How To Finally Get Consistent With Working Out
Question for you, dear reader. What do all of these things have in common?
Chilling
Sleeping
Drinking fun drinks
Eating tasty sandwiches
Playing fun board and/or card games
Watching cool movies starring Vince Vaughn
Laying on the floor staring at the fan and pondering the nature of the universe
They’re all WAY more appealing than subjecting yourself to voluntary torture in the gym.
And it makes perfect sense.
The gym is uncomfortable. Sometimes smelly, often intimidating. It requires effort, planning, and the willingness to be bad at something—over and over, and over and over and over - until you’re not.
But here’s what I need you to know: If you could string together two years of actual consistency in the gym, you would quietly and completely change your life. Your body, your confidence, your energy, your stress tolerance, the whole kit AND kaboodle.
Here are 2 simple ways to start.
Do less
I’m being serious with you right now. Stop trying to do so much!
I was chatting with my client Aubrey last night. He’s an ER doc working night shift and clocking up to 60 hours a week. Sixty. Hours. Saving people’s lives. At night. Under fluorescent lights. With alarms going off. I genuinely can’t imagine that level of stress. He’s incredible. But he’s been trying to train 5 days per week and missing a lot of them.
Because he’s such a high achiever, this makes him feel like a failure.
So I told him to lower the bar. “Let’s aim for two full-body sessions per week. If you get a third, that’s a bonus.” Now pause and think about how that reframes everything. f he’s aiming for 5 workouts per week, the internal dialogue on workout #3 sounds like:
“Ugh. I still have two more after this. What’s the point? I already blew it. I’ll just restart next week.”
That mindset kills consistency faster than the large quantities of opiates, sedatives, and amphetamines and peanut butter, banana, and bacon sandwiches killed Elvis.
But if he’s aiming for 2–3 workouts per week, the dialogue shifts to:
“Let’s go. Extra work this week. While working nights. As an ER doc. Crushing it.”
Same human. Same schedule. Completely different psychological outcome.
The first approach leads to quitting and “starting over” next Monday. The second creates momentum. And here’s the sneaky part: that momentum rarely stays confined to the gym. It spills over into food choices. Sleep routines. Stress management. You start acting like someone who’s doing well, not someone who’s constantly behind.
That’s why doing less is often the fastest way forward.
2. Make sure you don’t hate it
Let’s use our superior human brains right now, shall we? If you hate something, will you do that thing consistently?
Heck. Nah.
This feels obvious, yet people constantly try to build consistency around exercise they actively dislike. If you hate running, don’t run. If you hate lifting free weights, use machines. Or bands. Or bodyweight stuff. All of it “counts.”
Yes, at some point, you’ll probably need to suck it up and do a few things you don’t love because they’re good for you. That’s Level 4 or 5 of the game. If you’re just starting out and trying to build a routine? Find the form of exercise you hate the least and start there.
Same idea applies to your workout ritual, too.
“What do you mean by workout ritual, John? Like an Aaron Rodgers–style Costa Rica drumming circle and mud bath?”
No. No. Although I’m not here to judge.
I just mean everything that happens before, during, and after the workout. And this matters more than people realize.
Sometimes I’ll take my headphones out at the gym and just listen to the raw, silent chaos of a 6am weight room. Plates clanking. Someone aggressively breathing. Fluorescent lights humming. If I had to train like that every day?
Hard pass!
So I put my headphones back in. Now I’ve got upbeat music or a Fantasy Football podcast playing. Something I actually enjoy. The caffeine from the cold brew I had 30 minutes earlier is kicking in. And I know that afterward, there’s a hot shower and a bowl of protein oatmeal waiting for me.
Suddenly, lifting cold, boring, loud weights at 6am doesn’t feel so bad.
If you can find a way to make working out more fun, you’ll be a lot more likely to stick with it.
Final Thoughts
If your current fitness plan relies on…
suddenly becoming a morning person
loving burpees
or discovering 90 extra minutes per day hiding behind the couch
…it’s probably not going to work!
The version of you that actually wins in 2026 trains a little less, a little smarter, and with way fewer mental gymnastics. Boring, repeatable success that sneaks up on you.
And luck for you, that’s exactly how I coach.
If you want help setting this up—training you’ll actually do, expectations that don’t make you feel like a failure, and a plan built for your real, messy, and busy life—you can apply below.
And because I like rewarding initiative:
Apply, get started, and I’ll send $200 straight back to you immediately.
Call it a “thanks for not waiting until February” bonus.
No motivational yelling. No Costa Rica drum circles. Just a system that works.
The ball’s in your court, dear reader.
Best,
John
P.S. Needed a haircut and a trim, got a haircut and a trim. No Santa over here!
3 Steps You Can Take
Apply for coaching - If you’re ready to start, you can fill out a coaching application here (it takes 90 seconds or less). Best case, you change your life. Worst case, I’ll help you draw up a road map to get closer to your goals.
Sign up for my newsletter - If you’d like to hear more, sign up for my mailing list here.
Keep learning - You can check out my other articles here. Nobody asked me to, but I’ve spent a ton of time researching everything from artificial sweeteners to saturated fat to testosterone and more, so you don’t have to.
