What to Do When You Fall Off Track (Without Starting Over Again)

🎧 Fallen Off Track? Here’s EXACTLY What To Do Next (It’s Not What You Think)

You just started. Or you’re crushing it—until life happens. Suddenly, the workouts stop, the habits fade, and you’re spiraling in self-doubt asking, “What’s wrong with me?” In this episode of Muscles and Mindset, Anne Jones (certified life coach + fitness pro with 15+ years of experience) gets real about what’s actually happening when you “fall off track” and why it has nothing to do with willpower and everything to do with your nervous system.

Whether you’ve fallen off your workout routine, ditched your healthy meals, or ghosted your goals for a hot minute—this episode breaks down:

✨ Why your brain wants you to quit (and how to override it)

✨ The 3 nervous system states and how they impact your habits

✨ How to stop labeling yourself as “lazy” or “inconsistent”

✨ A simple reframe that will help you never start over again

✨ The truth about the “7-week and 7-month slump” (and how to outsmart it)

This one’s for the high-achieving woman who’s tired of starting over and ready to ride the wave of real, lasting change—without the guilt, shame, or BS.

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Connect With Me:

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• Website: [https://www.annejonescoaching.ca/]

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Transcript

0:00

Hey, hey. Welcome back to the Muscles and Mindset Revolution podcast. The podcast for busy, ambitious women who are tired of chasing quick fixes and are ready to finally achieve real lasting results, stronger bodies, sustainable habits, and long-term weight loss. I'm your host, Anne Jones, certified life coach and fitness professional for over 15 years. Here to help you break free from inconsistency, overwhelm, and burnout. Okay, welcome back to the pod. I wanna talk about something that we've all been through, you start something strong, right? Especially my all or nothing high achiever, ladies, you start something strong. Everything's going according to plan, and then bam, life hits you, right? You fall off track. The workouts stop, the healthy habits fade. Maybe it's not even because life hit you, maybe hit you, you maybe you just fell off, right? And then maybe you find yourself in a place where you feel like it's all over and you think, what the hell is wrong with me? Why can't I stay consistent? Guess what? This happens, okay? It happens to the best of us. And today I'm gonna share exactly what I want you to do when you fall off track, especially if you've been stuck in that cycle for a while. So let's get into it. Now first, let me tell you, this is not just about getting back on track. I actually don't even love that phrase, and I tell my clients this all the time. I don't in my life, I never fall off track and get back on track because I just don't phrase it or see it that way. I never see it as a stop start this is how my most successful clients see it as well. They just see life as like. A cycle, it just keeps going. But when we have this perception that there's a beginning point and an end point, and if we f it up anywhere in there, we're starting all over, you will be falling, you'll be falling off track and constantly trying to get back on track. So I, it takes a while to get to the point that I'm at, obviously, but. I don't even love that phrasing'cause I just want you to think that you're, you just continue on. I really, it's really more about tenacity. But we've all heard that a million times, right? Just get back on track and just like get back on the horse and it's not that easy. So what I wanna dive into today is what do you actually do in that moment when it feels like you've completely fallen off the rails when your brain,'cause yes, your brain will tell you. Why bother? It's too late. I'm too far gone. I'm just not cut out for this. And this happens a lot, especially in the beginning of your journey per this keeps people from even starting. For literally years. It also happens when we get overwhelmed and this is a common pitfall, and guess what? It's completely normal. So I want to very briefly tell you why this happens, because it is a normal human nervous system response. And then I'm gonna share with you what I want you to do to quote unquote get out of it. So the reason that this even happens at all. Is because your nervous system goes into shutdown. Okay? So real quick, your nervous system is your brain. Your brain stem, your spinal cord and it rules the whole of your body. And it has these sort of different like imprints. And it's all based on the life that you've had previously and who we are as humans. We have two main players in the nervous system in our central nervous system. So we have the sympathetic nervous system known as SNS. This is what you know as fight or flight. This is what mobilizes you when you're in danger. Increases your heart rate, dilates your pupils, pumps blood to your muscles. Think anxiety, panic, stress, anger, go, go, go, go, go. Energy. Okay? And then you have the parasympathetic nervous system, your PNS, which you might have heard of, called your rest and digest. It calms you down, it brings you back to a baseline to homeostasis, but it has two branches. Ventral vagal, which is where you feel safe, calm, connected, social. This is where you experience ease and joy. This is where we wanna spend most of our time. This is where my clients get to. You also have dorsal vagal, which is you may have heard of, called your freeze or fawn response, where you go into collapse and shut down. So the dorsal vagal response is when your system gets so overwhelmed, it slams the brakes. Think numbing out, disconnection. Lying in bed, zoning out exhaustion. The reason the word fawn is used is because deer play dead when they're afraid of being eaten, basically. So it's not the same as fight or flight. It's, I can't fight anymore. I can't run, I'm checking out. That tends to be where people go. You can go both ways, right? You can get really anxious and overwhelmed. Go into high sympathetic and try to do all the things, get really anxious, and then get overwhelmed and continue to try to do things to fix it. Or what often happens with overwhelm is you will do that, so you get really anxious and overwhelmed, try to do, do, do, fix, fix, fix. And it gets so overwhelming that you boom, crash and shut down. This might look like a full shutdown, like you can't get outta bed. Or it might just look like procrastination. This will show up as procrastination, right? And then we call ourselves a procrastinator. We say, what can I get? I'm so lazy. No, your nervous system is just in dorsal, in shutdown. So it's a very normal response, and either of these things going into sympathetic or oral can happen very easily when we disrupt the status quo. Which is what you're doing when you're trying to change your life, right? Transformation is very confronting. It is not comfortable. That is our brain's job, is to do anything it can to keep us comfortable. So when we do something like sign up for a new program, get a coach, start a diet, start working out, start meditating. Whatever it is, trying to stop drinking, stop binge eating, whatever the behavior is that's uncomfortable. It requires effort. And your brain's literal job is to conserve effort, which is why you will have these thoughts. Like, it's not worth it. What's the point? We'll just deal with it tomorrow. We'll deal with it on Monday. Right? And then you're, as a result of those thoughts, what do you do? You leave it till Monday, you just eat all the things. Your actions are a direct result of your thoughts and your results are the consequence of your actions. So I hope you can see how your nervous system and your thoughts create who you are, what you do, and create the result that you get. So I want you to know that this is a very human, normal behaviour, coming into fear, falling into self-doubt when you're trying to do something huge, like change your body, change your life, change your lifestyle. So that's the first thing that you need to know. Now, here's what I'll share with you. After 15 plus years of coaching women and of course myself, let me you. This knowledge is gold. Okay? So I want you to take a deep breath, grab a drink, get your water, get your coffee, get your vino, whatever. Let's get started. So first things first, I've definitely seen this happen, right? With new clients. And I will tell you too, that when I was a newer coach, a, it happened more frequently'cause I wasn't the coach who I am now. And B, I thought that it was a result of something that I was doing and now I am unshakably confident that it's not.'cause I know that it's human nature, right? And I know how to coach people through it. So let's imagine an imaginary woman for a second, right? Perhaps you can see yourself as her. Busy, high achieving working woman, probably just like you. She's juggling work. Maybe family, or maybe not, you know, maybe she's looking for a relationship. She's just had a rough week or two or month or year, whatever it is, she feels off track, right? Her workouts are not existent. Her healthy eating out the window, she says, I need help with that. She hits rock bottom. She reaches out and asks for help, whether that be hiring a coach, starting a class, starting a diet. She says to me, I've been so busy, Anne, I haven't even thought about my workouts or my nutrition for weeks. Does this sound familiar? Right. I've fallen off track. We start to buy into this story. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. We've all been there, right? It's a classic story and honestly, it's no one's fault. Life happens, but the reaction to it is where things get tricky. Here's where we have a choice when you fall, whether when you fall off track, whether it's not even starting or falling off track after six days, which is the average duration of a diet, by the way, or, I always say seven weeks and seven months in a client. I always warn them there's a seven week slump and there's a seven month slump. Seven for seven weeks. You can like be pretty hot and fire. Things are still exciting. Working out is new and fun after seven weeks. It feels like monotony starts to kick in and then we start to get a little bit like, oh, am I gonna do this forever? Which is wild. So your plan has to be sustainable, but that's very normal. Seven weeks. And then month seven people can maintain stain for six, seven months. Month seven starts to get a little bit tricky. So that's the point where I want to be speaking to you right now.'cause you can either get consumed by guilt, let shame take over, make it mean something about you. And disappear into the void. Or you can choose to show up even if it's messy. You see most people's default reaction when they've fallen off track is to vanish.'cause it would be very uncomfortable to admit that, you know, they're scared. It's hard, they need more help, they did something wrong. Brain doesn't like that. It's much more comfortable to just opt out. And plus, remember what I said before, nervous system goes into dorsal and to shut down. It requires a little bit of energy and action to get outta that fear and self doubt come up. You don't wanna deal with it. You're embarrassed. You might even feel shame. You might have thoughts that you are letting yourself down if you have a coach that you're letting your coach down. But I'm here to tell you that none of that is true, and here's why. You don't need to be perfect to succeed. And I really want you to hear me say that again. You don't need to be perfect. Perfectionism is a trap and I want you to escape it. That's the only way. Honestly, in clients who are successful, they do not accept perfectionism as the way that they need to be. They are tenacious, resilient, resourceful, and they do not accept a blip. As like a complete derailment, just because you're scared, just'cause you missed a workout. Just'cause this is new and scary and you've never done it before you, it's not like easy just'cause you ate that entire pizza or skipped your check-in with your coach. It doesn't define you and it does not define your progress until the moment that you allow it to, that you buy into it, that you make it who you are. So here's a little secret that I've learned. A big part of why we get stuck in this cycle is because we as modern humans, this comes back to nervous system, but like modern day nervous system, we like to gamify everything, right? Everything is a fricking game. People love to gamify things because it gives you a dopamine hit. We love to check a box and then we say it's'cause we're a high achiever, we're type A. No, it's'cause you're getting a dopamine hit, especially if it's a digital box. Check a box. And there's nothing wrong with this because external accountability is required at the beginning, but when you're constantly looking to gamify things, you guys have heard me say this before. Healthy nutrition is fucking boring. It's not exciting. It's not a game. This is another thing with I feel people get into with like tracking macros as well. It becomes a game to them to like maintain those numbers and then they get completely derailed if they're not fitting the numbers into the box in their little tick tick app. So, you know, I'm gonna say it's not all or nothing. It's not like you can't have Google Calendar and you can't have a to-Do list app you can't track if you need to track for a bit, but I just want you to know if you can see yourself gamifying this. If you can see yourself looking for instant gratification. cause that's something I hear a lot too. I need to see a result to keep going. Well, you're gonna have a tough time then because you're not instantly gonna be like getting points and seeing results all of the time. We're chasing that dopamine hit. The thrill of winning by checking off every single box. If you, we can't see that victory right away. We feel like it's game over. But here's the thing about life. I actually often say life is a video game. You just like choose your own adventure, but it's also not a video game. Right? And we don't get points for being perfect. You don't even, you don't get points at all. Actually, the dopamine hit is not gonna come from a perfect streak of consistency. I know you get a hit for that, and it's okay. We can utilize that to keep you going and to keep you motivated, but we cannot rely on it. We can rely on your consistency and the momentum you build even when things aren't perfect. This shit is easy when it's easy, right? It's easy. When everything's going great, you're seeing the scale go down. You're like, mm mm Show me who you are. When you stop losing and you stop gaining, show me who you are when we have to spend a month out of the gym'cause you're injured. Show me who you are when we're prepping you for fat loss because you've been undereating for 25 years. That's the person you need to be to keep going. Not the person who needs to see results to stay motivated. Sorry. So once we realize this and let go of that need for instant rewards, we can really start making progress like real permanent progress. So here are three actionable steps to enlist when you wanna ghost on yourself, your coach, your program, whatever, number one. I call this sometimes, name it, to tame it, acknowledge it, and forgive yourself. Seriously. Just stop right now. Just like interject. This is just a thought. It's not true. It's just something my brain is saying to me because I feel awkward and uncomfortable. Take a moment and think, Hey, I've been hard on myself. That's okay. I'm human. I'm not perfect. And if you're new, I want you to say, I'm new at this. Like I'm just learning guilt and shame will not get you back on track. Even more so for women, this is one of the reasons that I coach women specifically, is'cause women are motivated differently than men. Rarely are women motivated by shame and hoorah. We are motivated by, I know it sounds cheesy. We're motivated by love and like feeling good. Guilt does not help you get back on track. You don't need a kick in the pants. You don't need me to yell at you. Self-compassion will get you back on track. Seriously, ask any of my clients. Self-compassion will get you back on track. You cannot move forward until you let go of that headiness, and I get it. Sometimes it feels like you should feel bad, right? Brain tells you, but you effed up, but you should be better. Okay, that's not gonna get you back going, right? I get it. Let it go. When a client comes to me feeling guilty or wanting to back out, I know that once she lets go of that guilt and fear, she can finally take the next step. But she needs to do that. First tip number two, simple plan, not a perfect plan. You've heard me say this before. Plan has to be realistic. Plan has to fit into your life when you try to fit your life into a very rigid 75 hard. Plan for 20-year-old Bali yoga instructors approach doesn't work, right? It's not sustainable. You're gonna fall off and then you're gonna poop all over yourself about it. So if you've fallen off track, don't try to suddenly do, get everything back in one go.'cause that's probably part of the reason that you fell off track initially, is perhaps you were trying to do too many things all at once. You can do it all. You just can't do it all, all at once. That creates overwhelm. Remember I talked to you about, we start to go to anxiety of all these things that I have to do, and then we get overwhelmed, and then we shut down and we either burn out or completely shut down. So instead, I want you to break it down. Start small. What's the first step? Brain loves first step. Maybe it's just 10 minutes of movement, right? Maybe it's one nourishing meal Today it is about building momentum, not perfection. I've certainly had clients who made the mistake of thinking that once she, you know, she missed a few weeks, or even a week or a few days, just threw everything out the window. But once we focus on the next realistic step. Back on track. No problem. That brings me to number three, which is to get support. This one is huge, you guys, and I don't just mean like, hiring a trainer or starting a diet, which again, on average lasts only six days. For these reasons that I'm just talking about. If you have been off track for a while or perhaps you've never done this before, or it's been a really long time, you're going to need accountability and support. You're going to need external accountability before you're gonna be internally motivated. This is also something I hear a lot from women is like, I should be able to do this on my own. I could probably do this. No, people don't do it on their own. That's why I have a job. Like that's why coaching exists. People don't do this on their own most of the time. Eventually, yeah. After a year or two of support, you don't have to do this alone. You're not getting a hero cookie for doing it on your own. Nobody cares. If you isolate yourself, it is harder to get back and stay on track. I've seen many women learn this lesson the hard way. And then once they do, once they get into a support system, community is super helpful as well. You feel re-energized and ready to keep going. You see other people having the same tenacity, the same like blips that you do, it normalizes it for you. That's what motivates you to keep going, not executing perfectly by yourself and getting some mysterious hero cookie. So let's wrap it up here. You fell off track. Okay, cool. Whatever. Here's what matters. You decide what happens next. You decide what happens next. You have the power to choose how you react. You are gonna sit in victim mode and be like, this happened to me. I broke my foot. This sucks. I can't, I'm scared, blah, blah, blah. Or you're gonna empower yourself. Put, make yourself the main character as they say, and choose what you're gonna do next. Do you stay stuck in guilt and shame, or do you choose to actually pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and get back in the game and show yourself that you are a woman who can do this consistently with tenacity? Because I believe in you, and I know that if you take these steps, use these three tips that I just told you, you'll bounce back way quicker than you think. Way quicker than if you are like, oh, I suck. I always do this. Do. It is not about being perfect. It is about being persistent, tenacious, showing up even when you're not perfect, and trusting the process so deeply. And here is a great way actually, that I'm going to offer you to jumpstart your progress. I'm offering a free challenge. It's five days, okay? You can commit to five days regardless of what is going on in your life. It is called the StrongHER challenge. It is a free five day strength and confidence challenge for women, 30 plus who want to build strength so confident AF and stay consistent without wasting their time on the wrong workouts. So if you are feeling stuck, uninspired, overwhelmed, this free challenge is an excellent way to reset and you will have access to me. You can talk to me about this specific topic if you would like. This is all about building confidence, strength, and mindset in a way that is sustainable. Not perfect. It's just showing up and getting your momentum back, giving you those wins, showing you that you can do it'cause that's what you need. So what are you waiting for? Join the StrongHER challenge today. There is no catch. It's totally free. We start together on Tuesday, May 20th, which is the day after the long weekend here in Canada. It's completely free. It's exactly what you need to get back on track or stay on track or show yourself that you can get on track at all with simple actionable steps that will get you that dopamine hit without all the pressure. And then I will teach you how to keep going. I'll put the link in the show notes here so you can sign up for the free challenge. Let's do this together. that's it for today, my friend. Remember, no matter how far off track you. Think that you've gone. It is never too late to get back in the game. If you need help, reach out. I've got your back, and if this resonated with you, please take a moment to give this podcast a five star review, share it with someone who needs to hear this, and let's keep growing together. We need each other. So until next time, stay confident, stay strong, keep showing up. I love you. I mean it. Have a great day. See you next week.