How to Be Consistent Even When You're Busy

Consistency is key. We’ve all heard this one time or another especially when it comes to our health and fitness. Consistency is so extremely important. Yet, it is one of the greatest struggles we have. 

I have been a trainer for the past 8 years. One thing I focus on is identifying obstacles that keep people from getting where they want to be so we can break them down and move past them. One of the most common obstacles is a lack of consistency. Everyone understands the need to be consistent, but it seems like everyone struggles to figure out how to make it happen. 

In this article I will share my opinion as to why that is, and what you can do about it. 

CONSISTENCY IS NOT PERFECTION 

In my experience I’ve noticed that nearly every single person that struggles with consistency struggles with an all or nothing mindset. Their idea of consistency means doing everything all the time. Their idea of consistency means living out the ideal scenario every day of the week. 

As you may know, that’s not how life works. 

You have kids, a spouse, a busy work schedule and tons of errands to run. The list goes on and on.  There are other things going on in your life other than your workouts. And those things need your attention. So, what can you do to be consistent even when you’re busy?

Here are a few things that may help you. 

FOCUS ON SOMETHING

Consistency is not perfection. Consistency is doing something repeatedly, not doing everything perfectly in a repeated fashion. The key difference is in the word “something”. 

When trying to be consistent, you need to focus on something no matter how big or small. 

Your ideal workout week may look like three 60-minute workouts per week. When the days go like you want them to, it’s easy to get it in. But, like usual, there is a week where things don’t go the way you want them to. What you may have done in the past is say “screw it”, I’ll jump back on it next week. No no. No longer will you be doing that. 

From here on, what you will do is choose something rather than nothing. Instead of saying “screw it, I can’t get my full workout in so I’ll just skip it”, you’ll say “ok, I don’t have 60 minutes but I am going to make the best of the 30 minutes I do have.” Or maybe you’d like to get 30 minute workouts in, but you only have 15 minutes. Do your workout for 15 minutes. An easy way to do this is by cutting your sets in half. So if you have four sets of barbell squats in your normal workout, you’ll do two instead. Is it the ideal? No. But, it’s much better than doing nothing at all. 

Seriously. Don’t throw in the towel. You’re just shooting yourself in the foot. 

REEVALUATE YOUR SCHEDULE 

This may offend you, but you need to hear it. 

You’re not that important, and the world will go on without your busyness. 

This is something that I help my clients work through that are parents. Full disclosure, I myself am not a parent so take what I say with a grain of salt, but what I do with my clients (who are parents) works well for them. 

I got this idea from the book called The One Thing by Gary Keller. I highly recommend it.

Take some time to look at your schedule. Not for 5 minutes, but actually take a good chunk out of a day to sit down and assess your schedule undistracted. You’ll need a pen and paper for this. 

On that piece of paper, you’re going to create four columns. One will be called “things I do”. The others will be labeled “high”, “medium” and “low”. Under “things I do”, you’re going to write down everything that you do in the day. From checking your phone to work to dropping kids off, write it all down. Write everything down. 

From that column, you’re going to organize those tasks to high priority, medium, and low priority. After you’ve done that, you’re going to make more adjustments. Go through the high priority list and see if anything in there could go in the medium priority column. If so, move it. Do the same for the medium priority column. Move anything you can to the low priority column. Keep doing this until you feel that the items on your list are in their true and proper list. 

Note, if “laundry” is in your medium or high priority list, you’re not buying into the process as much as you could be. 

The idea is that by the end of it, you have a really good idea of how you’ve been prioritizing things that aren’t important at all, and how they’ve been keeping you from doing what is most important to you. For example, you may discover that although working out is a high priority, you’ve been dedicating a lot of time to emails when emails are a medium priority. 

From here on, you will do the things on your high priority list before you even touch your medium priority list. I hope your health is on the high priority list, because everything else you do is going to suck without your health. 

When you reevaluate your priorities, and change your mindset to value some effort even if it’s not perfect, being consistent with your health and fitness becomes second nature. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Adam is a fitness professional, baseball fan, and cookie fanatic based in Fort Collins, Colorado. After hanging up the cleats, he found a strong interest in the human body and how it performs. Since then, Adam has been transforming lives through fitness in a fun and encouraging atmosphere. As an ACE CPT and Fitness Nutrition Specialist, he is constantly moved to help people improve in all walks of life.