7 Tips for Building Fitness Habits and Making Them Stick

Are you one of those people who, with all the best intentions to build fitness habits into your life – only to find it challenging to stick to the plan?

You’re not alone.

In fact, one survey found that over 67% of gym users don’t go regularly, and Exercise.com found that the same amount goes completely untouched. It’s a common struggle, and this post is here to help.

Building good habits is an admirable quality and most definitely something you shouldn’t give up, but it is not always as easy as it sounds.

And quite often, people make many mistakes when trying to implement more regular fitness activities into their lives, leading them to failure sooner rather than later.

So, if you want to build fitness habits that stick—you need to make sure fitness complements your life, not complicate it—these tips can help you out.

Be Realistic

Starting a new habit or activity is initially exciting, and motivation will come in buckets, but it is essential to remember to be realistic about what you can do. Whether this is your physical limitations, time restrictions, or something else, be realistic about what you can do and fit into your life with your current commitments. For instance, a realistic goal could be to walk for 30 minutes three times a week or to do a 15-minute home workout every morning. This can help you avoid overreaching or doing too much that you can’t sustain once the initial motivation has worn off.

Start Small

Instead of going in full guns blazing and hitting the gym 5 days or committing to getting up at 5 am for a home workout or a run every morning. Start small. Habits are those small actions you do without thinking, and typically, they start from something small that you have built up. Adding fitness to your life needs to be the same thing. Start by doing one workout per week, adding an extra 1,000 steps daily, or adding 15 minutes of exercise daily. Once this becomes second nature, you can build it up.

Find Something You Enjoy

Contrary to what many fitness professionals might say, there’s nothing wrong with exercising for fun, especially at the beginning of your fitness journey. If you enjoy your work out, you will likely stick with it. So, find an activity you love and make it a part of your routine. Remember, fitness is about more than just reaching a goal; it’s about enjoying the journey.

Regardless of your goals you need to achieve consistency and build positive habits, stick with the same thing for 4 to 6 weeks, and then you can add other things to your fitness workouts.

Location Doesn’t Matter

It doesn’t matter if you work at home or a gym, you hit the local running trials, or you run on a treadmill. It only matters that you feel comfortable and you can stick to exercising in this way. Maybe you want to use the JustFit workout app to help you develop the perfect fitness program for you and help you reach your goals in the comfort of your home before moving onto a gym if you wish once you feel more confident, its entirely up to you. It’s about finding the location that works for you and your lifestyle and working with what you have instead of forcing other variables to fit in if they don’t work for you.

Get Support

Having others cheering you on in any capacity is always going to be a boost for you. Especially if you’re going from being a couch potato to someone who is giving it their all to get fitter. Talk to those around you and find your people who can offer you help, support, and guidance to reach your goals and make new ones. Ask around for a workout buddy to give you moral support, make things more enjoyable, and keep you accountable. Because the more people keeping you on track the easier it will be to not make excuses and throw in the towel. If you don’t have others, try finding like-minded others on social media or in virtual group chats who can offer encouragement from afar and be a positive part of your journey.

Set Clear Goals for Your Fitness Habits 

These goals can be anything and everything. They don’t have to be to lose weight or run faster. But if you’re not setting goals, you won’t have anything to aim towards, and you won’t be able to track your progress.

These goals need a timeline and an endpoint, and they shouldn’t just be one massive goal. 

They should be small stepping stones that lead you to a bigger endpoint, and all of your small wins need to be celebrated as if they were big wins because these smaller ones will be the ones that will keep you on track. So, instead of saying you want to be stronger, ask how you want to be stronger. Do you want to be able to lift more overhead, build up arm strength or do you want to focus on leg strength or core strength? And when do you want to reach certain goals by? E.g. deadlift is an excellent workout for those focusing on building strength, but setting yourself small weight goals, e.g., increasing your max rep over time, will help you move forward rather than wanting to go from lifting 10 lbs to 200 lbs because this can be off-putting and be seen as unachievable.

Track Progress of Fitness Habits 

This can be done for any type of exercise you try. Tracking your progress will help you to see what difference your efforts have made, even if you can’t see it for yourself. Let’s say you’re doing yoga and track your flexibility over time. Is it getting easier to do certain moves? Are you able to take on more complex moves, or have you increased your time during sessions? Do you feel stronger and more flexible, and can you do things you weren’t able to, e.g., move in certain ways without pain or touch your toes with ease? All of these points can be seen when you track what you do and how you get out of it so you can see how far you have come or keep pushing yourself forward. Tracking your progress can also help you stay motivated and committed to your fitness routine, as you can see the results of your efforts over time.

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