How impressive is this?! A 114-week streak on the fitness app I use (it’s FitOn for the curious).
That’s 26 months, or two years and two months, spent doing at least two workouts a week.
It’s safe to say that consistency is not something I struggle with.
Yet, I burned it all down and deliberately reset that counter to zero.
There is a big difference between consistency and effectiveness.
With my level of consistency with my fitness, you’d think I’d have buns of steel and bulging biceps. But my 114- week streak doesn’t show which workouts I’d done, how long they were for, how much effort I put in, or that workouts on the app also included meditations.
When I found myself searching for the shortest meditation on the app, so I could hit my target for that week, I knew I needed to change. I was cheating myself out of doing what was best for my body, just to keep that streak going.
That’s why I reset the counter to zero on my workouts – I needed to shake things up. Well, I tried to! It turns out you need to do zero workouts one week for it to go back to zero. That cheat week with the shortest meditation had unintended consequences!
It wasn’t enough for me to be consistent, I also needed to be effective.
It’s the same with your business. Just because you’ve ticked the box and posted on social media every day this week, doesn’t mean that your content got any engagement or encouraged your ideal clients to take a step closer to working with you.
Where in your business do you feel like you’ve been hammering away at being consistent, but it feels like hard work, with no results from your efforts?
This photo is evidence of the perfect balance of consistency and effectiveness. Getting down into the splits (on both sides!) in my 40s. It took six workouts a week, over several months, to get there but it was definitely worth it!
Resetting your business counter to zero
I’m on fire!
This is the third week since I reset my exercise program and I worked out every day since. I started out nice and gently with a simple yoga routine focused on improving mobility. It was so gentle that many of those workouts were done in my pyjamas.
The way I’m changing my exercise habits can be used when there are elements of your business that aren’t working well for you.
6 steps to create consistent and effective business habits.
I used six steps to reset my exercise program. I’ve also used these steps when I wanted to create consistent and effective business habits.
Each step is set out below, together with how I used them to change my fitness habits and an example of a common habit I see my clients wanting to set in place – sending out regular emails to their readers.
Step 1: Pick one element of your business.
One element! Don’t be writing a whole list.
Exercise: Improve my mobility (joints)
Business: Send a newsletter to people on my email list once a week.
Step 2: Identify the resources you have to help you achieve that mission.
Exercise: FitOn App
Business: Stack of ideas written on post it notes.
Step 3: Decide when this is going to happen.
Exercise: As soon as I roll out of bed in the morning at 7.30am.
Business: Tuesday morning at 9am.
Step 4: Ask yourself “How can I make this easy?”
Exercise: Choose one workout to do for the whole week. Do workout by my bed, in my pyjamas.
Business: Choose the first topic in advance. Decide on a simple structure for your newsletter (a little something personal, a tip, then a link to a service or freebie is a good place to start).
Step 5: Ask yourself “What will get in my way?”
Spoiler alert – the answer is usually ourselves.
Exercise: A cosy warm bed on cold winter mornings will be difficult to get out of. My inner toddler saying, “I don’t want to!”
Business: The stories I tell myself. “I’m not a good writer, I’ll run out of ideas, I don’t open my emails – why will others? No-one will read what I write, People will think I’m spammy”.
Step 6: Ask yourself “Why the heck do I want to do this thing?”
This needs to be personal to you, not a “should” someone else has given you.
Exercise: I want to be able to move freely so I can do the things I love. To dance, to run, to play netball.
Business: I love to write. I want to use the power of my words to reach women who are overwhelmed in their businesses, who are drowning in the everyday, who are ready to give up. I want to be a shining light in their inbox – to give them a laugh, a paragraph of encouragement, the knowledge that there is a different way. {This is why I write my newsletter each and every week}.
Your reason doesn’t need to be a life-changing why, it’s does need to be STRONG. The kind you want to shout from the rooftops. It needs to be strong because it’s going to do battle with what will get in your way.
As I’m lying there in my cosy bed, starting to talk myself out of exercising, I need that fire to get my butt out of bed. That picture in my head of running in the hills, a dog by my side, the sunshine streaming down. That gets me up and out of bed. I might be grumbling; I might not want to do it. But my reason gives me the momentum to start.
Changing your business habits doesn’t need to be hard.
When you’re feeling overwhelmed with what you need to get done in your business, and there is a long to-do list of things that need fixing, it can feel create consistent AND effective business habits.
That’s why I always recommend starting small and starting simple. Think of me doing my workouts in my pyjamas, I may not be at the gym pumping weights but I have started on my path to get there.
If you’d like a weekly dose of encouragement to get your business running more smoothly then invite me into your inbox by signing up for my emails here > > >
