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#131: 5 Ways to Stay Consistent Without Pushing Yourself Harder

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Episode Description:
If you’ve ever said, “I know what to do, I just can’t seem to stick to it” — this one’s for you.

In this episode, I’m sharing the five gentle-but-powerful shifts that have helped me stay consistent without pushing harder, burning out or beating myself up. 

I’ll show you how to build habits that feel safe in your body (not like another pressure), and how to design your routines around your real life — not some perfect version of it.

We'll explore:
💛 Why consistency often feels hard — and why it’s not your fault
💛 What’s really going on when motivation fizzles (and what to do instead)
💛 Why starting smaller isn’t cheating — it’s neuroscience
💛 How to build identity-based habits that reflect who you are now
💛 The secret power of micro-wins and why they matter so much in midlife

This isn’t about forcing change — it’s about creating conditions where showing up for yourself feels natural again.

It’s about creating rhythms you can return to — even on your hardest days.

Let’s stop measuring consistency by how perfectly we do the thing — and start honouring how often we come back to it. Even gently. Even imperfectly.

Download The Breath Check-Up - your FREE guide to understanding how well you're breathing right now.

Download my energising 5 Minute Morning Practice to get your day started in the best way possible.

To find out more about my membership The Inner Space go to: https://www.pollywarren.com/theinnerspace

Email me at: info@pollywarren.com
https://www.pollywarren.com/
https://www.instagram.com/pollywarrencoaching/

Polly:

Are you, like me, riding the roller coaster of midlife and menopause and eager to get back to living your best life? Are you tired of low energy, a short temper and endless self-doubt? Well, it's time to stress less and shine more. It's time to ditch the worry, reclaim your mojo and tap back into the incredible woman you already are. Because midlife isn't the end of anything. It's the beginning of becoming more you, more grounded, more radiant, more powerful than ever before. Join me each week for real, uplifting conversations to help you feel better, think clearer and live with more joy, purpose and ease, because it's never too late and you're certainly notamorphosis. I hate you doing really well. Now, if you are anything like I am and there are some things that you really struggle to just stick at, then this episode is for you.

Polly:

I have really been trying recently to become better at journaling. I know when I do it that it really really helps get my thoughts out of my head onto a piece of paper, get some clarity. I know it helps me. Yet it is one of those things I simply find impossible to stick to. It's really, really annoying. So I've been trying a new approach. I've been taking some of my own advice. I've done episodes on this podcast before about habits and starting new habits, but today I thought I would really zone in on ways to stay consistent without really adding much more to your life, without pushing harder. I want to make this as easy as possible rather than adding more to the list. It's funny because I actually think well, actually I am, I know I am. I'm really really good at consistency with something like, for example, exercise. I'm really bloody good at it. I exercise pretty much six days out of seven in some form. It doesn't always look the same, some days it's different, some weeks are different, but I move my body pretty much every day. Some days at the weekends, I'll take a day off and it doesn't need to be like a full-on workout, but I do just do it. I've become the person who just does that and we're going to really be diving into that a little bit today.

Polly:

The thing is, nearly all of us have really fantastic intentions. I mean New Year's. A really good example of this it's you know we want, we know what's good for us, we want to do it. We start off really brilliant at whatever it is where maybe you've downloaded a meditation app, because you know that meditation is going to really help you. Perhaps you've bought a course, an online course, which is still sitting there, and you haven't done it, but you've really got good intentions with it. Perhaps you've promised yourself that this is going to be the week that you're going to restart exercising again, or you're going to start stretching more, you're going to journal more, whatever it is, and then a couple of days into it, perhaps your child is sick and is off school, or perhaps you've suddenly got an urgent proposal you've got to do for work or whatever it is.

Polly:

Life, life happens, and then suddenly that promise that you made yourself goes out the window. And then the problem after that is often what we then do is we tell ourselves oh, there we go again. I've got no willpower, I'm really undisciplined, I can't stick to things. Maybe you even think that you're lazy, but I'm pretty sure you're none of those things. You're just living a very real life with a very full plate. But the problem is we often don't understand that. So we feel like we failed, and so we end up maybe trying to push even harder, but that that just doesn't work, because consistency doesn't have to come from pushing harder. It comes from making things feel easier, feel safer, softer, more doable. Things feel easier, feel safer, softer, more doable. It's a much more feminine way of looking at it, which actually bloody works. So this episode is about the more subtle but very, very powerful shifts that you can make.

Polly:

So we're going to be talking about why staying consistent feels so hard, even when we really want to do the thing. We're going to be talking about what's really going on when the willpower fails us and how to build the momentum, not from pressure, but through actions that stick, even when you're really tired, you're really busy. When things crop up, you're just not in the mood. So it's not about becoming like a productivity robot where you're just doing, doing, doing all the time. It's about building self-trust with yourself. This is the absolute key. We need to build self-trust in a way that feels doable and 100% rooted in who you are now, not who you used to be in the past or who you think you should be. It's like who you are now. We've got to make it realistic. This is about designing for your energy, not forcing your life to fit someone else's ideas of success. So I'm really hoping you're going to leave this episode with some real practical tools and a lot more compassion for yourself. So let's get into it. So let's just start off by talking about why consistency actually feels hard, even when you know the benefits and even when you want the change. No-transcript.

Polly:

Midlife, where you are at right now, we know that those things are not predictable. Quite often we're not getting great night's sleep. You've got a lot of people relying on you and have their needs being met and sometimes their needs come before yours. Often there's a huge cognitive load and the body doesn't recover the way it used to as we go through life. It just is different. It's just different.

Polly:

So when you try to follow an all or nothing routine and then life inevitably disrupts it, your nervous system interprets that kind of not doing anything as complete failure and that's where this real vicious cycle of giving up begins. So you have really good intentions and you say you start something new. So you say, right, I'm going to start exercising, I'm going to start doing a home workout every day. And you think you were on it, you'd be by the weights, it's all going okay. And then suddenly you've got one of your children gets ill, is sick, is around at home, a lot needs you more sick, is around at home a lot needs you more, that routine, that which you have built, the exercise routine. It just becomes disrupted. So you stop doing it for a while and then you start to really blame yourself, like going oh, here we go again, I've given up. And you just end up kind of thinking, well, I've blown it now and you stop trying. But this is the thing I really want you to hear today. You don't need to have a rigid routine. You need instead just a rhythm that adapts to what is going on in your current reality.

Polly:

That all or nothing approach, it just doesn't work. It's assuming that your life, your day is the same every single day, and it is just not the case. Life isn't like that. It's kind of like a living, breathing, moving thing, with sick days, with emotional ups and downs, with travel, with hormones, with you know just so many things, with work to do and you know, if you're lucky, you get some time to yourself. So you've got to stop measuring your commitment by how perfectly you perform it, by how perfectly you perform whatever it is you want to do, and actually start honouring instead and this is the absolute crutch it's the consistency of your return to the habit. It's when we go off track, can we consistently return to it? Can we come back, okay, even if it's something really tiny and we're going to talk about that in a bit later on Because the most powerful routines are the ones that you can still do on those really hard days when everything is going, you know, when shit hits the fan and everything's going out the window. That's how real change happens, and I'm going to talk more about that a bit later on.

Polly:

Another reason why consistency can feel so hard is quite often your nervous system is craving safety, not more pressure and discipline. It's about what your nervous system actually feels safe and able to sustain. So when your body is under stress, even if it's kind of, you know, quite quiet, unspoken stress your nervous system still prioritizes survival. So I know I've talked about this before, but it's basically when the part of your brain responsible for logic and for making decisions, planning things for the future and any sort of follow through that part of your brain which is known as your prefrontal cortex that essentially, when you are stressed, it gets overridden. So when you're exhausted but you're still trying to squeeze in a workout, it's really, really hard because that prefrontal cortex goes offline Anything which is kind of, you know, responsible for the logic. So if you are, for example, staring at your to-do list and you just really can't remember what you're meant to be doing next, or you just cannot get to that calm place, honestly that is not failure, that is your physiology at work.

Polly:

Chronic stress elevates your cortisol levels and over time that dulls the very brain function you rely on to stick to habits. And in midlife, in menopause, we've got stress coming from all directions, whether that's from work, parenting, or if it's that external stress from watching the news, from getting sucked into social media and listening to all the noise there. And the thing is it's also not just sort of external stress, it's also biochemical stress as well. So that basically means the hormonal changes you know, as we all know, especially the decline in estrogen and progesterone, can really affect your ability to regulate your mood and to sleep really well. So just be kind to yourself If you're feeling, you know, really irritable, brain, foggy, like everything's just that little bit harder than it used to be. That is why.

Polly:

But what we tend to do in this situation is we ignore the signals our body is trying to tell us and, rather than take a pause, reduce our stress. What do we do? We just try to push through it. I have been the master of this throughout my life. We just tell ourselves okay, I just need to try harder, I need to work harder, I need to be more organized, I just got to get back on track. But actually what happens is your nervous system really doesn't respond well to that pressure. It makes it even harder for you to get back on track. What it does is gentleness, is safety.

Polly:

So, very simply, when you associate a habit with feelings such as guilt, shame, fear. So guilt in the sense that you're thinking to yourself oh okay, I should be going to the gym every day. The shame in the fact that you struggle to stick to things, you might be saying to yourself why can't I stick to things? Giving yourself a hard time? Or the fear in the sense that if I don't do this, I'll, for example, put the weight back on or I won't lose the weight. So when you associate a habit with those feelings, your body labels the action that you want to do, which you associate with those feelings, as a threat, not as a help. And what does it do with threats? It avoids them. So that is why the actions start to feel much harder, the more you feel like you failed at them.

Polly:

And how many times have you said, okay, I'll start again on Monday. Or oh, okay, I will do it, I'll go to the gym when things settled down a little bit at work. Or I just need to get through this this week first and then I'll start. That is seen as procrastination by most of us, but it is also a sign that your nervous system is calling for a softening, for a little bit more simplicity. Softening for a little bit more simplicity, for something that actually works with your current energy. So this is a softer way of looking at it. Don't give yourself a hard time. You just need to take a different approach, because the truth is we don't build habits through force. We build them through familiarity, through the self-trust and through feeling safe to do it. And the final reason I'm going to give today about why we find consistency hard is because very often, somewhere along the line, we've absorbed the message that consistency only counts if we do the thing perfectly, if it's flawless.

Polly:

I'm going to use the example of exercise only because it's such a common habit that a lot of people really struggle with. So, for example, if you have said to yourself along the recommended amount of exercise, I'm going to do three strength workouts every week from now on. And the first week you do really well, you do your three workouts. The next week, perhaps you manage two, and then the third week, shit hits the fan and you don't manage any. And then you just sort of forget and it doesn't happen. And then it just goes and you think, oh well, I've not been doing it, I've not been doing it properly, there's no point doing it now. And then you give up.

Polly:

I must admit, I did this very recently with journaling. I had made a promise to myself that I was going to write a page every day in my journal. And have I done it? No, I haven't. I started really well for about three days missed the fourth day I think I might've done the fifth day, missed the sixth day, and then I just was like, oh, I'm rubbish at this, I can't stick to it. And what did I do? I stopped because just stuff gets in the way and I was just thinking to myself well, I've ruined it. But the thing is and I just have to remind this to myself as well missing a day isn't failure, quitting because you missed a day is not worth it. That's just what we think. That's a story we're telling ourselves and it's one that we get to rewrite.

Polly:

Consistency is not a chain you break. It's a relationship you return to. It's this constant return, and that's how we need to see it. Imagine if we treated our relationships the way we treat habits. If you missed, for example, one dinner with a friend, you wouldn't write the whole friendship off. Of course you wouldn't. We show up again. We reconnect, and that's what real consistency looks like.

Polly:

It's not perfection. It's more like a repair, and I really want you to realise you're not giving up because you're flaky or because you're undisciplined. You're giving up because the expectations were never realistic in the first place. There's a big difference there. They were perhaps too rigid, they were too all or nothing. They were built for someone who doesn't have your lived experience or your demands on your life. Real consistency is built in the messy middle. It's messy, it's perhaps the walk you take, even though you didn't do it yesterday. It's perhaps the one minute of breath that you do instead of none. And every time you return you're building that trust with yourself that you're doing something. So let's just move now into my five ways of staying consistent.

Polly:

So the first one is about starting smaller than you think you need to. So one of the biggest reasons we struggle with consistency is that we just set the bar just too high. We set it at the level of our ideal self, not of our real life. We tend to think if it's not big, then it doesn't count. And it can sometimes work if it's big. But that goes well for a few days and then suddenly something happens work. You get a work call and you're pulled into all day meetings and suddenly you don't do the habit and then it just feels like another thing that you're failing at. And it's just because the habit wasn't designed with all of those shifts which are going in mind, which is why starting small isn't a cop out, it's actually super smart.

Polly:

There is a behavioral researcher called BJ Fogg. I don't know what his first name is, but everyone knows him as BJ Fogg. He wrote a really good book all about tiny habits and he says if it takes more than two minutes to start a new habit, this is just make it smaller, because small is sustainable. You doesn't mean meaningless. Scientists have found BJ Fogg found a two minute habit, repeated, consistently, rewires your brain far more effectively than a 30 minute habit you abandon. So it's much more powerful to start with a really tiny habit.

Polly:

So, rather than saying I'll stretch every night that's something I've also said instead just perhaps say to yourself I'm going to lie on the floor for three minutes before bed. Actually, stretching is an interesting one because I, when I was really suffering with terrible bad back issues quite a long time ago now, I made a habit of literally rolling out of bed and doing five minutes of stretches, and that has remained a consistent habit until this day. And it's really been quite amazing because I've never done more than about five minutes and yet it has been. I've just increased my flexibility so much just by that small habit. So it's about really thinking about the smallest thing you can do.

Polly:

So a couple of weeks ago I don't know why I did this, but I printed out a beautifully structured tick chart with all the things I wanted to do daily, so that exercise, so that I put on there like strength work, running, stretching and then I included things which I don't do very often, which is the journaling I put on there pull-ups, which I probably do about three times a week outside backwards walking? Don't ask, but I do backwards walking. It helps with my running. I put all these things on this chart and I had the intention of seeing if I could do it every day. The thing is, I actually do most of these things, apart from the journaling, consistently. I don't do them every day. Like the pull-ups I don't do every day. The walking I probably do do most days because I've got the dog, but the journaling is still not happening and it's because I made that expectation just so big. And, of course, I did about four days of that chart and I've not touched it. So it was just not, it was totally unrealistic, that chart and I've not touched it, so it was just not, it was totally unrealistic.

Polly:

So what, I'm now trying with the journaling and it is actually really working. I have just got my journal on my desk and instead of doing like a page of journaling, I'm just writing one sentence every day. It doesn't matter what it is, and actually what I have been, I've just naturally been doing is I've been just writing down one thing that I'm really, really grateful for, but it doesn't have to be that. So I'm hoping that this new approach is going to work, and so far I have. I haven't done it every day, if I'm totally honest.

Polly:

However, I have come back to it and this is what is the important thing If you don't manage the thing, it's the return, it's the repair, it's the coming back to it again and again and again. That's what builds trust. Okay, it's not punishing yourself, it is just taking the action, any action. Again, that is what builds the consistency, that is what builds the habit. It's about becoming someone who shows up for herself imperfectly again and comes back to it. I'm going to say that again and again. So that is when we build the trust. Okay, number two we're going to pair our new habit with something you're already doing. So this might be one of the simplest but probably the most underused consistency tools. Our brains love patterns, they love predictability, they love familiarity, routines that don't require decision making, and that's the genius behind what these behavioural scientists call habit stacking. So James Clear in his book Atomic Habits, which is a great book I really recommend it if you haven't read it His method is all about anchoring a new habit to one you already do automatically.

Polly:

So, for example, you say after I have a shower, I will stretch. So it's kind of you're doing something already and then you do the new habit. And the idea about behind this is that you just remove any sort of decision fatigue. You remove the question of when should I do this new thing? You remove that level of friction and instead you simply slide your new habit into a little groove that already exists. So some examples may be. You know you brush your teeth twice a day I imagine every day so it might be. After I brush my teeth I do three rounds of nasal breathing. If you are someone who makes a morning coffee religiously, then maybe you could do something like while the kettle boils, I'll stretch my shoulders and jaw. So it's just finding these little, little uh moments in your day which you already do and you do something. What I do at the moment is when I wake up before I and it's almost before I get out of bed I take a deep breath and I'm just so grateful to be here for this day and that's just a really nice way to start my day. Another little bonus of habit stacking particularly for stacking habits of calmness, of pausing or breathing is when your body starts to associate regular cues. So, for example, like the brushing of the teeth or starting a car is a good one actually, with a moment of pause of gratitude, of breath, breath, like I just mentioned, when I wake up. What you're doing at the same time is you're training your system to feel really happy and safe in that slowing down. So you're literally rewiring your stress response. So it's a really good small way of not kind of totally overhauling your life, but by repatterning those in-between moments.

Polly:

Let's move on to number three now, and this is all about rewiring your identity. So if your habits are built on the person that you used to be, they're just not going to stick. Instead, if they are built on the person you are becoming, they become inevitable. What most of us try to do when we build habits from the outside in is we say to ourselves I'm going to go to the gym or I'm going to journal every day or I'm going to eat better. But the problem with that is if your internal narrative is still saying to you yourself but I actually never really stick at it or I'm just not very good at being disciplined, that creates friction because your actions, they're trying to evolve into this new version of yourself, but actually your identity, how you see yourself, a person that you are is stuck in a story of your past failure.

Polly:

Again, this is from James Clear from Atomic Habits. He says that what we want to try and do is become the person that we want to do. So, for example, if the goal, if you want to read more, the goal isn't to read a book, the goal is to become a reader. If you want to run a marathon, it's not to run a marathon. The goal is to become a runner, it's not to run a marathon, the goal is to become a runner. This is because when your habit is tied to your identity, you simply don't have to think about doing it. It's like what I said with exercise I don't really think about doing it now because it's just what I do. It's I get up in the morning and it's what I do. I've become that person. It's become a natural extension of who I believe I am and, honestly, it just makes it so easier, easy. It just takes away that kind of guesswork of oh God, what am I going to do it? What days am I going to do it? Can I do it? You just do it.

Polly:

And this is especially relevant in midlife, because our identity is already shifting. Your kids perhaps don't need you as much. You know your role is changing there. Your body is changing, you're evolving and that is an often very tricky time at midlife, because our Western culture doesn't value aging as it should. I'm hoping that's really changing. Doesn't value aging as it should. I'm hoping that's really changing. But on the other hand, I like to see it that this stage of life is ripe for intentional identity creation. It's the beginning of a new life phase, so we can really harness that to start new things.

Polly:

So let's use that and don't think you're faking it because you don't necessarily believe it quite yet. You're practicing into it and even on the days you don't do the thing, you can still act in alignment with that identity, because identity isn't all or nothing with that identity, because identity isn't all or nothing. It's a slow layering of the belief and then the action and the behavior. You need to build up both of them. For building up the identity, you've got to have the belief that you are it and then you do the action and they work together. Consistency won't come from force, it comes from familiarity. The more you show up as that version of yourself, the easier it becomes to believe you are her, and once you believe that, the habit just follows. And once you believe that the habit just follows, okay.

Polly:

My fourth point is about removing friction. So we tend to think we need more motivation to be consistent, but actually often what we need is just less resistance, because the human brain always wants the easy option every time. That's its default mode To survive. Thousands of years ago in really tricky conditions, the best option would always have been the easiest, most comfortable option, easiest, most comfortable option, and that is how we are still wired. So every extra decision we need to make in order to do our habit or whatever it is we want to do, that is friction.

Polly:

So if you want to stretch in the morning, say, but your mat's in a cupboard under a load of stuff, it's too hard You're going to go. Oh, I can't be bothered to get it. If you want to journal, but you haven't got a notebook, you're going to go. Oh, I'll do it tomorrow. I always, for example, leave my gym clothes out the night before so I can see them. I know that when I get up I'm going to get into them because they're there. We at home have weights in the kitchen and we have mats in the kitchen. I have my muscle roller in the kitchen and a little area where all of it is, so it makes it super easy. It takes away the friction of not being able to find anything. So make it obvious, make it easy. Leave out visual cues in plain sight. Put your journal on the bedside table, for example. Leave your vitamins next to your toothbrush. Make it as easy as possible. It really really helps. Your environment is important to help you keep consistent.

Polly:

And then my final way to help you with consistency is to celebrate even the ridiculously small wins. I bet you're probably doing really well at something, but you're really not great at registering that you did it. And the brain doesn't repeat what it doesn't reward. So the science says when you acknowledge a little, even a little micro win, with even a small moment of yes, I did it, your brain releases dopamine and that gives you such a feel good boost. But more importantly, that's how the brain wires in the habit. It's the law of neuroplasticity. What fires together wires together. It's known as the celebration effect. So it just, it's how even tiny steps are the number one driver of motivation. It's not willpower, it's not the big results, it is the celebration.

Polly:

But most of us only celebrate when we complete something really big, when we've hit the finish line, and probably then we probably still critique ourselves oh, I could have done that better. So no wonder habits don't feel good enough to keep doing so. We need to change that. So it needs to be every time you do something you are trying to be consistent with, celebrate it. Just say to yourself yes, I showed up. You can do a little fist bump to yourself in the mirror. It could be just a tick on a post-it note, whatever. It is even just a smile, a recognition that you showed up, you did the thing. Just a bit of like a moment to kind of celebrate yourself yes, go me, it counts everything. It might feel a little bit cheesy and a bit weird, but it's brain science, it's re-patterning how you treat yourself while becoming this version of you you want to be.

Polly:

So just remember, if you want to repeat the action, action, you've got to feel good about doing it, and that doesn't mean toxic positivity, it means simply marking the moment so your system sees it as safe, sees it as really satisfying and worth returning to. And this is where consistency stops being a real grind and it's when you start to build that self-trust that you show up for yourself again and again. And this is what consistency loves. It's that returning that repair, that self-trust. So there we have our five ways. I want you to remember more than anything in this whole episode that staying consistent isn't about pushing through and it's certainly not about giving up. It's about coming back again and again in a way that actually feels sustainable, that feels doable, that feels safe for your body, so that then you can just keep doing it again and again. It's about making the conditions right so that you can keep coming back to it again and again.

Polly:

So maybe, just to finish, think of one thing that you want to start doing more consistently. Then break it down. What's one 60 second habit you can commit to this week? That's it, 60 seconds. So maybe it's just one breath before you get out of bed. Maybe it's drinking more water, maybe it's stepping outside and feeling the ground beneath your feet. Whatever it is, it doesn't have to be big. Commit to it and do it every day. Stack it on something you're already doing so you don't forget to do it. That's going to help remind you to do it. And just start and then see where it takes you, because often you start small and then you build it up. It's that whole thing, you know. You put your trainers out, you put your trainers on, you say you're good to yourself, I'm going to go outside, I'm going to run to the end of the road and then quite often you might run a little bit further. So just keep to going. You can absolutely do it. I'm going to keep going with my journaling and see how that goes.

Polly:

Thank Thank you so much for sticking with me, for being here today, and let me know how you get on. I would love, love, love to hear what you think, what might have been helpful for you, and any habits that you manage to remain consistent with. Would be amazing to hear. Have a wonderful rest of the week. Remember you can always get in touch with me. All of my details are in the show notes. Take lots of care and I will speak with you next time. Take care, lots of love. Bye.