[00:00] it is the beautiful experience of successfully failing our fitness goals. And although we can blame our failures on many things, we might be better off looking at something within ourselves that affects how consistent we are
[00:16] at the gym . Let’s talk about it. It’s always interesting how whenever we get a shred of motivation, we promise ourselves to never give up on our goals again while getting amped up to hit the weights.
[00:29] other people hit the weights on TikTok. So what is the deal with us consistently not being consistent with Some of the more commonly documented reasons are the usual suspects,
[00:46] But the science also cites one factor that is just as common we don’t really talk about nearly as much. It’s
[00:58] a little thing called self-efficacy, a psychological concept originally proposed by psychologist Albert Bandura. The science has shown that people with high self-efficacy are more likely to be physically fit
[01:11] and exercise on a consistent basis. Improving self-efficacy through exercise has also shown to greatly improve one’s overall mental well being. The basic definition of self-efficacy is a person’s own belief in their ability
[01:25] to take actions necessary to achieve their goals. In other words, you do at the gym, the more likely you are to actually do it.
[01:37] It might seem obvious because it is. But when was the last time you can do exactly what you need to do to reach your fitness goals?
[01:50] might be the reason you exercise inconsistently. So if that’s the case, what exactly can we do to improve our self-efficacy
[02:02] in relation to fitness? Well, sure, one thing you can do is change your goal to something more attainable. But, I’m not really a big fan of that because I think it’s important for you to go after what you really want.
[02:14] Perhaps a better approach is to focus more on the part of self-efficacy about our belief in our abilities, or our confidence, in achieving our goal. Put it simply, we wanna do more of the things we feel confident
[02:27] With this in mind, there’s one very, very simple strategy Now, when it comes to doing things we’re confident in doing, essentially
[02:41] what’s the most difficult thing you’ve done at the gym that you feel fairly confident you can do again. Now take whatever that is and, when you go the gym, you’re not gonna that exactly, but instead, you’re gonna do
[02:56] just a little bit less, or perhaps the second-toughest thing. So, for example, let’s say your goal is to deadlift 315 pounds and, right now, you feel fairly confident you can deadlift 200 pounds.
[03:08] For your program, instead of calculating your numbers based on 200 pounds as your 1RM, you’re gonna use something a bit less, like 190 pounds. Another example is if you wanna run a mile in say, like, under seven minutes,
[03:21] and right now you feel fairly confident you can run a mile in nine minutes. more like nine minutes and thirty seconds. We wanna do the second-toughest thing. Now, why exactly do we wanna do this?
[03:36] Well, first, if you already can do the toughest thing consistently, And also, we human beings aren’t really good at accurately judging our capabilities anyway. So, by going for the second-toughest thing,
[03:51] we get to work with a bit of a buffer to ensure that we’re doing things that will promote self-efficacy, thus promote consistency. it should still sufficiently stimulate physiological adaptations.
[04:06] that what you initially believed was the toughest thing you can confidently do now feels like it’s actually the second or even third-toughest thing. So, the results we ultimately end up with is a greater level of self-efficacy,
[04:21] more exercise consistency, better mental well-being, and, most importantly, And before you know it, you’ll develop a level of self-efficacy high enough
[04:33] that you even feel confident in tackling completely new things you’ve never done before. That’s when you know you figured things out. Other than that, if