Expecting yourself to stick to the same fitness routine, no matter what, is why it fails.
Because the only predictable thing about life is that it’s unpredictable.
A kid gets sick. Sleep falls apart. The to-do list explodes.
You can’t know which one is coming or when, but you can know something is, and you can build your routine to expect it.
That’s the whole trick: take two minutes and decide, in advance, exactly what you’ll do the next time life goes sideways.
Here’s the coaching conversation that shows how it works.
I want to let you in on one of my biggest lessons from the last 15 years of coaching.
Once you know it, it will feel like you can see the future. 👀
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On a live Q&A, George (not his real name) told me about a pattern he kept running into.
He’d start strong. A few good weeks.
Then a kiddo would get sick, or some other responsibility would pop up, sleep would fall apart for a bit, and the whole routine would go with it.
So I asked:
“Have we ever planned EXACTLY what to do the next time something like this happens? A version of your plan that you can commit to when you’re running on four hours of sleep and have a sick kid to take care of?”
And he got this look like “Oooooohhhhhhhh…no. No I haven’t.”
He’d been treating the sick kid as something that happens to the plan.
Not as a predictable part of the plan.
So we talked through it right there. Here’s what we came up with:
“Next time my routine is thrown off, I’m going to do this 10-minute light workout that I enjoy and will keep me moving without destroying me when I’m already running on fumes.”
Now, he wasn’t just reacting in the moment, trying to “gut it out.”
He knew exactly what to do and it fit what he needed.
Here’s the thing: these moments don’t come out of the blue. They are predictable.
A kid is going to get sick.
Your sleep is going to get messed up.
You’ll have WAY too much on your to-do list.
You’ll forget your gym bag at home.
Your motivation will come and go.
I don’t know which one, or when exactly, but I do know that it’s inevitable.
And that’s great news!
Once we accept that the only predictable thing is that life is unpredictable, we can use that to our advantage.
Take two minutes right now and finish this sentence:
“The next time ___ happens, I’m going to ___.”
First blank: the thing that knocked you off track the last time you were trying to get into a fitness routine.
Second blank: the best version of your plan you can still commit to on one of THOSE days.
You won’t always get it right.
Sometimes, life will throw something at you that you REALLY didn’t see coming.
But the more of these you’ve been through, the clearer the crystal ball becomes.
And the better you get at navigating it. 💪
Hit reply and send me your crystal ball plan. I read every one, and I’ll tell you if I’d tweak it.
-Matt
P.S. This is exactly the type of stuff we work on in our coaching program. My job as your coach is to look into my crystal ball, and help you plan ahead so you don’t get blindsided. 🔮👀 Learn more about how coaching works [HERE].