119. 5 tips to FINALLY stick to your fitness goals

In this podcast, I'm sharing five tips for finally sticking to your health and fitness goals in 2025. These aren't the usual, surface-level tips you'll hear floating around - they're focused on real, human behavior change. Let me know what goals you have in 2025 below!

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Transcript

[00:00:00] How to finally stick to your health and fitness goals. I'm going to be giving you five tips in this video and these are going to be different from ones that you've typically heard because we're not focusing on more of the surface level details. We're focusing on what actually leads to people making long term changes.

So let's get into it.

Now it's the new year and there's a ton of that energy of, Oh my gosh, I'm going to overhaul my entire life. this is going to be the year where I finally achieve my goals. And the reality is most people do not stick to their new year's resolutions. And it makes complete sense. When you do a deeper dive into human behavior, all of this makes sense.

You make sense. I make sense. And the truth is we all fail. Until we don't. So if you're coming into this thinking, oh, this is just the type of person that I am, I've never been able to stick to it, therefore I never will be able to, if you think about it, anyone who's ever been successful, they failed over and over and over again until they just eventually didn't.

So the key is really to not give up. So we're going to be covering in this [00:01:00] video what you need to keep going.

Number one is to get clear on what you actually want and why you want it.

What are your goals? Do you want to run three miles without stopping? Do you want to be able to do a body weight pull up? I was one of mine for a really long time. Do you want to be able to squat a certain amount of weight? Or maybe you want to lose 10 pounds or you want to drop a pant size or you want to lower your blood pressure, whatever it is, get clear on what your goals are and This is very important because most people think, oh yeah, yeah, I know what I want to do, but why do you want to do this thing?

Is it so that you feel improved confidence in your own abilities? For me, I really wanted to be able to do a pull up because it was something that just made me feel strong as a woman and it was quite frankly just a fun goal to pursue, to be able to do something like that with my own body. Are you chasing these goals because you want to impress?

Others or because you're doing it for yourself. Are you looking for validation outside of you? Are you looking to validate yourself? This is really [00:02:00] important. We want as many of these goals and the underlying reason why you're chasing them to be intrinsic versus extrinsic for you versus for others. And this is so, so key for you sticking to them long term.

Connect to your deeper values. Is it to take care of yourself? Self respect is one of the biggest keys here. And I cover this extensively inside of my food freedom course called food freedom evolution. You can find the details below. But self respect is a massive component of continuing to show up for yourself when it comes to your overall wellbeing and any other goals that you have as well, as long as they're coming from a place of, you guessed it, respecting your self.

So if you don't have any self respect yet, or you don't identify as a woman who does respect herself, start acting as if say, if I was a woman who did respect herself, what would I do today? And go do that thing.

The second part is get very clear on what you are willing to give up and what you're not willing to give up. And this will alleviate so much pressure because so often we go into [00:03:00] life, but especially health and fitness goals with these. lofty ideas of who we want to be, what we want to accomplish. And we fail to consider what we will have to sacrifice or let go of in order to get there.

So for me, for example, I used to be a big partier, a big drinker, and I did not prioritize my lifestyle, a healthy lifestyle, because I wasn't willing to give up that part of myself. And it wasn't until my mid twenties when I said I'm ready to let this part of my identity go. My alter ego in college was Messy Jessie and I lived up to that name.

I was a hot mess and it wasn't until I was really ready to say, I don't need to be the life of the party. I don't need to be the girl that people can count on to stay up until the sun rises in the morning. I was able to let a lot of that go when it came to my relationship with food. Was I able to actually sit with my emotions?

Was that something I was going to be able to do? Was I willing to give up running away from them? Right? So you need to get crystal clear on, am I actually willing to accept what I will have to face? And usually this [00:04:00] is more inner stuff in order to do this. Is it, I am going to face my emotions, I'm no longer going to run from them.

Am I willing to give up scrolling on my phone on Tik for an hour and instead going for a walk? I don't know. Am I willing to give up comparing myself on Instagram and instead looking up some recipes and making some food for the week? Am I willing to give up an hour in Netflix and going to bed on time?

These are the things you actually need to get very clear on what you will need to do, what you will need to sacrifice in order to achieve these goals. Otherwise, you're going to continue to run up against this subconscious roadblock of Oh, I want this thing, but something's standing in the way and it's because you're not willing to accept and let that go.

And if you're not ready, that's okay. It's really important part of this as well is sometimes we're just not ready to let it go. And it takes time to get to that tipping point of change where we say, Okay. Identity is shifting and I'm finally ready to step into this new version of myself, but go easy on yourself while you work up to that.

And if you write this down and get clear on what you're willing to give up and don't promise it to yourself [00:05:00] unless you're actually willing to do it because that's how we lose trust and confidence with ourselves. We'll talk about that in a little bit. You will see things shift very quickly .

Number three, four, finally sticking to your health and fitness goals, you need to address what subconscious fears you have for either pursuing these goals or for finally getting there. And again, we cover this extensively inside of food, freedom, evolution, but you need to bring to the surface what you are afraid of.

And it might not be so apparent to you at first, But I want you to spend some time, journal it out, dig a little bit and say, what am I afraid of happening if I get there? So maybe it's, I'm going to get more attention from men and that can feel uncomfortable, scary depending on your beliefs, your situations of your past, et cetera.

Maybe you're worried that women in your circle, in your life are going to judge you, are going to gossip about you, are going to feel jealous of you. Oftentimes these deeper fears come from. separation, a fear of separating from the people in our lives. So if you start to overhaul your lifestyle or pursue these [00:06:00] goals and other people in your life are over here where you currently are, you want to move over here, your subconscious is saying, but I'm leaving them behind or they're no longer going to love me.

So we need to really sit with these parts of ourselves and say, I understand and have so much compassion for that part of us and say, it's okay. Either a, they will support us. If they don't, we can have a mature conversation and say, I'd really like your support in this, or I'm going to have to go at this alone.

And other people will come and I promise they will, who will come and fill in that void. You need to get really crystal clear on what you are afraid of. And perhaps On the way there, what you're afraid of, and this comes up all the time with my fat loss clients, and we cover this inside of sustainably lean academy.

My course is they're afraid of pursuing getting leaner fat loss, whatever that is, because their only association with it is destroying their relationship with food, being absolutely miserable, the entire process, and then eventually. gaining it all back. So if you realize, okay, I'm afraid of having fitness goals because the only frame of reference I [00:07:00] have is doing two day workouts, 75 hard, everything being super intense.

We don't have to live like we're David Goggins. Okay. We just don't, we're not training to be Navy SEALs. It's just not necessary. So identify, am I associating the process of pursuing these goals with misery? Because then of course I'm going to run away from it. I would too. So understand that there are so many different ways to achieve your goals and ways that are not going to harm you mentally and physically.

And if you need help with that, just let me know, drop it in the comments. This is what we do around here. But for now I want you to identify your fears of getting there. And once you get there and start to address them, question them, put all those beliefs and thoughts on trial .

fourth tip for sticking to your health and fitness goals finally is have bite sized goals. This is so, so vitally important for building and maintaining trust and confidence with yourself. This is something I struggled with for a really long time, so I would set these really lofty expectations and goals.

I was going to stick to this list of foods I was going to work out intensely this many times [00:08:00] per week. And of course, because I'm a human being, inevitably that wouldn't happen. So I'd beat myself up and then I'd start to identify. As the person who just couldn't stick to her goals. And that's not true.

my process was broken. My expectations were far too lofty for where I was at the time. So what I recommend you do is start off with really small goals that you know you can actually commit to. And some of these are going to sound silly, but I want you to stick with me. So if you struggle with going to the gym, I want you to say, okay, three times a week, I'm just going to show up to the gym.

You don't even have to work out. You don't have to do anything when you're there. All you have to do is put gym clothes on and go to the gym. Now, chances are once you get there, you're gonna start to move your body and do things. But we wanna set the bar low so you can start stacking wins and start to build momentum, confidence, and trusted yourself.

If you've never cooked a meal at home, or you just fear it, you feel like it's a big pain, and you're saying, oh, I'm gonna cook every meal at home. for this year, for this month, whatever it is, or I'm only going to order out once a week when you're ordering out every single meal. That's a huge leap, right?

So what I want you [00:09:00] to do instead is say, I'm going to spend 20 minutes on Saturday or Sunday, and I'm going to choose one simple, simple recipe. And then I'm going to jot down what I need to get from the store and set aside this time to just make one recipe. doesn't matter if it tastes like crap. It doesn't matter if it tastes awful.

It doesn't even matter if you eat it. But you're setting aside the time and writing down a list of things, following the recipe and just making it. That's all you have to do. If you don't even need it, that's fine. We're setting small attainable goals to build this momentum and inertia in your favor so that you can prove to yourself that you are a woman who does what she says she's going to do for herself.

And this is where things start to snowball in the right direction. We're going on an upward spiral versus on a downward spiral.

Tip number five for finally sticking to your health and fitness goals. And this is arguably the most important part is you have to cheerlead yourself and put your blinders on. So I want you to start to treat yourself and talk to yourself like you were your own best friend, like you were a child. And this will probably feel really foreign for a lot of people.

Still, sometimes I catch [00:10:00] myself thinking that the way to motivate myself is to put a ton of pressure on me, set really high expectations, say, you didn't meet it. You didn't meet it. Rather than look at you go, you're doing so well. Every small win celebrate it. I don't care how menial minute it seems. I want you to start to cheerlead the smallest things you went to bed 10 minutes earlier, celebrate it.

You went for a 10 minute walk. Celebrate it. You are the queen of the world. Every time you do what you say you're going to do. Every time you treat yourself with respect. Every time you show up for your mind and your body with healthy habits, healthy behaviors, cheerlead yourself. And the opposite is when you are doing things that are not in alignment with what you want to be doing, which hello, we're human, it's absolutely going to happen.

Do not berate yourself. This adds so much internal pressure. And eventually you're going to start to be at war internally. And that's when procrastination happens. That's when you start to feel anxious and avoid what we want to be doing, because we know that internal dictator is about to show up. So you really need to be kind to yourself.

And this is a practice for [00:11:00] those of us who don't naturally have this internal dialogue, which is most human beings on the planet. So be really, really gentle with yourself as you learn to do this, but being compassionate towards yourself as you pursue these goals will, I promise you, completely change the game.

You will find that you will be able to stick to nearly everything if you are being so compassionate, kind, accountable to yourself. That's part of self respect, but the other part of self respect is actually treating yourself with human kindness. Treating yourself like a human being who is not perfect.

And then we also want to make sure we're keeping our blinders on because if you're looking around, comparing to Susie Q over here, who's doing 75 hard and is losing 30 pounds in 30 days, which she's probably going to gain it all back. Hate to say it. You are going to become derailed. And then you're going to start to doubt your process.

So focus on what you're doing. And especially because we're focusing on Small, but sustainable changes. If you're looking around at people who are doing crazy things that are bringing really fast results, you're going to start to doubt what you are doing. You're going to start to feel bad about your own progress, but [00:12:00] this is the key to long term success.

When I lost 30 pounds, it took me a couple of years. I'm not saying it's going to be the case for you, but because of the way I was overcoming nervous system health issues. I needed to make sure that I was taking a slow and steady approach. My life is all over the place. I was moving here, there across the country, moved to Bali.

It would have been so chaotic to lose 30 pounds in even a year. That would have been way too much on my body, my brain, my metabolism. So I had to go slowly. I had to make sure I was doing things the right way. I also just wanted to enjoy my life along the way, right? And the more slowly we go, the more able typically we're able to do that.

And because I just focused on me, I didn't care that there were before and after photos everywhere I looked saying, lose it faster, get leaner faster, 12 week before and after photos. I didn't care. I focused on my own game, and because of that, I've been able to lose 30 plus pounds, keep it off without getting weird with food, and it's been relatively seamless.

So I highly, highly encourage you to cheerlead yourself, like you would a daughter, [00:13:00] a best friend, and keep your eyes on your own life, on your own body.

I really hope these tips were helpful. Let me know over on Instagram or in the comment section below if you're watching this on YouTube, if these tips are helpful for you, what you got out of the exercises. I hope you take some time to really consider. What your fears are, what you're willing to commit to, what you're going to have to give up and take yourself seriously this year.

If these are things that you really want, you might discover that you don't actually want them because in step one, you realized these are goals just to please other people and they're not actually goals that you care about, 

But either way, if you would like some assistance with any of this, I have a ton of resources linked down below, both free paid. And I do have a free two minute quiz to see what the next best step is for you on your health and fitness journey. And I will see you in the next video.