out how to do this around these things that
keep popping up? Because there's always going to be something, right? So you need a strategy that works
with your current life, not this imaginary version of perfection where like, things are just seamless and
there's no interruptions or hurdles. Unfortunately, it's not going to happen. So what's the hidden cost of
really breaking these promises to ourselves? Every time you say you're going to start money and don't,
you're kind of reinforcing this belief that you can't trust yourself. You start identifying as someone who's
inconsistent. You lose the confidence in your ability to follow through. You become accepting of a
version of yourself that really isn't aligned with who you want to become. We keep just kind of like
backsliding and making excuses for ourselves and not really being honest that this isn't feeling like
alignment. And here's the reality. I've experienced this firsthand. When you're living out of alignment
with who you know you want to be, what your conscience is telling you, what you're like, deep recalling
is telling you you're going to continue to feel that that nudge, you're going to be uncomfortable. You're
going to keep being uncomfortable. So you really have to either kind of like lean into, okay, I can no
longer keep breaking these promises to myself, and I have to do the uncomfortable thing, or you're going
to keep feeling uncomfortable in the fact that you're not doing the things you know you should be doing.
So there's always going to be a little bit of discomfort. It's just either the discomfort of inaction because
you're not pushing yourself and doing the thing you know will make you the better version of yourself, or
the discomfort of getting started and taking that action. So it's not about shaming yourself. You really
cannot do this from a place of shame, but you have to recognize when your daily actions are outside of
alignment with what you want your identity to look like, and what you really want your life to look like.
So what would change if you started seeing yourself someone follow through even when it's
inconsistent? So a couple of strategies for breaking the cycle of action. Let's talk about what do we
actually do about this. We know it's a problem. We know it sucks. We know how frustrated we get when
we don't follow through and do what we want to do. So what do we do about it? Number one, stop
making the goal so big. Instead of focusing on all of the ways that you want to lose, focus on what you
need to accomplish on a daily basis. Okay, zoom in instead of making it this big thing. I love having kind
of like these mini goals chunk with my clients where it's like, okay, for the next month, here's what we're
focusing on. Here's the goal for this month. What are we doing in the day today, right now? Instead of oh
my gosh, I need to lose £50. Of course, that feels daunting, right? So instead, look at what are the little
tiny things that need to happen to get me there over time so it feels a bit more digestible. So instead of
committing five workouts a week, start with three. Once you do that every single week, then if you feel
the need to increase and increase, instead of completely overhauling your nutrition and trying to follow a
super strict meal plan, that's completely unrealistic for more than like a week at a time, just focus on a
few key habits, like saying I'm going to have protein at breakfast every single day. I'm going to have a
serving of bed every single day. I'm just going to start basic tracking, trying to actually figure out how
much am I eating on a daily basis. Okay, instead of walking ten steps a day. Start with a 20 minute walk
every single morning. Okay, so make the goals a bit more digestible for yourself so that it doesn't feel
constantly so overwhelming. Because then what happens is when these other life factors become
overwhelming, when the thing at work gets crazy, when the stuff with your family is really
overwhelming, then this always goes on backward and it can't go on the back burner. If you're wanting to
really make this like a non-negotiable part of your life. Which leads me to number two, which is having
non-negotiables, not wishlist. So you have to decide what your baseline expectations are for yourself,
even on your most crazy, insane week when nothing is going according to plan. What are you still going
to do? Pour into your own cup and show yourself that you will keep promises to yourself, even when it's
crazy. Okay, so having a realistic bedtime routine that really helps you get good quality sleep. Having
daily movement, even if it's not a workout, even if it's just going for a 30 minute walk every single day.
20 to 30g of protein a day. Having at least 2 to 3 strength workouts a week. Even if it's a crazy, crazy
week, like that's not that much time when we're actually looking at the minutes in the week that's going to
take you to do 240 minute workouts. That is such a small, small percentage of your hours in a week. So
really think about instead of the excuses that you want to throw at me, what can you commit to as a list of
your non-negotiables? If this is actually a really big deal to you, if you want to stop the cycle, if you want
to just be someone who always is working out every single week and make it a part of their life in a non-
negotiable way. So these are commitments that you are planning around, not things that you're hoping to
squeeze in if everything else works out. If you're not tired, if you're not busy, right, you really have to
make these things just a part of that non-negotiable tab in your brain where it's like, okay, just like
brushing my teeth. Just like picking my kids up from school. Just like eating three meals a day or
whatever those things are that you're doing habitually. Exercise is falling in there. When am I doing it?
How am I making it a non-negotiable? Number three is to minimize decision fatigue. You have to stop
relying on willpower in the moment, because that's just not going to get you very far when you're white
knuckling your way, hoping you have enough willpower on your most exhausted day. So schedule your
workouts like appointment. Seriously? This is so important. Like for me, I know that on the days when I
take my kids to school, those are days I'm going to the gym. Always non-negotiable. I have stuck to this
for years now. I always, always do it. Plan meals before you're starving. Before you realize that your
fridge is empty, before you have no protein sources, no veggies, no fruit. Okay, so having a Sunday
grocery haul habitually you order the same things every time you pick up the same things every time, and
then outlining. What am I expecting to have for breakfast? Probably most days a week. Maybe you
alternate through like three different breakfasts. Hey. Okay. Make sure you have those things in your
fridge ready to go. Same with lunches. Same with dinners. Having a general outline versus a meal
because that is so much easier to adhere to, but it still gives you enough structure where you're like, okay,
I don't have to try to, like, magically create this epic meal out of nothing. It's so much better to just have a
loose plan of some basic go to meals that don't feel overwhelmed. Minimize that decision. Make the
plans in advance on Sunday when you're feeling refreshed after the weekend. Having backup work out
for busy days. So what can we do at home? Decide when and where you're going to exercise. Even just
as simple as having a plan laid out for you, this is like, honestly, such a big reason why people love
working with our coaches. Because they don't need one more thing, one more tab open in their brain that
they have to think about having the decision taken away from you where it's like, hey, here's my plan. I
have to just do it and I'm going to follow through. And I know that someone's going to check in with me
if I'm not doing it. Your decisions you have to make the easier will be to just follow through. So how can
you do that for yourself? Number four. Stop letting one bad day turn into this giant suck fest where you
just are like, hey, now everything is ruined. The whole month is a wash. The whole week is a wash,
whatever that looks like for you. What what cycle are you falling into with that Miss Monday workout?
Go. Tuesday. It's okay. There's nothing magical about a Monday. You ate more than you planned at
dinner. Just eat a normal breakfast the next day and get back to the plan. Had a chaotic week. Hey, get to
your routine as soon as you can with the next decision, okay? Don't wait for it to feel motivating again
because it won't. Gotta just get right back in the game. Consistency is not going to be perfection. It's not
going to be never falling off, but it's shortening that timeframe between when you fall off and when you
just get right back into it. This one honestly will make the biggest difference. I used to totally fall into
that cycle of I've ruined. You know, I had a bad meal on Friday, so now I'm going to say screw it the
entire weekend, and then I end up like binging for a whole weekend. Well, of course I set myself back.
But would one meal have set me back? No. So I just instead made it so much worse for myself. And then
I always felt like I was starting over every single Monday. Okay. Number five got to build accountability
into your environment. And this is when I don't think people take seriously enough. And this is why
information again is not enough. Because unless you have something on the line, unless you have put
something down, you have actual commitment to something. You are accountable to someone other than
yourself, and it feels a little bit like you're going to, you know, have some consequences if you don't
actually do it. Like this matters. Our brains need that. So having someone who expects you to show up,
having something on the line, whether a monetary investment or someone who you know is checking in
with you and is going to hold you accountable. This is why working with a coach is so effective. When
you pay, you pay attention. If it doesn't, the amount that you put on the line for this doesn't even matter to
you. If it's like a throw away, like 50 bucks, or if it's free, you don't do it. That's why the click rate for,
like freebies on Instagram is so minuscule because you didn't actually have to pay for it. You don't value
it. Okay. So you have to have something on the line that actually makes it feel risky. Like, oh, I need to
do this. If I don't do this, I'm wasting a lot of money or I'm wasting somebody's time. I'm being rude.
Whatever that looks like for you. Okay. You know yourself better than I do. What do you need that is
actually going to hold you seriously accountable. To the point where you can't be in this same position
six months from now, a year from now, and still have these BS for yourself. So work with the coach
who's actually giving you a plan and then and is paying attention to what you are doing. Track your own
workouts. If you don't want to work with the coach, then you need to be willing to at least track your own
crap. And if you're not doing it, then you probably need to work with the coach. Stop keeping your goals
entirely in your own head. There has to be some sort of external help support, accountability. Someone
who you're talking to about this community, it makes a difference, you guys. It really does. Otherwise,
again, ChatGPT would be enough. Chat buddy would be crushing it and making you completely
transform your body. But that's not happening for people because that's not enough on the line and it's not
a real person, right? So having some accountability built into this. A small example of this is I have a
client right now who, um, she has had three kids in the past four years and she is just getting back to
work while also juggling her smallest kids, by the way, working from home and doing both. Absolutely
incredible. She signed up with me before she even had her third baby. So she was like seven months
pregnant. But she anticipated that she would need support because she knew this is not going to get easier
with another kid in the mix. And when I'm going back to work, I know I need accountability, I know I
need a plan, I need to not have decision fatigue. I need to take some of this off of myself. She went ahead
and committed to working with me once she had her baby, and now she's a couple months postpartum.
She's £20 down in the first like a month and a half from when we started together. Even though she's
juggling so much, and most of these excuses are the things that would keep people from even thinking to
sign up for work on the couch. They're too busy. They have little kids, they're working. There's too much
going on. But that was why she knew she needed it. So I'm so proud of her. That is like such a good
example of why it is important to enlist support, instead of just kind of trying to figure it out on your own
and hoping that you'll be motivated enough when the time. So mindset shift here that we want to focus on
is becoming the woman who follows through. How do we do this? Why? What is your deeper why? This
is kind of the final thing that I want you guys to really think about. Unless you have a deep why that
motivates you to do this stuff when you don't feel like it and keep you on track, then it's going to be hard
to stay consistent. You're going to rely more on your energy, your emotion, your motivation in the
moment. You need that intrinsic why you need sometimes need to hit that rock bottom moment where
you're like, I cannot see myself in the mirror like this anymore. I cannot be like this anymore. I cannot
keep doing this to my health, my mental health, whatever that has to look like for you. Until you hit that
point, then it will be kind of a struggle. You're going to keep kind of yo yoing and letting your emotions
and your energy and things take the front seat. You have to get to a point where you have a deep enough
y that it sustains you, and that it does become something that you don't try to negotiate with yourself over
every single day. So instead of asking, do I feel like working out today? Do I have time to work out
today? Ask yourself, what would the version of me who prioritizes her health do today? What would I
say in this moment when I don't feel like it? Am I motivated enough to eat healthy instead of hey, I have
the plan, I already shopped and I know what I need to eat. So really, we just don't don't become
consistent and then get results. You become consistent by practicing the behaviors that create those
results. You don't need to become a completely different person overnight, but you do need to start
making decisions a little bit differently and thinking differently about how you want to approach this
from an identity standpoint. The reality is, you probably already know enough to get started, right? You
already know some little things that you could start doing, even if you're not sure exactly how to put it all
together. You know that you should eat more of it. You know you can get out for a walk. You know that
you should try to get a little extra protein in every single day. So at some point, you have to stop
collecting information and just start implementing what you already know. Okay. You don't need more
and more and more and more freebies, information, all these things that you aren't even implementing
right now. You just need to get started and really work through. Why am I stuck in these cycles? So let's
talk about the Black Friday deal because this is such a great opportunity. If you've been on the fence
about coaching. Um, if you are finding that like, hey, I'm not where I wanted to be by the end of this
year, yet another year has gone by and I still kind of stuck with those same excuses. I'm still walking this
I, in this identity of someone who doesn't follow through, who falls off when life gets hard or busy or
whatever that looks like, then you are a perfect candidate for coaching. That is exactly who we help, and
it's so rewarding to see how these women come in and then end up finishing out the program with their
habits, their mindsets overhauled, not only just their physique. Um, so if you are a long time listener or
someone who's been on the fence about this for a long time, I definitely encourage you to take a look at
the Black Friday deal. You can get up to two months for free if you sign up. We do only have seven spots
left at the time that I'm recording this, so, um, definitely it goes quickly because this is the only deal that
we run all year long. So if you have been on the fence for a long time, I definitely urge you to take some
action so that we can get a different result. And sometimes all you need is a little bit of time with a coach,
with support, with figuring out what actually fits your life, and how do you follow through with this stuff
and make it habitual and then you're good. Then you can do this solo for the rest of your life, which is
really cool. Um, so if you are interested, you can apply at the link in the show notes, or you can message
me on Instagram and just say Black Friday and we will get you more info on that and get you started.
Um, so I hope that this episode has been helpful. If you are caught in these patterns, gotten these cycles
of inaction. Um, I hope that this one, you know, really kind of helps you break that down and get to a
point where you feel really proud of the efforts that you're making on a consistent basis and being able to
be a person that follows through. All right, you guys, thank you so much for tuning in. And I will chat
with you in the next episode. Thanks for tuning into this episode of the fit for hiking podcast. As always,
I hope it leaves you feeling inspired and informed on how to take your health and adventure into your
own hands. For more content like this, be sure to follow along with my daily posts at Ponytail
Underscore. On a trail that's ponytail underscore on a trail. You can also stay up to date on my new
episodes being released at fit, underscore, or hiking, and find more free resources at ponytail on Etrailer.
com. Happy and healthy trails.