Why does my coach keep saying ‘Consistency is Key’?
Consistency is the key. We coaches throw around that phrase like accountants throwing numbers together on an Excel document. As if it was just as simple as that. What does consistency really mean? And why is it so important? And finally what door does this key unlock?
While we all understand that paying for a premium program is the check box to starting your fitness journey, attending, and adhering to that program is quite a different story. What we are looking for and aiming to achieve through our program is one that is adhered to by its founding, current and on-boarding members.
It’s easy to use an umbrella term and repeat the phrase ‘Consistency is key’ when your clients ask how to get better results. But what I propose we really mean to say is that practice and consistent hard work over a longer period creates results. Now, that’s not saying that it may be the results you set out for at the start of your fitness journey, those results maybe the product of your change in goals, or the program you follow.
What we understand and believe in is the ability to live life without pain, without illness, disease and without limits. A way of getting one step closer to this is through consistency. So why do people struggle so much with achieving consistency?
CrossFit consistency – the great misunderstanding
We believe that consistency is usually misunderstood, or mis approached in one of two ways. The first is that it’s an area to be achieved, an endpoint if you will rather than an ongoing process or system to adhere to. An area we want to get to that we in fact have no idea how we will get there because that’s not how we have lived our life prior to that.
For example, an individual walks into the gym with a lifestyle that is heavily run by 12+ workdays, a young family to take care of, little sleep and is looking to lose some weight. After a body report assessment and a commitment to one of our three programs at Iconic Fitness (CrossFit, Transformation and/or Personal Training). This individual may have decided it would be in their best interest for them to train five times a week because that would be the fastest way to lose weight without changing any other part of their lives.
This is where consistency plays a role, if let’s say this individual would be able to maintain a five-day training week, every week for the next 12 weeks his goal of weight loss might in fact be achieved. However, for most of us who have a lifestyle similar to this one described earlier would probably be not advised as over a longer period of time we would not be able to maintain this schedule. Why, may you ask? Because if an individual is not willing to change other parts of their life, like their sleep schedule, or how many hours they prioritize for social life, work life and family life, then eventually one of the activities outside of these main categories will be booted.
That is, if we don’t prioritize and change in pursuit of our goal then our goal of losing weight by staying consistent (assuming consistency means training 5 times a week) the goal won’t even begin to flourish. So, let’s say this individual decided to add an extra hour to his five-hour night of sleep every night, and decided to leave work at 5pm rather than 6pm every Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday.
Then the meaning of consistency may change, and the goal may change or be more likely to be achieved just on a different type of schedule like for example, in our case study training or dedicating time to training on the days where the individual leaves work at 5pm.
Consistency – a shift in mindset
Consistency now implies that it is a shift in mindset, that regardless of what happens at work, how many hours we sleep and how many long weekends we have had that we commit to our new goal. Now in this point and case, if that was to lose weight it might be coming to the gym a suggested number of times a week. This is crucial, to beginning and adhering to a program. However, if we cancel our sessions and don’t adhere to them by making small changes in our daily lives, we may end up like many others who struggle with consistency.
So maybe next time you hear your coach say “consistency is key” ask them what they mean by that, and more importantly, have a conversation with them discussing what that means for you and how you can be a part of the huge community of individuals who consistently unlock new goals every day.
