You and I have been in this similar situation before. We want to achieve a certain goal, create a plan and start a new routine. We do this new regimen for a few days, perhaps a few weeks before life gets in the way. We rationalize our way to stopping our routine and wave our goals goodbye.
In the past I've done this with studying, reading, meditation, mobility, staying fit on holidays and rucking. In August 2024 I started using a home made habit tracker a few months ago and it completely changed the way I form new habits and sticking to them.
Let's go over how you can also create this simple yet amazing tool.
Why create a habit tracker
Goals are a side effect of your habits.
If your goal is to get stronger, the habit of going to the gym will make it happen.
If your goal is to lose weight, the habit of choosing healthy foods will make it happen.
Creating new habits and routines is the fastest way to reach any fitness goals in a sustainable way. The problem is that our minds do not like new routines. They like our current routine and will use all the tricks at their disposal to rationalize us out of creating new healthy habits.
How often have you found yourself saying "I'll do this tomorrow", "I don't have time for this today" or even "This sucks" when trying to develop a new fitness routine?
Every time I go on holiday I always tell myself the same thing: I'll do 100 push ups a day. It takes less than 10 minutes and it'll be a good way to maintain some strength and upper body muscle mass.
I'll do it for the first few days and then, sure enough, I completely stop. Either I don't have time (even though I'm not working...), or I just don't feel like it, or the sun was shining the perfect way that day, the excuses are almost infinite.
And the worst thing is, I actually feel awesome after completing all those push ups! I feel accomplished, disciplined, I actually feel energized, and overall I am happy to have stuck with my plan.
Unfortunately, our mind, or at least mine, is not wired to handle change effectively and I need as much help as possible when creating my new habits.
Enter the habit tracker.
A habit tracker is nothing more than a document that allows you to track how many days you've done the new habit.
The habit tracker does a few things.
You can see your progress or lack thereof. When I open my journal and see that I missed a habit for two days in a row, it motivates me to do it that day. Similarly, when I see that I've done those push ups for five days in a row, I want to keep the streak alive!
It gamifies the process. You can play against yourself each week to see how consistent you are with your habits. Trying to be a bit better than the previous week is the secret to getting in shape. No huge leaps forward sporadically, just consistent small leaps in the right direction.
It makes it easier to reward yourself by having a more accurate record of our consistency. I personally like to reward myself with a nice dinner or a special outing when I've been consistent for a certain amount of time. When I see is stuck with one habit say, for a week, maybe I'll reward myself with a nice home made dinner. If I've done it for a month I'll do something a bit more grand. The point is that the habit tracker allows me to see exactly how well or poorly I've been doing. I am very skilled at talking myself into believing I've done something well. I'll go on believing I've done those push ups 10 days in a row, back after looking at the tracker it might have only been 6 or 7 times.
So as we can see, habit trackers are quite useful, and they are extremely simple to make.
Make your own habit tracker
The most important part of a habit tracker is it's visibility. You need to see it every day and actually tick the boxes or leave them blank intentionally.
I always do mine in my journal because it's always within sight. I keep my journal beside my bed so I see it consistently every morning and every evening.
Another popular place to have your tracker is on a piece of paper you put on your fridge. Others might find it more useful to have it on a note on their computer. There are tons of options, you just need to see it daily.
I like to number the days and write their corresponding weekday beside them. Certain habits I don't do on weekends (like blogging or youtubing) and I like to see which day that is on my tracker.
There's also room on each line for a short highlight of that day. This could be something special that happened that day or a reason why it was difficult or easy to do all my habits, maybe I write down how I felt that day...
This allows me to go back and see if there are any recurring things happening throughout the weeks.
Writing down my monthly goals is also a good strategy for me because it constantly reminds me what I'm striving for.
Why does it work
In a nutshell, a habit tracker is the best way to stay consistent.
When you try to do something new, whether it's getting in shape, losing weight, getting more defined muscles or anything else that you haven't done before, consistency is your best ally.
It's not about crushing your workouts every single time, it's about showing up for your workouts every single time.
As humans, we tend to always chase the feeling of exception and disregard the mundane. We always want our workouts to feel amazing and be super challenging. Or we always want to eat that meal that's both delicious and healthy.
But the formation of new habits is more about the day-to-day mundanity. It requires an unexceptional routine, which is not exciting.
We love new things for a short time. It's exciting at first to go to the gym, sweat and feel our muscles get sore. But our tune quickly changes when we realize that this is going to be our new way of life.
There are always sacrifices that will need to happen. I had to sacrifice a game of online chess each night to do my push ups. It sounds silly but without my habit tracker, I would have said "f*ck it" and kept perfecting my king's gambit online.
Having somewhere to write down every day whether we complete a task keeps us accountable and on track.
I also think that if we notice we haven't done a certain habit for 5 days or more, it's an opportunity for reflection. Do I really want to do this if I haven't made room for it in 5 days? Why haven't I been able to do it? Can I change anything?
These are all valuable insights into the formation of a new routine that are only possible via the habit tracker.
Goal setting crash course
I am a firm believer in reverse engineering my goals to understand what I need to do daily.
Three months is the usual time frame I'll give myself with new fitness goals. This time frame is long enough to implement new habits and gives my body enough time to adapt.
Let's imagine I want to lose 10 pounds of fat.
That's 3.3 pounds of weight loss per month or 0.8 per week.
Right there and then I broke down a big lofty goal into easier-to-track monthly goals.
Weight loss is the result of a calorie deficit so I need to set goals centered around my nutrition.
I know that I love eating a lot, I am always generous with my portion sizes, I already eat healthy foods, I already exercise a lot and I like to have a drink or two on the weekends.
My weekly nutrition goals could be:
Reduce portion sizes, even track my food for a couple of weeks to nail down portion sizes
Reduce my alcohol intake to one drink a week, or every other week
Prioritize protein and fruits and veggies
The weekly goals are the new habits I want to develop.
From there I can create my habit tracker.
Create SMART goals
I'm sure you've already heard about how to set SMART goals. In case you haven't here's a quick rundown:
Specific
A specific goal clearly defines what is to be accomplished. It answers the questions of who, what, where, when, and why. For example, instead of saying "I want to get fit," a specific goal would be "I want to run a 5K race" or "I want to lift X amount of weight".
The clearer you can articulate your goal, the better. This will help you reverse engineer it more easily.
Measurable
Measurable goals include criteria for tracking progress and determining when the goal has been met. This could involve quantifying the goal or setting milestones. For instance, "I want to lose X amount of pounds this month" or "I want to rep X amount of weight by the end of the month".
It's very important to be able to measure your long term goal but also your shorter, weekly goals.
Achievable
Achievable goals are realistic and attainable, considering the resources and constraints one may face. This means setting a goal that is challenging yet possible.
For fat loss, losing 3-4 pounds per month can be reasonable for some people. I don't recommend trying to lose weight faster because it will become unsustainable over the long term.
Knowing this, you can set appropriate time frames to lose weight. Losing 20 pounds of fat over 5 months is achievable. Doing so in 2 months is not.
For lean muscle mass, adding 1 pound of lean muscle per month is seen as the sustainable way of doing it. Beginners will gain muscle faster (newbie gains) and advanced lifters will gain muscle slower.
So once again, saying you want to get jacked and put on 10 pounds of muscle before summer is achievable is you're starting in September. Not if you're starting in May.
Relevant
I think that added this one just to be able to write the acronym SMART. Make goals that you care about and are relevant to you. Seems like a no-brainer.
If your goal is to get in shape, set goals relevant to that endeavour...
Time-bound
You need to have a definite end date for your goal. This will have to take into the achievable component of your goal and how intensely you want to work on it.
I always recommend focusing on making your new routines as sustainable as possible. For instance, it is feasible to lose 20 pounds over five months, but it may be more sustainable to reach that goal over 6 months.
If you have an event in your life, like a wedding, a holiday or anything else that comes rarely, it's ok to be more aggressive with your time frame. That doesn't mean you get to ignore the achievable part of your goal, but it's ok to sacrifice sustainability for the sake of urgency.
If, on the other hand, you are trying to make a lifestyle change, then focus on making the process sustainable.
Conclusion
Developing new habits and sticking to them is the fastest way to reach fitness related goals. Putting on muscle or losing weight is the result of consistently repeating certain habits like going to the gym or making certain food choices.
As soon as you've set your SMART goal, focus on the process by developing the necessary habits. If you reverse engineer it properly, your goal will become a side effect of the new routine.
Our brains are not wired to handle change easily but by using a habit tracker we can visualize how consistent we are with our goals.
Make a habit tracker that you can see every day and focus on filling it out. Remember that the goal isn't to be perfect every day, but honest with yourself every day. You need to see when you don't complete certain habits. Cheating and marking habits complete when you don't do them won't serve you in the long term.
You got this!
Clem
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