If You Struggle to Train Consistently, Do It Immediately After Waking Up

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If you struggle to train consistently, then the #1 remedy is to do it immediately after waking up. There are several reasons why.

First, it shields you from those unexpected events that demolish whatever schedule you had planned for the day. Those unexpected events happen to everyone, even people who manage to train consistently, and they are not an excuse for inconsistency. If you’re serious about training, you have to build chaos tolerance into your training schedule.

Second, there’s no time to even consider skipping the training session. By the time you shake off the initial grogginess and become fully conscious of what you’re doing, you’ve already started training. “I couldn’t make myself do it” is not an excuse for inconsistency. If your conscious brain steers you away from training, then get the wheels rolling before your conscious brain even has a chance to take the wheel.

Third, there’s a clear habit trigger and reward: waking up means it’s time to train, and after you train you get your shower, meal, whatever other morning amenities you enjoy, and you get to feel good about yourself all day. And if you skip the training, then there’s the punishment of feeling bad about yourself all day. It’s basically operant conditioning. You have every right, and every responsibility, to be blatantly and maximally manipulative with yourself.

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