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From Knowing to Doing – Be Ready for Your Worst Days

By Jiri Kaloc

Work stress, family obligations, and social commitments are all reasons why many of us get derailed from our routines. It’s not realistic to completely avoid these things, but it’s possible to be ready for days when they come. This is an important skill because a bad day doesn’t just mean missing one training session, a good meal or a night’s sleep – it’s easy to abandon your healthy habits entirely. Let’s make sure this doesn’t happen.

The key is to adjust expectations and build some flexibility into your healthy lifestyle. Having an all-or-nothing approach is much more likely to go very poorly after a single bad day. Instead, being able to anticipate and adapt is what will keep you going and return you to your healthy habits quickly. Here are a few strategies that help.

Define the floor for your habits

It may sound uninspiring, but when consistency is your struggle, the perfect place to start is to make a goal that sounds pathetic. Ask yourself: What CAN I do on my absolutely worst day?

Maybe it’s only 5 minutes of stretching or just one extra portion of veggies. The idea is to define the absolute minimum effort: the floor that keeps you engaged with your habits. The reason is that it’s much easier to ramp up an existing habit than build a new one you stopped a long time ago.

So, when thinking about your healthy habits, don’t just imagine the best days when you’re crushing it, remember to also have a clear picture of what you’re going to do on those days when everything is stacked against you.

Turn the dial, don’t flip the switch

To further develop the idea of a floor and a ceiling of your healthy habits, we have to take a look in the middle. There will be plenty of days when you’re not exactly crushing it, but you’re also not at your worst. And that’s when it helps to think of your healthy habits like dials, not on-off switches.

When things are going well and you have time and energy, turn the dial up. Ride harder, eat better, and optimise recovery. But when life gets in the way, simply dial it down, don’t turn the habit off completely. Maintaining that kind of consistency is what leads to long-term success.

Build a support system around you

Willpower can only get you so far. And on those bad days, there’s a shortage of it anyway. If you want to continue “doing”, you need an environment that nudges you toward the right choices.

Use triggers. Place your bike helmet by the door to remind you to ride. Leave a water bottle on your desk to encourage hydration. Small cues like that can prompt big changes in behaviour.

Get rid of obstacles. Prep your cycling gear the night before. Keep healthy snacks in sight and the fridge stocked up on healthy foods. The easier an action is, the more likely you are to follow through.

Remove distractions and temptations. Delete time-wasting apps, rid the pantry of foods you tend to overeat, and don’t bring your phone to bed.

A well-designed environment makes the right choices feel effortless even on the hardest days. That’s something you can rely on in the long term.

Embrace good enough

Perfectionism is a killer of consistency. If you hold yourself to an impossible standard, you’re setting yourself up for failure. Sure, if you’re trying to win the Olympics and your livelihood depends on your peak physical performance in a race, for example, then you will have to sacrifice a lot to hold yourself to the highest standards. But most of us just need to be consistent in a few basic healthy habits. This is why aiming for “good enough” is a much better strategy. Those whokeep showing up, even with a pathetic goal in mind on some days, will win out over the long term.

Redefine success

Long-term health and fitness aren’t about extremes. They’re about consistency over time. By setting a realistic floor, using a flexible dial system, and designing an environment that supports you, you can take action even on your worst days. No more “I know I should be doing it,” only “I can always do something” from now on.

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