How to change persistently?

Around 2010, during freshman year at University, I have gained 20 kg. I was quite active in attending parties, rock concerts, and other gigs. This does not mean that there was no place for exercise. Two or three times per week I attended a gym but without any particular goal. It was ok to consume many treats like food full of unhealthy fat and drink beer or whiskey with friends several times per week. I felt like I lost control over my body.

One day I got up and my life has changed. I found a strong will to get rid of these annoying extra kilos. I have started running almost every day, eating healthier food, consume less alcohol. However, I managed to change my habits which were living together with me dragging me into being fat.

Today I decided to share the key takeaways from that time. There are many stories written about motivation. But I am not going to cover that today. Instead, I want to express my thoughts about one’s conception of persistence in changing habits.

During my continuous self-improvement journey, I have met dozens of people who started doing something good for their well-being. Jogging is a really good example. People asked me a lot about starting the process. I have given them very obvious pieces of advice like “do easy runs 3 days a week”, “start walking every day for half an hour”. After some time passed, I would ask them about how was this thing with their trials.

Most of them decided to quit because there were no immediate results. Others stopped because they pushed too hard and felt fatigued.

This is not a surprise for anyone - the key for positive (and also negative) changes is persistence. It is very easy to start running, getting up at 5 am, eating healthy. This is the touchpoint where all motivational coaches and books operate. You can start new healthy activity every day, but there will be no immediate results from that. One kilogram of broccoli and litre of butter coffee won’t solve your problems immediately.

I have found out several things which can help you make yourself better and stronger from my own experience with changing habits and attitude.

1. Understand the difference between good and bad habits

After years of creating new habits and experimenting with motivation, I have found the major difference between good and bad habits. Bad habits will give you an immediate result. You will feel better very fast, maybe even immediately. Think about alcohol, smoking or sugar. Good habits are totally different. Eating more greens won’t make you happy instantly. Also, you won’t look slim and fit immediately. Only after months of eating that broccoli or celery will give the results. Some results.

2. Don’t forget to continue after reaching your goals

All of us want to become better. It does not matter what your goal is because without an exact number on your scales it won’t work. If you want to lose weight — commit to losing a small amount. Just start measuring and getting feedback as part of the everyday routine in the morning. Try to write the results down and see changes. This you can find in most motivational speeches/books/videos.

Imagine. You have reached your goal. You finished your first marathon, got your promotion or lost these annoying 10 kg. The song ‘We are the champions’ is playing and you are feeling great. But what to do next after a great celebration? Of course, you should continue as a new version of yourself with all that new experience. The best way to maintain your lifestyle is to communicate with the people who are sharing your goals/hobbies. Running clubs, various, meetups and other places where people share their common passion.

3. Achieve any goal by dividing it into milestones

When you clearly stated the goal, running a full marathon can be a very frustrating achievement. It is too long, too tiring and too much hassle involved. Your brain will definitely find the ways on how to procrastinate and drag you in your old lifestyle with no training and junk food. However, there is a trick.

Any big goal can be divided into milestones. With the case of a marathon, it will be participating in 5, 10 k runs to have a clear understanding of where you are in your preparation. It can work with many different skills. For example, building a website from scratch can be a long-lasting journey but cutting it into pieces will give you the small achievable chunks. You can use tools like Trello, for tracking such goals both in your hobbies and professional goals.

At the end of the day, we all like to be in our comfort zones. It is very normal to resist changes. Taking the first step in achieving goals — this is what matters most. To keep changing persistently is the key to be successful but don’t be stressed out by that! Just take the first step.

For me starting this blog is also a step to change persistently. I will post articles in order to share my continuous journey of living an active lifestyle. I accumulated a lot of ideas and thoughts about various topics related to sports, motivation, self-development, IT and programming. Thank you for reading. Stay tuned for updates.