How to Make Consistent Progress Daily Without Overwhelm

This episode explores the importance of consistency, how small daily improvements lead to long-term progress, and practical strategies to stay motivated even when progress feels invisible.

Key Points from this Episode:

• The role of consistency in achieving goals
• How the brain responds to repeated actions
• Tiny habits framework and anchor moments
• Overcoming progress blindness and motivation dips
• Practical tips for building sustainable habits

 takeaways

• Consistency is about showing up 1% better every day, not 100% effort.
• Our brains chase instant rewards, making routine actions feel boring.
• Celebrating small wins boosts motivation and momentum.
• Start small, with just one minute, to build lasting habits.
•  Practice self-compassion when progress feels slow.

Resources: Tiny Habits by Dr. Bj Fogg

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Sometimes it's a good sign when your progress feels invisible. And I know this doesn't sound fun, but it's true. Now, my friends, welcome back to Brave Moves. I'm so glad that you're here. And if you stay till the end, I'm gonna teach you how consistency isn't loud, but it shows up in the small changes that often go unnoticed. And if this is your first time here, thank you so much for joining us for the Brave Moves Daily-ish Podcast. I am so thrilled that you are joining us. And if you have been showing up consistently listening to the show and you haven't subscribed, why not go and subscribe? Because this way the episodes can just show up in your podcast app. And I so appreciate you. And it means the world to me if you do subscribe because this helps us be found by other individuals who may be looking for this type of motivation, inspiration, and support. Now let's get into it because consistency is something that we can talk about all day, but I'm not going to take all day because this is a little shot of a podcast. So, real progress, my friends, is built in consistency. And we all know that, we've heard that. And it often feels very slow and pointless. But here is how to cope when you're not feeling like you're seeing the progress. Now, for years, I have struggled with consistency, and it really is because I grew up with my mom, who unlike my dad, very, very different people. My mom has lots of really great gifts, but consistency is not one of them. And being around her, I tend to pick up a lot of those habits. Now, my dad, on the other hand, and I did live with my dad, and I also picked up some of his habits, was incredibly consistent. He showed up even when he didn't feel like it, he was religious, disciplined. I mean, after all, he's a military man. Now, the only person who really inspired me to solve this whole consistency thing was Dr. BJ Fogg. And because I've struggled with consistency and motivation for so long, I knew that habits was going to be the key that unlocked the things that I wanted to accomplish. But I couldn't figure out how to stay consistent like my dad did, and how to show up even when I didn't feel motivated. And what I found from Dr. Fogg is that consistency is not about showing up 110% with maximum effort, but consistency is just showing up, showing up at least 1% better. And, you know, I've realized that consistency is not a skill that everyone has. And according to neuroscience, our brains are built to chase instant rewards. And when we try something new, we feel a rush of motivation. But when we repeat the same thing day after day, that rush is going to fade. And consistency feels boring because the brain stops giving us some excitement. And this is called the hedonic adaptation, where our brain gets used to improvements so they no longer look special. You know, this is one of the things that I saw in a weight loss journey. And the fact that every time I showed up and I saw some movement, the scale going down, all of a sudden I was like, oh my God, yay! Let me prep my food, let me go to the gym. And all of a sudden, when this kind of became routine and it was like, woman, same old, same old, it was even harder to show up. But one of the things that I found is that I was going to show up 1% better every day, no matter what. And that helped me stay consistent. Now, we don't always see the how small actions that repeat are building our habits and strengthening our brain. But feeling stuck is just the brain overlooking the small wins. We are quickly building. Now, once you start to understand the reason behind what I call progress, blindness, and basically we are oblivious to the progress, the question becomes less about whether you are actually making progress. It's more about how to continue, even when it feels like nothing is changing. Yesterday I spent the majority of the day decluttering, strengthening, straightening the house, cleaning the house because we're still in construction mode and don't get me started. I mean, if you're listening to this podcast for a while, you know that we've been renovating our bathroom. And well, we had a little um mishap on Saturday. We actually burst, had a pipe break. Well, because Dan pulled on it and it broke because it was old and we had no water. And here I was trying to be great at getting the house all situated and kind of making myself feel better. And then I felt like there was no progress at all because I couldn't really clean without any water. Well, listen, we we really ended up having to do a lot of really crazy things because we didn't get water until Sunday morning when Dan finally was able to get the parts to fix it. And it really was disheartening. And I think that this happens to all of us. When things become disheartening and things happen that kind of derail us, right? Then we're like, oh, forget it. Why bother? But here's what I'm going to say to you, friend. If you feel that you've been derailed, don't think that you need to start and go big and go home. No, start small. You know, I want you to see boring. I want you to see just maybe moving um the laundry from the basket that you brought it up in to maybe folding it. Just very small. And say, you know what? I'm going to set a one-minute timer and I'm going to fold this laundry in one minute. Whatever I get done, great. And whatever I don't, I'll come back to it. Really seeing boring as a benefit is going to help you so much because we spend our time doing the same thing again and again and again. And that's exactly why we can stay consistent when we do things again and again and again, even though they feel boring, we will see that our repetition turns into a habit. And habits free our brain from having to think about every step. So if you become so bored, right? And you're just like automatically doing the thing, then you're going to see that it gets done even without you trying really hard. So here is the framework for tiny habits, for creating momentum, for creating the things that will you will automate so that they become the things that you just do. So first you need to find an anchor moment, something that reminds you to do the thing. So for instance, if we want to go back to the example of the laundry, you're going to bring your laundry up and immediately yours, just the rule is every time I bring my laundry to the bedroom, I dump it on the bed and I take one minute and I fold everything. Everything that I can in one minute. Not everything. I mean, maybe you will fold everything. Or maybe you will just get two towels. But celebrate whatever it is that you did. Celebrate, oh my God, I got two towels done. Yay, it's that's out of the way. Because your brain is gonna feel better when you get that hit of celebration, of uh, uh, of shine, how Dr. Fogg calls it. Now, I am unpacking a big concept of tiny habits in a little small episode. But I want you to think about, and we've talked about this, you gotta remind yourself of your small wins. If folding two towels is a win, go for it. Give yourself props for that. Because when you look at what you didn't do, this is the gap in the gain, the gain is gonna give you the momentum for the next piece of progress. Those day-to-day wins, those wins are the progress that keeps you going. Now, write them down or just notice them. Whatever it is, just notice them. You know, there's a lady on TikTok, I think she is, and she has been doing a series where she says, I am, I am straightening my house or cleaning my house or doing no, doing work around my house 1% better every day so that I don't feel so overwhelmed. And honestly, my friend, I went and I binged all her episodes and she's on day 12. She's accomplished a hell of a lot. And I know that if she was to look around and look at the weeds, look at the fence that needed to be power washed, if she looked at the garage that needed to be swept up and the boxes kind of unpacked, she would have been overwhelmed. But she decided to tackle each thing one step at a time. So it's not about doing it all or saying, you know, I'm gonna set aside the whole day to do this. Set a timer. Timer's your best friend. Go for the one-minute win. The one minute win is the thing that is going to help you stay consistent, is the thing that is gonna give you the oomph so that you can keep going in the direction that makes you feel proud of yourself, that helps you make those wins because consistency is about momentum. And if you make it so easy on yourself that you're just like, oh my God, it's so easy. I'm just gonna have to, I'm just I have a minute. That's all I'm gonna do. That's great. Focus on that consistency over intensity because repetition is more effective and practice self-compassion overall. At the end of the day, even if you didn't do that 1%, give yourself graze. Give yourself grace because when you make yourself feel bad, you're not gonna feel motivated. Okay. So I know a lot in this episode, what I want you to do is I want you to go and look around you, maybe at your email, maybe at your desk, or maybe around your house, or maybe it's even just a workout. Set a timer for one minute and say, I'm gonna do one percent better than I did yesterday. And when you're done, say, go me. Good job. Celebrate yourself. And I celebrate you as well. Until tomorrow, my friend, don't forget, go confidently in the direction of your dreams.