You’re Not Unmotivated —> You’re Disconnected

Consistency doesn’t fall apart because you’re lazy, unmotivated, or lacking discipline.

In this 2026-orientation-style episode of The Muscles & Mindset Revolution, Anne Jones explains why most women struggle to stay consistent under pressure — and why the real issue isn’t effort, motivation, or habits.

This episode explores:

• Why rushing, overriding, and procrastination are signs of disconnection (not failure)
• How January pressure quietly pulls you out of relationship with yourself
• Why steadiness creates better results than intensity
• The difference between discipline and self-connection
• How staying with yourself under stress is the real work

January isn’t asking you to try harder or “lock it in.”

It’s asking you to notice when you leave yourself — and to practice staying.

If consistency feels fragile right now, this episode will help you understand why — and what actually creates lasting change.

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Feeling capable, but still falling off when life gets loud?

This podcast is for the woman who knows what to do, but keeps disconnecting from herself under pressure.

Around here, we talk about staying with yourself when motivation fades, building real capacity instead of pushing harder, and creating a life that feels steady, regulated, and yours, even in chaotic seasons.

No hustle. No performative discipline. No starting over every Monday.

Start here:

• Free Guide: The High-Achiever's Guide to Losing Fat Without Obsessing Over Food or Workouts: [https://www.annejonescoaching.ca/free-guide-your-body-your-way]

• Deeper support + essays: Join my Substack: [https://annejonesfit.substack.com/]

Work with me:

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

Connect With Me:

• Instagram: [@annejonesfit]

• YouTube: [https://www.youtube.com/@annejones]

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Transcript

0:00

Welcome to the Muscles and Mindset Revolution, the podcast for ambitious women who want to build strength, feel confident, af, and lose fat for good, without counting calories or chasing quick fixes. I'm your host, Anne Jones. I'm a certified life coach, mentor, personal trainer, and mindset expert. After more than 15 years in the fitness industry, I can tell you this, the problem is almost never that you don't know what to do, it's how you respond to pressure, and that is exactly what we're talking about today. Happy January. It is the first Monday in January. And yet today's episode is not about goal setting. I know you love to set a goal, and it's not about habits and it's definitely not about locking it in or going all in on January, but stay with me because this is an orientation episode I want us to orient, let's orient ourselves into this new year because January doesn't, fail you in the way that people think it does. January doesn't fall apart. Resolutions don't not work because you're lazy. They don't fall apart because you lack discipline. They might, but it's not because you don't want it badly January fails because the moment pressure shows up, you leave yourself quietly, automatically, without even realizing that you've done it. I did kind of a, here's why November isn't working for you. Here's why December isn't working for you. So we're kind of on a theme. So I feel like I'm gonna tell you, you know, December versus January energy. So I have been sending a monthly recap email, and I didn't send it December 1st. I didn't send a November recap, but I sent my December recap, but I did it a little differently. In the summer, I was telling you all what I read, what I did, what I watched. And when I sent the December recap, I sent it less of a highlight reel. Less of an itemized, here's what I did, and more of a like,"woo. December was a lot. Here's how I stayed with myself anyways version, and you liked it? Or my readers liked it. And a bunch of my readers replied, asking for the other one, the old one. The what did you do? What did you read? What did you watch? The context, the details. And this tells me a couple of things. You love my reader. My audience loves a heart-centered reflection. And. You, like me, are intellectual, highly logical. You still like a checklist and you still like a here's what we did." And so I wrote it and sent it out this morning and what became really clear to me as I reflected on December twice is this, the December was messy, as I'm sure it is for many women. It was also tender, it was imperfect. But the win for me is something that I'm really bringing into theme in 2026, is that I stayed in relationship with myself, and I noticed that January is where I tend to see women do the exact opposite. So first, let me share with you what December taught me without romanticizing it. You know I love to romanticize life, but let's not romanticize. We don't need to romanticize the challenging parts. December didn't look impressive. Wasn't optimizing anything. There weren't a bunch of sexy parties. I wasn't chasing a glow up. I wasn't trying to be on or impressive. I read a lot. I rested more like every day was kind of a new start, to be honest. Both like my daughter and I are having big transition challenges or a lot of big feelings. So every day and every night was like a starting over, so I need to sleep. We need to regulate, we need to approach this again tomorrow. And I would say now we're finally, things are kind of working. We're in a rhythm. But because I am not new to this, I knew enough didn't do it perfectly, but I knew enough to keep the basics close even when everything else shifted. So the way that I'm bringing these two things together is like, I wrote this December email that was reflecting on. How tender and rough December felt. And then this morning I sent and wrote this like, here's what I did email and. What I realized in that was, I still did things right, like I still worked out. We still read books. You know, Sophie and I are shared. We're still reading the Chamber of Secrets. Like, here are the fiction books that I read and I'll just share with you too. Like I read, everyone Is Lying to You by Jo Piazza Witch. If you spend any time online or social media, I think you should read because it's so accurate in how. Influencers, operate and influence and how it's so staged, right? So much of what we consume is so staged. And I, this is a little aside, but I just wanna share this here. I've been having this thought since reading that book because I do know, some influencers, like big influencers like that in real life. And some of them are honest and real, and some of them it is very staged. But I personally don't follow. A lot of like aesthetic influencers, unless I know them personally or I'm doing it just out of like, oh, this is really pretty to look at. Like probably the only like aesthetic influencer I follow is, I can't remember her name. She's really young. She has all these babies. She's married to this model, and her voice is just doesn't feel like real life to me, but it's pretty to look at and it's fun to listen to. But my understanding is that a lot of you are following a lot of influencers who are demonstrating things that are aesthetic perfect and or staged. And if we are constantly consuming that as truth, like no wonder a comparison is leaking in. So I just found that interesting'cause I realized oh, I don't actually really follow or, you know, buy into. Anything that's that influencer that, like, if you're not showing me a reality, I'm pretty much out. and then things that I went back to, right? I went back to my nervous system, staples meditation, couple of my favorite books. How to Meditate and When Things Fall Apart, by P and going to yoga consistently. Not because I needed to be fixed, not because I needed to overhaul my life with yoga or by learning to meditate, but because I was listening and that matters. And that is the thing, especially with my one-on-one coaching clients, like with whom I do life and mindset coaching, especially after we've been working with together for a while, when something challenging comes up, or stress comes up, it's common for them to be like. I've come so far, like, why do I still feel this way? Why is this still happening? And I know because I've had that feeling before, and I've said the same thing to my coach, and I know now because I've been doing this work for so many years, that it is part of the process. learning how to take care of and stay with yourself isn't a guaranteed, like you're never gonna be stressed and you're never gonna have hard feelings, and you're never gonna self-sabotage again. It's a, you know. You have the tools, the resources, and you know how to come back to yourself faster. You know how to bounce back faster. You know how to see it coming. You know how to see it. Like it's more of an awareness that lets us have a more consistent piece. It is not a life is perfect from here on out. But that's what we really want, right? We want ease, we want consistency. We want to feel peaceful most of the time. And when we don't, we wanna know how to come back to that feeling. So let's come back to what January does to women, and here's what I see every single year. I've worked in fitness since 2009, like I'm familiar. January. And it shows up with pressure. This is what I feel, and actually I just wanna share this with you too. I always really struggle with like New Year's Eve, new Year's Day, content because I'm so, to be honest, self-absorbed in my own year end reflection and new year preview. So I find it really hard to like, be on at that time of year, for my clients and for my readers. I really like to be off. That's what I need, but I feel like it shows up with so much pressure, pressure to do it right this time. Pressure to make up for December, like get back on track, prove something, be disciplined. Be consistent. Be very impressive. And some of those things aren't bad, but when that pressure hits something subtle happens. You stop listening to yourself and you start stepping into performing. That's what really is One of the issues I have with like challenges is it's like can be kind of performative. It's external accountability. Which we all need, but are you listening or are you performing so that other people see you do it? And no shame either way. I just think it's a thing that happens. When you start performing, you got a lot of things to do. So you're rushing through meals, you're rushing through workouts, you are maybe overriding your hunger. You are pushing workouts instead of staying present in them. You are ignoring your fatigue and calling it mental toughness or discipline, and you're confusing intensity with commitment. And then when that inevitably collapses, you call it losing motivation. And then you say, I just don't have motivation. And that's not what happened. You didn't lose motivation. You probably still want it. You hopefully still know your why. You didn't lose motivation. You lost contact with yourself. You stopped listening. Here's the core truth. January or any month doesn't fall apart because you don't care enough. It falls apart because when pressure shows up, you abandon yourself instead of staying with yourself. Not intentionally, not dramatically, quietly, and most women don't even know they're doing it. They think, I just need to try harder. I just need a better plan. I need more discipline. But discipline without self connection turns into self betrayal. That's what I see. That's, there's nothing wrong with loving discipline, but discipline without connection to self turns into self betrayal and self betrayal always shows up as burnout, rebellion, self-sabotage, or collapse. Always, always, always. So here's why this pattern keeps repeating. Here's is a little uncomfortable. Most women don't fail because they don't know what to do. Most women who come to work with me actually know how to work out. They might even like be doing it already. The nuts and bolts is not usually the problem. Sometimes they don't have a program. They don't know exactly what to do. That's not what's really holding them back. They fail because the second things get uncomfortable. They override themselves instead of coming back to and relating to themselves. They treat January like something to conquer instead of something to move with, move through. And your nervous system does not respond to force, especially in women. Your nervous system responds to consistency, safety, and trust. And we don't we, those things feel scary. Those things feel scary, and that is why the podcast episode that resonated most in December was the one where I talked about doing all the right things still not working when your nervous system is fried. Because effort without regulation doesn't compound, it backfires. So Here's what to listen for in yourself this month. If you are already feeling that familiar tightening, like January is something that you have to get through and survive or prove yourself in or get through without missing up, that's not a discipline problem. That's a self connection problem. So this month is not asking you to be a better person. It's asking you to stay with yourself, or at least as I'm asking of you. It's asking of you to notice when you rush, instead of regulate, when you override, instead of just adjust when you push, instead of pause or refrain when you disappear under pressure. Call it procrastination. That pattern is the work, not the meal plan, not the workout split, not the 30 day challenge. January doesn't need more intensity from you. It needs steadiness. Coach Taylor inside muscles and mindset, she always likes to ask for a monthly word from our clients. And her word this month was steady, which I think is so funny'cause I've been using that word a lot. January really does need steadiness. It needs fewer promises and more follow through with yourself. It needs a solid four-legged table, not a three-legged table. Foundation, it needs you to stop leaving your body. The second things feel hard or uncomfortable because consistency is not built by white knuckling. It is built by staying in relationship with yourself when it would be easier to disconnect from yourself. And that is the muscle that most women have never trained, and that is exactly what actually changes everything. So here's your invitation. If this episode feels uncomfortably accurate, stay close this month. I have lots coming for you because you don't need another plan and you don't need to fix yourself and disappearing under pressure is just the pattern worth noticing. I just want you to notice it, and once you stop abandoning yourself, January will stop falling apart. It will stop feeling like a failure. I promise you. That's all I have for you today. That is a wrap for today's episode of the Muscles and Mindset Revolution podcast. If this resonated, please make sure you hit subscribe so that new episodes land right in front of you, because let's be honest, even the best ones are easy to forget to come back to, right? And if you wanna support the show, leaving a five star review means more than you know. It really helps this message to reach the women who need it most. You can always come hang out with me on Instagram or substack at@annejonesfit. Instagram is where I'm the most active and where this conversation continues in real time. Thank you for being here, and thank you for choosing to stay with yourself. I'm so proud of you, and I'll see you next week.