You cannot expect to reach your goals if you do not make time for them!
Literally every person I know has some kind of body or fitness/health goal in mind yet many of them are unwilling or in some cases unable to make the time to put in the work to reach those same goals. I know that finding time in your hectic schedule can be tricky but what it comes down to is priorities. We all have some kind of hierarchy of priority in our minds that ranks our daily habits and tasks according to importance and the key to making lifestyle changes is shifting that hierarchy to prioritize the habits and tasks needed to progress towards your goal. You cannot reasonable expect to change your habits or lifestyle without any effort and dedication, just like you cannot expect to show up and get a perfect score on the MCAT exam without studying or ever opening your biology textbook.
Why is it that when faced with the opportunity to make changes to better achieve our goals so many of us fail? Fear, discomfort, unrealistic expectations are just a few of the reasons that come to mind. Achieving your fitness goals is entirely possible, dramatic body compositional change is also possible! I am here living proof every day that if you want something badly enough and work hard enough and put in the time, you can make progress and push past any obstacle. At first, when I began my weight loss journey, exercising and meal prepping was a huge chore! I absolutely hated spending time preparing my lunches and tracking and weighing food but ultimately, I knew it had to be done if I wanted to hit my macros each day and make progress towards my weight loss goals. Sacrificing a few hours on Sunday seemed like a fair price to pay for a little body compositional progress so eventually I put mind over matter and just did it week after week, slowly creating a process that worked for me and my lifestyle. The further I got in my weight loss journey the more I realized that these lifestyle changes were making me healthier and more put together across all areas of my life and helped me in managing my time better!
For me, one of the hardest parts of adopting new lifestyle habits was shifting my mindset from have to, to want to. Instead of saying I “have to” workout, meal prep or whatever I started saying “I want to” do those things and sure enough the time was there because instead of feeling like these things were chores, I was framing these tasks as being things I wanted to spend my time on. Take action towards your goals, make time for the things that matter to you and the more you choose to take steps towards your goal the sooner you will progress forward. I make my goals a priority by scheduling my workouts around my social activities and work schedule each week. Generally, I try my best to stick with my scheduled workouts despite unexpected plans and spontaneous activities popping up throughout my week. I find that the more I plan ahead and prepare, the better I am at making time for the habits and tasks that support my health and fitness goals.
Building time for fitness and meal planning into my schedule is what has helped me in not only maintaining momentum towards my goals but also has helped me create healthy routine in my life. The more I followed the routine I set out for myself with exercise and meal prepping each week, the easier and more natural it became for me to adhere to! Eventually, exercise and meal prep became a normal part of my life and I stopped having to think and plan so much to make my goals a priority. Three years later I have made significant changes to my lifestyle, lost 30 lbs. and gained a lot of self-respect and self-love in the process, but man was it hard and demanding at times! It’s never too late to chase your dreams and goals, but remember there is no change without hard work, time and dedication.
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