How to stick with exercise

Work is really busy.

Or your kid is going through a “phase.”

Or it’s pie season.

Any number of obstacles, distractions, and competing demands can make it so easy (and understandable!) to put your fitness, nutrition, and health goals on hold.

Most of us have done this. We tell ourselves, “I’ll start that new habit when life calms down a bit.”

Problem is…

Things never really slow down permanently.

And so, we persistently delay improvements to “another time.”

Occasionally, life does offer a tiny, ideal window, and we try to do it all—all the food prep, all the fitness classes, all the meditating.

But it’s just a window.

When it closes, we’re stuck again, struggling to make progress.

Here’s how to keep moving.

It starts with a paradigm shift:

Don’t think of your health habits as an “on” or “off” switch; imagine they’re on a dial.

When life is sweet and smooth, you can turn your exercise, nutrition, and sleep dials way up—if you want. Bust through your PRs at the gym, eat all the arugula, meditate like a monk.

But if life is bumpy and crunched, you don’t have to switch off completely.

Just turn the dial down a little.

If you can’t do the whole workout, do some foam rolling. If you can’t make healthy, balanced meals at home, add a side salad to your takeout.

Here's how the dial method might work for exercise, but you can apply this same thinking to your nutrition, sleep, stress management, relationships, and environment.

Whatever the goal, there’s a range of improvements to make—it’s never “all or nothing.”

The truth is: The strongest people aren’t doing it all.

They’ve just learned to do something—even on the messiest, busiest, temptation-filled days.