Letting Go of All-or-Nothing Part 2

 Even trainers reach their goals one step at a time

Even trainers don’t flip a switch and suddenly “have it together.”

I’m no exception. I took a long stretch away from consistency with my own health and fitness. 2025 brought big life changes, nonstop busy seasons, and—if I’m being honest—some pretty low mental days. The gym kept sliding to the back burner. When I did jump back in, I’d go hard… and then burn out again.

My nutrition followed the same cycle. I’d eat clean, whole foods tailored to my IBS, feel great for a while, then slip back into whatever was quick and easy—until the discomfort reminded me why I’d changed things in the first place.

It wasn’t failure. It was a pattern.

Toward the final few months of the year, I started asking myself a different question. Instead of “How do I fix everything?” I asked, “What do I actually want 2026 to feel like?”

That shift mattered.

I stopped trying to overhaul my life and started working quietly and deliberately. No big announcements. No aggressive timelines. Just small changes that felt doable—and more importantly, sustainable.

I began with mindset. (Huge credit here to my incredible therapist, Sheila Bowes, and my endlessly supportive partner, Randy.) From there, I planned what I could implement now without overwhelm, and what that step needed to accomplish before I moved on.

Every big goal got broken into compartments. Then broken down again until I could clearly see the starting point. From there, I chose habits that supported those individual steps—not the end result, just the next one.

And I set realistic expectations around consistency. Not perfection. Not “every single day.” Just what I could reasonably repeat week after week.

The funny part? This is exactly what I teach my clients to do.

And guess what—it works. (Shocking, I know.)

Research backs this up, too. Studies on habit formation show that consistency beats intensity every time. Small, repeatable actions create far more lasting change than short bursts of extreme effort. Yet we’re constantly sold the opposite: go harder, do more, push faster.

But real progress is quieter than that.

If you’re stuck in a cycle of starting strong and burning out, maybe the issue isn’t discipline. Maybe the plan is just asking too much, too fast. You don’t need a dramatic reset—you need a sustainable next step.

That’s how change actually sticks. One step at a time.