Why Consistency Beats Perfection in Fitness

Consistency and perfection are not the same in fitness.

Perfection is a trap. Consistency is the path to long-term progress.

Most think perfection is required when trying to improve their health.

The pursuit of perfection keeps men stuck regardless of where they’re at on their health and fitness journey.

• This applies if you’re trying to get healthy for the first time in years, or you’re ready to take your health to another level.
• This applies whether you’re trying to drop under 20% body fat or 10% body fat.
• This applies if you’re trying to squat 400 lbs or run a 6 minute mile.
• This also applies if you’re trying to lose 20 lbs, walk 10,000 steps per day, or make it to the gym 3x/week.

A perfection mindset will always lose to a consistent mindset over time.

Perfection and consistency can’t exist together long-term.

When your process requires perfection, it makes it very hard to stay consistent.

In reality, it makes it impossible, if you stretch the timeline out far enough.

Why fitness challenges (like 75 hard) set you up to fail from the start

Take the 75 hard challenge as an example — a popular fitness ‘program’ that has the following requirements for 75 days straight:

• Exercise: Complete two 45-minute workouts per day, with at least one being outdoors.
• Diet: Adhere to a structured diet of your choice, without cheat meals or alcohol.
• Read: Read 10 pages of a non-fiction self-help book daily.
• Water: Drink a gallon (3.8 liters) of water per day.
• Progress Photos: Take a daily progress photo to document your journey.

Here’s the kicker: if you miss any of those requirements on any single day, you start over from day 0.

I have my thoughts on programs and challenges like this, but this isn’t meant to turn into a rant.

Does this type of program require an extreme amount of consistency?

Absolutely.

Which is why many people have found great results with this challenge in the past.

Does this also require a near perfection commitment?

Yes…which is why I know more people that have failed this challenge than actually completed.

And here’s where it gets even more interesting.

Of the people I know that have completed it, with great results, I know zero that have maintained that level of progress.

I’m not saying some haven’t stayed healthy or ended up better than they were before starting.

But I don’t know a single person that has been able to maintain their results on a challenge like that, or any similar challenge.

When your process requires perfection, it’s only a matter of time before consistency falls off.

Challenges like that one look great and sound so simple…on paper.

But works on paper is not what works in real life, and here is why most people fail to either reach or maintain their progress.

The perfection > consistency fitness problem

When you start with a high level of effort, your results will be quicker…at first.

But if you can’t maintain that level of effort (who with a wife/family/job really has time for two 45-minute workouts every single day?) — the initial boost in results will come crashing down.

I know you can relate, because you’ve seen this happen before in your own life:

• You lost weight following a strict diet, and then vacation game (or a birthday, a wedding, or anything that challenged your strict diet)
• You went to the gym 4, 5, or 6 times per week. You felt great…but when life got busy you gave up on the gym altogether
• You bought a Peloton or joined a fitness class. It was great…until you were paying for a membership you hadn’t touched in months

Don’t beat yourself up.

It’s not a lack of ​willpower​ — if the process wasn’t sustainable, you were setting yourself up for failure from the start.

I know because I’ve been there.

And almost every client I get to coach has followed this process at least a half dozen times before they reach out for help (I can be a slow learner too)

The consistency > perfection fitness solution

There are a few things I want to point out on the *professionally hand crafted* image from above 🤫

1. The resistance to your effort is always going to be highest in the beginning.

This means that it’s going to require a lot more energy when starting out with a high level of effort.

On the other hand, when you start with a sustainable amount of effort, adding a little more effort week over week, month over month, year over year becomes hardly noticeable.

This means, over time, you can perform more effort with less perceived energy.

2. The higher the effort required to get started, the longer it takes to get back on track after slipping up.

Everyone ‘slips’ from time to time. Life has plenty of challenges that can lead to overeating or missing your workout. On the perfection (red) curve, a high level of effort leads to a harder fall when you slip up. It also means there is a higher climb to get back to where you were before.

So what happens instead?

You dread getting started again (or simply enjoy ‘living it up’ with all the things you had to deprive yourself from before). So you make a commitment to start tomorrow, Monday, or at the new year. And when that day comes, most people have already given up.

Consistency (blue) doesn’t have the same resistance to getting started again after slipping up. You’re still going to get off plan from time to time — but the barrier to get started tomorrow (or even at the very next meal) is lower. Because of this, the fall doesn’t hurt nearly as much.

The initial slip up isn’t what hurts your results. It’s the failure to get started again.

3. This applies to any timeline

I’ve seen this perfection pattern happen over a couple weeks or a couple of months. If you do a 75 hard challenge, and start your new year off the healthiest you’ve ever been, but you haven’t maintained it come the following new year — how successful of a challenge was it?

You shouldn’t need to keep performing 75 hards, whole 30s, or new year fitness challenges every year or every few years.

If you do, something is off in your process.

Consistency won’t feel like much progress if you look at a 2 week timeline. Stretch that level of consistency out for 2 years? You’ll be a totally transformed person — and you won’t have to ever rely on an extreme fitness challenge again.

I’m speaking from experience.

I followed this pattern for over a decade before finally getting consistent on the right healthy habits.

And because of that, I can easily maintain results that would have felt unachievable 5 years ago.

Don’t get discouraged — you don’t need to be perfect. You just need to be consistent on the right things.

If you’re feeling stuck, don’t keep chasing perfection.

Fill out a coaching form if you’re tired of riding the all-or-nothing rollercoaster and you’re ready to follow a proven process.

Or get signed up for my free Body [re]Building email course to get the tools you need to achieve long lasting transformation.

Keep going.