Could You Do It Forever?

I get asked about my eating and exercise habits quite often. I've done meal prep for years, daily movement and exercise are priorities for me, and people notice.

This has come up again recently in several conversations I've had with friends, and often the conversation goes something like, I really should start going to the gym too. I know I should, but...

Or, I really should start eating better, but...

Or they do start. They're super motivated, go hard for two weeks, and then... nothing.

I know this pattern. I've done it myself a hundred times 🙄.

You know the “Right. I'm starting NOW!” Go super hard. Change everything. Do all the things. Keep it up for a bit. Get fed up. Quit.

Then eventually get motivated again and repeat.

Quit again.

Dare I say, many of you will find this cycle very familiar?

Well, as a recovering all-or-nothing gal, I might have a solution for you.

Start Absurdly, Embarrassingly Small

When starting a new habit, start absurdly, embarrassingly small.

I know, you’ve heard this before, but hear me out.

Where a lot of us fail is we go too hard, too fast, too much from the start, then crash, burn, get real fed up real fast, and quit.

We want it all, and we want it now, right? Go slow? Ain’t nobody got time fo dat!

I know, samesies ✌️

But what if going too hard too fast can actually be a form of self-sabotage?

You go too hard, you quit, then you beat yourself up about it and feel super inadequate. Next time, you might not even start. Great excuse, right? What a sneaky little mind, tricking you into staying exactly where you are.

The annoying truth is, change takes time. Accept it and slow down. It will serve you well, promise!

When I say absurdly, embarrassingly small, I mean like “this ain’t even gonna do anything, why bother?” small.

For example, for someone who hasn’t exercised at all, instead of starting with gym sessions five days per week, how about one short session per week instead?

Trying to go from zero exercise to suddenly five days per week at the gym is like a 5th grader saying, I’m going to 12th grade now and get this school over with. 

Quite impossible, I’d say, unless you’re a straight-up prodigy genius kid or something. For the rest of us “average” kiddos, we have to go grade by grade, leveling up more subtly.

And yes, it will take time.

Sorry 😏.

So, whatever new well-serving habit you’ve been trying or wanting to adopt, start small.

Real small.

Think: if I had to do this every day for the rest of my life, could I keep this up?

If the answer is no, reduce it. Majorly.

Reduce it to a point where you feel, Ok, this I could do.

For example, let’s say you want to start meditating for an hour every day. Think: could I meditate for 1 hour per day, every day, for the rest of my life?

No? 

Ok. Could you do 20 minutes?

No? Ok, keep reducing.

Could you do 5 minutes?

Still a no? Heck, keep reducing.

Could you do a minute? 1 minute every day from today onward till you die. 

Yes?

Ok, great. You have found your starting point. Do that.

Sneaking Past Resistance

Now, you might be thinking, Just 1 minute? Why bother! It’s not going to change or do anything anyway.

I’m telling you, bother!!

That 1 minute doesn’t mean you’ll forever be meditating for just 1 minute. It’s just where you start. It’s how you get your foot in the door, so to speak.

You might have noticed that the mind is often not so keen on starting new habits. It kinda likes things the way they are.

So, if you go from zero to a hundred, if you start big, like 1 hour, the mind will quickly step in and say, WOH WOH WOH, what are you doing? What the hell is this? That’s way too hard, you know that, right? You’re never gonna keep this up. C’mon now. Just stop it. No point trying, you won’t do it.

That’s resistance, there to make you stop. And very often, as you might have experienced, it works.

So we want to work around it. Kind of like, let’s try and sneak this new habit in quietly, so the mind won’t notice.

And when you start really small, it’s almost like it doesn’t. It’s like you telling it, Hey man, just 1 minute. Don’t even worry about it. No big deal. Don’t even pay attention to it. I’m just here with my minute, you won’t even notice it.

And the mind stays quiet about it.

And before you know it, that 1 minute feels super easy. So you add a little more. Then maybe it’s 5 minutes. And then that starts to feel like no big thing too, so you add a little more.

Until one day you suddenly realize, Omg, I’m meditating. Every day! 20 minutes a day (or an hour, if that’s your goal). Without fail. And it doesn’t even feel like a big deal? How did that happen?

So, start below the point of resistance. Let that become easy and normal. Then stretch it a little. Let that become normal. Stretch again.

But never increase so aggressively that you destroy your ability to stay consistent.

I’ll give you another example.

Last winter I found out I had osteoporosis (at the freaking age of 40!), and I’m not going to lie, it freaked me out for a minute there, until I got real proactive about it and thought, I’m not having this. What can I do about it?

One of the ways I can support my bone health is weight training, so I started going to the gym.

My goal wasn’t to go to the gym for a few months to jack up. It was more like, Ok, this is part of my life now till I die.

So with that in mind, I thought, what’s the consistent pace I can actually keep up if I have to do this forever?

Is it 6 days per week?

No way.

4 days per week?

Still feels like a lot. Doubt I’ll keep doing it.

3 days?

Hmm. Not sure.

2?

Ok. Yes. I think I could do 2.

Let’s do that.

And that means, no matter what - NO MATTER WHAT - 2 days per week I WILL show up and go to the gym.

And I’ve been doing that since, without fail.

I’ve tried getting it up to 3 days per week a few times, but I noticed I started to feel a bit bored and fed up with it.

And I could see where that was going.

Oh. This is the point where I’m going to start resisting the thing. Back to two.

Because my goal isn’t to win the “how many gym days can Keiu do?” competition.

My goal is to weight train till the day I die. My goal is long-term consistency.

Three sessions a week for six weeks, followed by quitting, loses to two sessions consistently for years.

Because this isn’t a looks thing. This is me caring for my bones and making sure I have a body that’s strong and healthy for as long as possible. My “WHY” is solid. This mindset helps.

Even if I don’t feel like going sometimes, I still always manage to find two days out of my week when I can do it. This pace and frequency give me enough flexibility and buffer time to make it work. No matter what. Always.

It allows me to stay consistent.

What Consistency Eventually Does

I think there’s something else that happens when you approach change this way.

Instead of repeatedly proving to yourself that you can't stick to things, you keep collecting these small, daily, consistent wins.

You keep doing the thing. Again, and again, and again.

Until something that once felt like this impossible thing that would take so much effort and discipline has subtly become something you just... do.

It becomes who you are, like a new identity. And once that sets in, your new habits start to feel almost like they’re on autopilot. 

Autopilot = effortless. That’s what we should be aiming for.

At this point, going to the gym and taking care of how I eat have become part of who I am. It takes no mental effort anymore. I have it on autopilot.

But I didn’t become this way overnight. It happened little by little, subtly, over time.

This mindset shift is one of the best changes I’ve ever made for myself.

It started with my eating habits, and now I apply it to most areas of my life.

I stopped believing that I had to suddenly become perfect overnight, and if I couldn’t do that (because no one ever can, hello!!), I was a loser and I’d failed.

When in truth, change takes time.

When you think you’ve failed straight away, you lose hope and quit trying. But when you realize it takes time, and happens by taking small steps and making small changes, you keep going.

It’s the keeping going part that’s important. The keeping going part is the consistency part, and consistency is what makes the change.

So, find your starting point. Ask yourself, Could I keep doing this forever?

If not, reduce it.

When it gets easy, stretch a little.

Then keep going.

Whatever keeps you consistent long term, that’s the right amount.

♡