Health and fitness coaches, trainers, and those waxing poetic within the fitness industry like to distill the virtues of patience, persistence, consistency, hard work, etc. We do this too and they are definitely very important for your long term success and adherence to things that are both integral and challenging to your long term health and fitness goals.

Tremendous amounts of patience are often needed to see or even register change in some areas like body composition, blood markers, or movement mastery. Without persistence through less than ideal times or unforeseen challenges, indeed you may not get to where you want to go and just give up. Of course, without consistent and often times hard work you may see the needle stagnate or waiver quite a bit more rather than smoothly push ahead. And while all of these virtues and practices, again, are very important, what about celebrating along the way?

How many times have you seen a friend or family member (or perhaps yourself) bite down with all the initial grit and persistent attitude to make David Goggins take a second look only to watch them fizzle. Maybe you know someone or yourself have gained lots of momentum and kept the ball rolling with the virtuous practices above only to still feel a lack of something?

Often times what can happen here is that we think something is wrong or we aren’t cut out for what we were doing. Perhaps we blame it on external circumstances or work, or we just feel frustrated. If this sounds familiar, you are not alone.

I like to ask people a few questions when this comes up:

Are you having fun with your training? What do you train for? Do you take the time to look back and reflect on more recent and also long term changes you have made for the positive in your health and fitness?

Most of the time there is an answer to maybe the first and second, but not the third. Why?

The ethos around training with patient, peristent, and consistent effort often gets skewed to create a cold robotic feel and one that makes us view ourselves like some sort of performance machine. The self talk I often see is that we are winning or failing when we either make it to the gym or miss. Make an attempt on a barbell or miss the top end of the rep goal. Try to eat X grams of protein or calories each day or not. We can fixate on performance metrics and only look at what either does or does not add up to our goal. We’re human, after all, and negative stimuli are bound to be impactful. It is partly what allowed/s us to survive. We need to remember things that aren’t good for us, but we can overly fixate and take it too far while losing site of things that actually can help us continue to succeed (and in a much more fulfilling way).

Making progress when training, with your nutrition and dialing in food, or really anything is much more doable, and more importantly sustainable, when you have fun and celebrate wins along the way. This may sound like common sense, but I've seen friends and family that are long time fitness folks that don’t have fun. What's worse sometimes is that what once was fun turns in to checking boxes or a laborious chore. There is no better way to lose momentum, progress, (or worse yet joy) then to not have fun and celebrate milestones in training.

Dopamine likely plays a role here but it’s so much more. When we see or anticipate reward we can release dopamine in parts of the brain increase motivation and focus. Big time wins for staying on task with exercise, nutrition and other self-care behaviors. Celebrate those wins again and stay on that roll! It’s more too. Dopamine take part in other processes like cognition, attention, learning and memory, mood, sleep, and movement. It can influence quite a bit in a positive way and those areas it influences can in turn can all lead to a healthier mind and body.

Celebrating is also connecting to what's important to you and seeing how your gym and and healthy lifestyle contributes to what mattress the most in your life. Most of us likely don’t just train to see how heavy we can squat in a gym as we also want to be able to move around without pain, chase after kids, not get winded climbing stairs, improve various biomarkers that help keep metabolism healthy and lead longer more vibrant lives. When we can literally set time aside to sit down and reflect on our wins over the past weeks, months and years, a bigger and more meaningful picture emerges. That can be extremely inspiring and allow you to connect to a greater purpose to your wellness goals.

Celebrating when done regularly can also create chapters in your life and allow better reflection and inspiration. Chapters can be different and have different focuses too. It keeps the pages turning. Basically, your life in a way can be a wellness adventure novel of sorts. You are writing chapters and punctuating your journey as it relates to your specific wellness goals.

Here are some simple ways to take some time to celebrate progress and keep moving forward:

1. Zoom out over the past month and find 1-3 things you have done for yourself in or out of the “gym” that has made you a healthier human. Do that for the last 6 months, year, etc. Keep zooming out and only look at the positives. This can be anything you have done that is good for your mind or body. Tally it up.

2. Make a literal date with yourself only and treat yourself to something you really enjoy or really enjoy doing in celebration of the achievement(s) you have made

3. Change some of your goals from performance (numbers, weights, etc) to process goals and celebrate when you connect with the process more. For instance, focus and celebrate the fact that you are now eating out less or cooking more at home versus the number on the scale. If you keep doing and celebrating more of those processes that contribute your performance goals will likely come

4. Bring others that support you into the celebration with you. Let them know how proud you are of your achievements (this isn’t bragging). This magnifies the celebration and makes it that much more impactful. People want to see you succeed and deep down are happy when you are happy.

5. Focus more on having fun and exploring! Less on what needs to be done. Practice self compassion throughout (yes that’s three in one!)

We enjoy helping people have more fun training and also finding what works on best with your wellness goals. If you’re interested, please book a free consult with us: https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=20706020&appointmentType=17238949

Have some more curiosity about goal setting where to start? Have a read here:

White knuckling doesn’t work- https://www.resilient-body.com/blog/why-white-knuckling-doesnt-work