Hey Friends,

Happy Sunday!

Last week, I made the point that progress toward your fitness goals is often boring.

They are long-term goals that require you to do the same things over and over again to see results. And the truth is, doing the same workouts and eating the same foods can definitely get dry.

I’ve talked about the importance of celebrating small wins in a couple of newsletters in the past. This week, I’m going to focus on how these small wins help you deal with the boredom that is sure to come when you pursue fitness goals.

✏Each morning this week, start your day by writing out your 3 biggest goals ✏

If you have a goal in life, you should be thinking about it and actively working on it every single day.

Whether it’s fitness, your career, a relationship, or any other area of your life, writing your goals out daily increases the chances of you getting closer to your goal.

This shouldn’t take more than 2 minutes each morning.

But you’ll be surprised how much more aware of your goals you are throughout the day.

When you write them out, they move to the top of your mind. Then, throughout the day, your actions are going to be more aligned with things that move you towards your goals.

If you missed last week’s newsletter, the context of this week probably won’t make a ton of sense. You can click here to read it.

Fitness goals can get boring. It isn’t glamorous to do the same workouts, eat the same foods, have a consistent schedule, etc.

But in my opinion, when things get boring, it usually means you are entering the zone where real progress happens.

Losing 20 pounds, benching 225 pounds, or running a marathon are all great goals. But they take a long time to achieve. And even beyond fitness, really anything worth having takes time to achieve. So, why are small wins important to keep you engaged?

When you can celebrate a small win, you get feedback that motivates you to keep going.

A small success reinforces the habit and makes you want to continue doing it.

When goals take a long time to achieve, it can be discouraging. Small wins help to break your larger goals into smaller, more achievable things.

Things get less boring if you get to celebrate more often.

If your only focus is on your larger goal (i.e., losing 20 pounds), you lose sight of the process and journey along the way.

Celebrating that you are the type of person who shows up and does the work every day helps make the process more enjoyable. And if you actually enjoy the process, I guarantee you will get to the goal over time.

It might seem silly, but setting “micro-goals” for yourself that will help you achieve the larger goal is fun, simple as that.

I enjoy feeling good about myself, as does basically every person on the planet.

Setting something that you can do in one day or one week, and actually doing the thing, makes you feel good about yourself.

It’s more fun to feel good about yourself than defeated, discouraged, or lost.

This one is probably the most important. If you aren’t making an effort to think about the small wins, you probably won’t even notice them as they happen.

Making an effort to celebrate small wins helps you actually realize when they are happening.

Here are a couple examples of things that people miss or overlook:

This list could go on forever, but you get the point. Are you noticing when these things happen in your life? Or do you only notice what the scale says or how you look in the mirror?

So, I’ve given a couple of reasons why celebrating small wins is important. But, how do you actually put this into action and start celebrating them?

Well, step one would be actually doing the weekly action point that I write in each week.

My entire goal for these weekly action points is that they are small, easy-to-do tasks. They aren’t life-changing, and they aren’t going to be magic.

But they are small steps for you to build momentum and continue moving towards your goals.

And then if you actually have a week where you do the action point, it’s something you can feel proud of! Easy way for you to start celebrating small wins.

Beyond that, I encourage you to start thinking about behaviors, not just results.

Tracking how many workouts you get in per week, or hitting a protein goal, or getting to bed at a consistent time are all small things that you could start paying attention to and celebrating.

Another extremely easy way to start celebrating small wins: at the end of each day, spend 2 minutes with the journal prompt “What did I do well today?”. It’s simple and forces you to call out the good things you did for yourself.

It will help you stop being so hard on yourself. It will help you celebrate the small wins.

I usually put a recipe in here, but I’m switching it up on you a little bit this week.

Here is a podcast that I loved:

Rich Roll Podcast: Train Like A Pro: Exercise Scientist Andy Galpin On Fitness Fundamentals, The 9 Adaptations, & Why Your Training Isn't Working

Just a reminder, if you are serious about your fitness goals, your “content diet” should reflect that. The podcasts you listen to, what your social media feed looks like, the YouTube videos you watch, and the books you read all have a big impact on your mindset.