“Showing up is essential. Showing up consistently is powerful. Showing up consistently with a positive outlook is even more powerful.” -Jeff Olson
There’s a popular saying that says showing up in half the battle, which has some merit to it, certainly, but also clearly says that it’s only half the battle. Have you ever wondered what the other half is?
Not just showing up, but showing up consistently.
Let me tell you a story about my two friends
(Yes, I do actually have friends. Granted I made them up but still :0 )
Let’s call my first friend Random Rob, and my second friend Consistent Connor (because alliterations are the bomb.com).
Random Rob has been pleased to finally be showing up at the gym, but he has yet to see the progress he wants. So he confides in a coach by the name of Rommy Toyer (no relation to me obviously) about his frustrations with his lack of progress. Rob explains to Rommy how he has been showing up to the gym every once in a while, but hasn’t seen much return on his investment. He’s frustrated because he feels, if showing up is half the battle, that he should be seeing progress towards his goals.
Coach Rommy explained that it was great he was making it to the gym, but that the lack of consistency might be causing his lack of results. To help illustrate his point, Rommy told Rob about his friend Consistent Connor.
Not surprisingly, at all, Consistent Connor was…a consistent person. He had been going to the gym two times a week on Monday and Thursday for a while now, and he was seeing some nice results. What Connor realized was how the power of small, consistent actions repeated over time leads to big results.
For example, let’s say that during a period of 3 months each of them trained a total of 24 times. Consistent Connor did this by training twice a week each week. Random Rob may have trained 3 or 4 times one week, but then would miss the entire next week. Even if they both trained the same number of days, at the end of the three months, Connor would have seen more progress. Rob would have potentially made some progress, but by not being consistent each week, he missed out on a lot of potential progress.
Showing up is important (and that can’t be overstated)
But showing up consistently is more importanter—you know, for extra emphasis. Knowing it’s important to be consistent and actually being consistent are two different things though. What can help? Being proactive and taking care of obstacles before they have a chance to be obstacles at all.
Try asking yourself,
“What obstacles could get in the way of me getting to the gym?”
This question is crucial because there will always be something that could get in the way. Always.
Maybe the answer to that question means you have to remove the obstacle, side step around it, or just accept that it is there. Regardless, this allows you to take responsibility for what you can control and do what you can with what you have.
The obstacle could be that you don’t always know if you can make it to the gym because of work, so you don’t always have workout clothes with you. The solution could be to keep an extra bag in your car with workout clothes so you’re prepared.
Maybe the obstacle is not having enough time in your day. Well, we all have the same 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This isn’t meant to sound harsh, but maybe your gym time and health isn’t a big enough priority to you. There’s no judgment there, but maybe it isn’t. Look at your life and see where you spend your time. It could be that you don’t realize you spend upwards of 30-60 minutes a day on the Book Of Faces, the Instagrams, Twitters, etc. The solution could be to cut down on social media time and put it towards the gym.
The conditions to make it to the gym aren’t always going to be perfect.
Show up, and keep showing up anyways.
There is always something that can get in the way and prevent us from getting what we want out of the gym. We can make excuses about these obstacles and let them derail our progress, or we can just show up. And keep showing up. And show up some more after that. Show up, and keep showing up anyways.