Confidently Flawed
Confidently Flawed
Why You Always 'Fall Off' - And How to Break the Cycle for Good
Do you feel like especially come summer, you loose the motivation, you 'fall off' from your goals and you can't seem to keep up with what you had planned?
This week on the Confidently Flawed Podcast, hosts Danny and Brooke share tips on how to break the cycle of falling off.
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You deserve to live life with confidence.
Brooke:We're your hosts, Brooke Brewer
Danny:and Danny Mullen here from Raw Fitness. Confidently Flawed is a podcast dedicated to bringing you the secret sauce in helping you look good and feel even better.
Brooke:What's holding you back from being the most confident you?
Danny:What's up, guys? Welcome back. Confidently Flawed, Danny and Brooke here. We are headed into summer. Michigan's finally kind of starting to break weather-wise. If you guys have been listening for a while, you know Brooke and I both love this kind of weather, me in particular. But a lot of things happen during the summer, right? We have events, we have barbecues, we have graduations, weddings. It's kind of the theme of, you know, party, letting loose, all of that, which is great. It's fine. We want to enjoy life, right? We only have this one life to live. We might as well enjoy it. However, we tend to find that we start to fall off a little bit in other areas of life, in particular, our health or our fitness routines or nutrition habits or whatever that looks like. So, you know, how many of us can sit here and say, you know, I start strong, but I don't I just can't stay consistent, right? I can't find that happy median of like, I'm either all in or I'm all out. And I think the big problem is people just lack the structure during the, I'll call it holidays, but like the summer, right? Where it's like almost like one giant holiday, if you will. And I think that's where a lot of people run into trouble. So I think what Brooke and I talked about is how do we, how can we help you guys listening overcome the pitfalls of summer while still enjoying your life, while not having to live in the gym outside of work and things like that. And so we wanted to bring kind of some solutions of things that maybe you guys could do or look at things different, maybe have a different mindset to where you know, not just having this start strong, but lack consistency where we can maybe not be perfect and be okay with that, but start to get some type of structure into what we're doing. And, you know, you'll come out the other end of summer, uh, probably Tanner, right? Probably having more fun, but still keeping your health in check. So we're not trying to like reverse back to where you were before summer or trying to get all the weight off that you gain. You're, you're in a good spot and I assure you, you're probably going to be happier. So, you know, Brooke, I know you like summer. It's a big time for you. You'll probably have a lot of celebrations. You got something to celebrate here. If, if, if you don't know, Brooke's been trying for a while. I haven't brought it up in the podcast cause you know, I didn't want to bring it up until, you know, we heard some more good news, but Brooke is expect Acting, which she's been trying for quite some time now. So Brooke, real quick, just wanted to shout you out. Congratulations on that. And with that festivities, obviously you haven't been drinking anyway, so you're not going to necessarily partake in that, but there's still probably going to be some celebrations and letting loose and getting that weight off your shoulder, if you will. So what's your mindset going into summer, I guess?
Brooke:Yeah, I think first off, thank you so much. We are beyond excited and we are actually expecting two little babies. So God blessed us with not just one, but two little miracles. So we are beyond excited. But I think the first thing you want to touch on, and I know we've talked about it before on the show, but I think it's so important to remember when we think about why we always fall off. It's the idea about motivation. And I think it's important to remember that motivation is not something that we're born with. It's not something that like... I was born with more motivation than Danny and that's why I'm more of a motivated person. Like if you look around at people, like look at Michael Jordan or Elon Musk or, you know, these really hardcore, you know, athletes or people that like businessman, they don't, they weren't born with more motivation than us. Motivation is actually a skill. Motivation is something that we find within ourselves and like we use that. And so I think that's important to remember because when you wake up somewhere mornings and you're not motivated it's something to remember like hey that's all right like motivate it's not just like oh I'm just an unmotivated person so I just I I fall off of things it's it's a matter of motivation is something that you kind of like pull within yourself you create you form you you kind of build yourself and so I think that's important to remember when we talk about falling off of of goals that we have or in general just keeping yourself going and is to remember that you're not always going to be motivated. And so on the days you're motivated, yeah, of course, like it's so easy to go work out or eat healthy and because you're motivated, but it's the days we're not motivated. I think that's where we really need to talk about because it's those days, like how do you push through the lack of motivation? And with that being said, I think what's important to kind of, you know, talking about summer and kind of what Danny was alluding to, you know, the celebrations, drinking, holidays, eating unhealthy foods, those types of things tend to make us unmotivated, right? Like, I mean, who's had a night of drinking and eating crappy foods in the next morning? Like, you wake up unmotivated. That's pretty standard across the board. It's because the food and the nutrition that you're consuming is making you feel like blah. And so on those days, I think number one, Give yourself that grace. Like, hey, it's okay. Like, you don't have to be motivated every single day. It's okay to enjoy life. But on the contrary, on those days that you're not motivated, you just have to tell yourself, I'm going to do something, even if it's something little. And I was reading this article on, it was not an article. It was actually like a Reddit. And this individual, he was a big alcoholic from my understanding. And he just gave himself six months and was like, I'm going to just try these different habits for six months straight. And so anyways, he was just basically explaining his story. And one of the things that he talked about that, you know, really kind of stood out to me was that he said, you know, I set a goal for myself every day to do one push-up a day. He goes, I don't tell myself I'm going to do 20 push-ups a day. I'm going to tell myself to do one push-up a day because guess what? You do one pushup, you're most likely gonna do two. You're most likely gonna do 20. But if you do one and you feel accomplished and you're like, nope, I'm hungover, I ate crappy food, don't feel like it, but hey, I did one pushup, there's gonna be something in your brain that's going to, you're gonna be positive reinforcement. Hey, I did what I said I was going to do. But if you set a goal, hey, I gotta do 20 pushups every day and you wake up after that morning of drinking and you're like, 20 push-ups oh heck no then you don't do it and then you have negative reinforcement in your brain and so you don't end up doing that and then you start to feel down on yourself then you get worse in motivation then your day just kind of turns around and i really like that mentality like In the summer especially, like we've got so much going on. You have so many things and like we want to enjoy life. We want to go out on the boat and maybe have a couple cocktails. You want to go out and have a barbecue with some friends and not have to worry about every little thing that's on your plate. But if you set yourself, but I still have to go to the gym five days a week. I have to go on a walk every single day. Everything that I eat has to be clean. You're almost setting yourself up for failure. So maybe set those little goals to where, again, If you do one pushup a day for your goal, you're most likely gonna do more than one pushup and that's gonna make yourself feel that much more accomplished. Like, hey, I was only supposed to do one pushup, but I ended up doing 20, like, look at me go. So I would definitely say that's one huge recommendation I have. Number one, to remind yourself that motivation is not something that you're born with. Like, we all have days where we feel unmotivated. We all have those types of days. It's a matter of how you're gonna combat those bad days. So by setting those little small goals, and again, it doesn't have to be a pushup. It could be like, I'm going to move five minutes a day. Okay, five minutes is very small, but hey, five minutes could turn into 20 minutes or I'm gonna eat one healthy meal a day. And that could turn into three because all of a sudden you're like, oh, this healthy meal makes me feel really, really good. I wanna keep going. So then you just start compounding onto those. But if you set these big, huge goals, And then you start failing them. Then you just, I feel like it's a domino effect that you just all of a sudden it's like, oh, I'm, you know, oh, screw it. I've already messed up for so many weeks. I'm just going to keep going. So that's one, I guess, maybe two tips that I'd have. How about you, Danny?
Danny:Yeah, I think those are great. probably some of the biggest things that you can do. And really my first thought too, when it comes to that. And I like how you said that at the end, like when it becomes too complicated, you like start to feel like a failure. Right. And then like, like, well, why I can never do this. Oh, I'm just never going to lose the weight or I'm never going to advance in my career or whatever it is. And the problem is like, we make it so complicated. Like, I love the push of a nail. I actually just heard that recently too. I wonder if it's from the same thing, but like it was, it's like, that's simple. Everybody can do it. And if you can't do a pushup, you can, you know, whatever your version of that is, is like everybody can do one pushup, you know, or a variation of pushup. So like if you keep it that simple, like you said, if you get over that, great. And more than likely, probably most of the time you are going to get more than one pushup in, right? Because you're just going to keep going because you already did it. And so I love that. And I think like when you're talking and when you're saying this, I really think it comes down to like keeping it simple. And like training a skill, like motivation is like a skill. It's not even so much motivation. It's like a habit is a skill, right? Because you hit on it perfect, Brooke, is I don't care who you are, even if you're familiar with David Goggins, even David Goggins is not motivated all the time, right? Is I saw this thing the other day. I think it was Mike Tyson. Whether you wanted to look at Mike Tyson as a role model or not is irrelevant, but he was great at what he did. Right. And what he said is like, it was, I'm butchering it. So don't quote me on it, but it was something along the lines of like the ones that are great. They almost every day or many days, they're not motivated. Like Brooke said, but what they do is they, they, do it anyways they build the skill they build the habit so on the days that we don't feel like doing it if we go out and do our version of one push-up whatever that looks like is we're create we're stacking these habits of doing that over and over then it just becomes a habit it becomes part of who we are and when you start to do that it just makes it so much easier that you are more likely to do it and kind of building that skill along the way of this is just what i do this is part of how i do it and even on days and we get busy like during the summer we're all probably busy right so the excuse of being busy doesn't doesn't work right so if we can create these stacking of habits of just doing our variation of one push-up is it's going to make it when we are busy, we are more likely to do it. Instead of pushing it off and saying, oh, I'm too busy, I'll wait for the perfect time to start my push-ups. Well, guess what? You're going to look back five years later and that perfect time still hasn't happened, right? Because there's never going to be a perfect time. So when you are busy, when you are have all these other events going on, that's the perfect time that you should be doing this because then it's going to train this habit even more that when things get hard, you're still going to do it and you're not going to push it off and wait for the time that it is. So I love that analogy. I think that's important. We don't have motivation all the time. Nobody does. So if you can build this skill, build this habit, I think that's the primary thing. And I'm kind of stealing yours, Brooke, but like that would be my number one thing too, is just start doing your one version of pushup and make it super, super easy. I guess if I'm going to throw another one in there, it's how do you find accountability of that, right? Because you know, the way I like to look at fitness and really any new skill or habit is, you know, I'm dealing with this now, Brooke, you'll eventually be dealing with this soon is if you're a parent or guardian, whatever, and you've had young kids, like a good habit to teach them is to brush their teeth. Right. And hopefully myself, Brooke, everybody listening, you brush your teeth probably every day. But probably when you first started, you probably wanted nothing to do with it, right? You just didn't want to go in the bathroom and do it. You didn't like the taste of the toothpaste, which is my kids, whatever it is, right? So it's, you don't want to do it, but eventually external accountability of mom or dad or guardian or whomever is saying, all right, you have to do this because of X, Y, or Z. It's that external accountability that eventually turns into an internal habit of that kid right and that's kind of what it alludes to with stuff like this is like how can you create accountability around you so that you actually follow through with it right because we can we can talk to her blue in the face of like just do one push-up but like we get busy we forget and we're like ah it's monday i miss my workout screw it the week's done already over now i already sucked i'm gonna start next week or i'm gonna wait till spring or i'm gonna wait till fall or whatever right so find ways to create the stacking of habits like Brooke talked about with the pushup and then find accountability around that. So like my favorite ways to have accountability is there's kind of three parts to it is money. Money motivates us, all of us, right? Some people more than others, but for some aspect, money is going to motivate everybody. And if you can do it in a way that actually you feel it, right? Like, don't say like, if I'm going to, this situation is going to cost me a dollar, like make sure you feel it. Right. And that's why I like, even places like our business, right? Raw Fitness is, that's why it can be very valuable for accountability. It's not like $10, like Planet Fitness, right? Like you're spending a decent amount of money. You're going to take it serious and you're more likely to show up. And that's part of the benefit of it, right? Is yes, you're getting more of a service. Yes, you're getting more like a guidance, things like that. But like the fact that you invested in yourself and did that, you're much more likely to actually follow through and do it. So money is a big way to motivate you. And whether that's hiring a trainer, whether that's hiring or investing in a program like a raw fitness or whether that's paying your friend X amount of money and say don't give this back say like here's three grand and if I don't work out 12 times in the summer or whatever, like you can keep that and you can't give it back, right? Find that like one sketchy friend that you know will actually take it, right? So then you're actually worried about it. So, but like money's very motivating and you can find a lot of clever ways to do that. But so that's the first part of accountability. The second thing is the external factor. And it needs to be an external factor outside of your loved ones. And I know that sounds crazy, but like, the people that love you, your friends, your family, all of that, they're going to let you off the hook. They're going to tell you it's okay, right? Because they want what's, they want what's best for you, but sometimes that's not what's best for you, right? Sometimes you need that little push or nudge. So I personally, obviously I'm biased because I've done this forever, but like, I think you need somebody outside of your family that their job is to hold you accountable and push you, right? Not just out of love, not just because, especially from like a male side of things, like it's in our innate, like nature for men to want to take care of women, want to serve them, want to provide for them. Right. And if we see women in pain, we don't like that innately. Right. So like we want to solve it. So, if, if my wife is coming in and I'm trying to hold her accountable and then she like gives me some reason why she can or whatever it is, I'm probably going to let her off the hook more than I would if it was like a client, if I'm a personal trainer. Right. So find some type of external accountability outside of like your close knit circle. Right. And then the last one is set deadlines, set, set and create deadlines and make them make the process of those deadlines simple. Like don't make this elaborate plan, make it very simple. Like Brooke talked about and set some type of deadline. I have to do one push up every day for the next 30 days right or whatever it is because for whatever reason i'm sure there's plotting a science on there i don't necessarily know all the science but i know it's effective when you have deadlines at work when you have deadlines at school when you have deadlines for a fitness program whatever it is you are much more likely to follow through because you see where it's getting you and where you're going versus just keeping an open-ended of i'm just going to do push-ups every day you're going to it's going to be like so broad out there that you're like ah what am i even doing this for right where where is this like okay i only have to do this for 30 days i'm already two weeks in, what's another two weeks, right? So like, my tip outside of what Brooks talked about, because I think that's the number one thing is find a way to get held accountable, whether through money, an external source outside of your close knit group, and then have some type of deadline with it. Because that's going to force you to be accountable. And it could be one of those, it could be all three of those, whatever works, but like have something there to kind of hold you accountable to it.
Brooke:I love it. Accountability is everything. And I think accountability goes hand in hand with that idea of the motivation, right? Like the days that you're not motivated, what's going to push you through? The accountability, whether it's the people, whether it's the deadlines, whether it's the money, like all of those are great ways to be held accountable. And I think that that's how, you know, one of the biggest ways, but there is other ways, but I think one of the ways that you can combat that lack of motivation that you've been feeling. So lots of great tips here, guys. And I think that, you know, the biggest thing is, like I say this all the time, but like giving yourself grace, I think that is very important because I also do think that when we don't give ourself that grace, when we don't give ourself that ability to potentially slip, is when, like I said, it domino effects. And then all of a sudden you're feeling like a failure, you're not feeling good. So I like the idea, especially with that, like the deadlines, like, okay, Hey, I didn't do the greatest, but we're going to pick it back up. Day one starts tomorrow. Day one starts Monday. Day one starts Friday. Like it doesn't matter where you start, but if you can just set those goals, you know, have someone hold you accountable. I love the idea of the money, like getting your skin in the game, like whether it's, you know, paying a little bit more money for a gym membership, like there is so much to say about that. Like, yeah, ideally no one wants to spend that money, but like it's for your health and investing in your health is so important. so important you're either going to invest it now or you're going to invest it later in medical bills so the way i see it is you know you know working out i mean my husband just made that comment the other day he's like you know, it's, I have been very unmotivated. I have been very, very sick this pregnancy. The amount of laying around and laziness that's been happening has been real life and very abnormal for me. And, you know, my husband made the comment, he's like, you're wearing off on me. I think I'm getting sympathy tiredness and sympathy nausea. And, you know, and he was like, I'm just really struggling, like, you know, getting back into the routine of things. And so I was like, okay, you're going to go work out today. And he worked out and he's like, oh my God, I just feel so good I'm so motivated let's go and I said see look all that is is all that's that that's what it took you know getting into the gym and you know I'm pretty sure everyone listening this can say there you've never had a bad workout you know you know sometimes you walk into those doors and you're just like I am not feeling it but I don't know too many people that leave those doors and are like oh I just I feel worse than I felt when I came in so lots of great tips here guys hopefully you guys can take some of these tips moving into your summer and if you're listening to this and it's not the summer and it's winter time like all of these tips can be very valuable for you no matter when they are so as always if you guys got value from this episode please share this give us a rating and review we appreciate it more than you know and we'll be back next week as always with another confidently flawed