Consistency isn’t about being 100% right

I broke my diet and ate a slice of cake, I now may as well eat the whole cake. I’ll start again tomorrow.

I missed training on Monday night. I may as well not go on Wednesday now and just start fresh next week.

I meant to do 3 sets of benching, didn’t feel like it so I only did 2. Waste of session, I may as well just do some curls or something.

I think the above are pretty common examples of the sort of Zero Sum Mentality that a lot of us adopt to training. We believe that we must do it 100% or not do it at all. I think this is common enough to be described as a phenomenon. People treat eating and training as punishment. It’s not.

I blame the parents, and after that, I blame motivational posters and quotes. What if I told you it wasn’t so black and white, and that if you fell off the wagon once, that climbing back on really isn’t that hard?

So to turn the above quotes around.

I broke my diet and ate a slice of cake. Fortunately I eat well most of the time, so I can afford the occasional treat. And it is my frickin birthday…

I missed training Monday night. Luckily, I don’t play this sport because I’m punishing myself for being a member of the Nazi party in a previous life, so I’ll just go train on Wednesday now instead.

I meant to do 3 sets of benching, didn’t feel like it so I only did 2. I’ll just go 5kg lighter on the next set and maybe I’ll feel better. Then I’ll do the curls anyway.

We don’t need to be perfect, we just need to do the right things enough times and with enough regularity for them to make a difference. People go boom and bust, boom and bust, and that inevitably leads to disappointment, and that in turn leads to just staying bust.

That’s my Friday thought.