Mr. Lutz was my broad shouldered, silver haired vice principal who had an affinity for John Wayne, and also, weirdly, Mariah Carey.

But he also had a propensity for spewing positive quotes, much to the chagrin of the entitled, snot nose teenagers who roamed the halls around him. For every quote he offered, we responded with at least two eye rolls and a bombastic side-eye.

His favorite quote, which was included in daily announcements and eventually painted on the wall of the high school cafeteria was “believe to achieve.”

As a high schooler, I thought it was stupid.

As an adult with a fully developed, though neurodivergent brain, I’ve realized that not only was he right, but believing in yourself is the foundation of all behavior change. Because as that old Henry Ford quote goes “whether you believe you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.”

I have worked with clients who struggle to believe that they can change because years of trying has led them to believe that they can’t. My response to those clients is always the same. I’ll believe it for you until you can believe it for yourself.

So even though you and I have never met (unless the only people who buy this book are friends and family), I’ll offer the same sentiment because I think it’s so important. As a coach, I believe that everyone is capable of doing what they want to do. So I’ll believe it for you until you can believe it in yourself.

When it comes to behavior change, we often mistake knowledge as the missing component of execution. If we could just figure out what to do, we’d be well on our way to saving more money, losing weight or managing our time better.

Then, we acquire the knowledge, and sooner or later find ourselves in that valley of despair from page 14. What follows is the phrase most of us know all too well.

I know what I need to be doing, I’m just not doing it.

What comes between the knowing and the doing?

Resistance. And resistance comes in many, many different forms, including a lack of self-confidence.

Research confirms* that when we don’t believe we have the capacity to change, we don’t make as much progress implementing the change. Too often when I ask people what is getting in the way of their progress, they say the same thing.

“Me. I am the problem.”

“I can’t get out of my own way.”

Of course you think that! For those of us who feel like a hot mess most of the time, there is never a consideration that the system is broken because everyone else knows something that we don’t and everyone else is right. The system isn’t the problem, you are.

Except that’s one of the big lies that many of us believe.

You’re not the problem, I promise.

However, if you believe that you are the reason behavior change isn’t possible, then it can be difficult to believe that you have the capability to solve the problem. After years of floating back and forth between the starting and the valley of despair, you might give up on the idea that you can ever make anything different than it is.

So before you can get anywhere in this journey of making sustainable change, you have to believe that you are not your own problem, but your own solution.

Unfortunately, I can’t wave a magic wand and suddenly make you believe in yourself. But there are a few places you can start.

1.     Make a list of things that you’re good at.

Recently, I heard the term borrowing confidence. While there are a lot of different uses for the phrase, in this context, I want you to take a long look at the things that you’re good at. As someone who always thought of myself as a train wreck, this exercise was really important. While I struggled with organization, time management and list making, I was good at creative thinking, putting clients at ease, and writing. So pull out a piece of paper and make a list. What are you good at?

Are you stuck already? I know – sometimes it can feel really difficult to come up with positive attributes about ourselves. We think it makes us conceited or uppity. You know, I thought I’d get an error message when I typed uppity, but I didn’t. Who knew? Anywho, if you’re really stuck, ask your closest friend to tell you five things you’re good at. Think about what people say when they pay you a compliment. Think outside of the box.

I never thought my ability to connect with people was a skill or an attribute. It’s just something that has come naturally to me, especially as I’ve gotten older. But the tricky thing about our skillsets is that we don’t think of things that come easily to us as attributes. Because we don’t have to work as hard as other people at some of these skills, if we are paid a compliment, we are mostly likely to shrug it off and say whatever, it’s just what I do.

Yes, it’s just something you do, but it’s a skill that not everyone can do. When you learn to recognize your skills for what they are, you can begin to tap into some of that confidence you’re looking for.

2.     Comparison is the thief of joy.

It’s also one of the quickest ways to minimize whatever it is that you are doing. We all have people in our lives who are overachievers. They were probably voted most studious in high school. You and I were likely voted messiest locker (ok, that was eighth grade…).

Making comparisons is natural, in fact, social comparison theory suggests that people value their own personal and social worth by assessing how they compare to others. But if you’re not careful, that comparison can rob you of your own confidence because nothing you do is ever going to be enough. Most of us don’t have to look far to find someone who is doing some part of life better than we are. In fact, that comparison is often a huge contributor to why we feel like train wrecks compared to the mom who makes birthday cupcakes from Pinterest for her kid’s birthday while we sent our kid in with runny no bake cookies.

You have to focus on what is happening in your lane, and in your lane only.

3.     Be kind to yourself.

If you follow my brand, you know that my tagline is be strong, be kind. Most folks wonder what the hell being kind has to do with fitness. Well, self-compassion is an essential part of recognizing your human-ness. Self-compassion means that when you do make a mistake, and when you do come up short, that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with you and you are not broken.

For many of us, it’s habit to automatically shame ourselves whenever we make a mistake. And when it comes to making personal change with habit change, many of us have had periods of time where we’ve made progress, but we also have come up short. It can be very easy to let these previous efforts let us think in absolutes. That we will never have success, or that we can’t workout in the morning or learn to food prep.

Not true.

4.     Practice Positive Self-Talk

Ok, let’s just get this out of the way straight up. Everybody of my generation who had any access to Saturday Night Live in the early 90’s is permanently, at least somewhat, ruined on the idea of positive self-talk.

Al Franken’s brilliant character of Stuart Smalley, who spoke with a lisp and looked in the mirror while reflecting the daily affirmation of “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me” spawned a generation of people like myself, who struggle to take daily affirmations seriously.

However, the longer I’ve been in the coaching game, the more I’ve recognized negative self-talk as one of the primary reasons that people, and many women specifically, struggle to see lasting results.

Negative self-talk disrupted me and my progress for a long time. The thing is, I didn’t recognize what I was doing as negative self-talk.

Because humor.

Specifically, self-deprecation. Ain’t nothing that can crack a room full of people up quite like making fun of yourself. It’s a great way to break the ice, and it does make for an interesting title for a book.

But that humor comes at a cost.

And that cost is the ability to really, truly believe that you are capable of not always being a train wreck. Because while you might think it intellectually, you won’t actually be able to make change if you don’t truly believe in your bones that you are capable.

The first time I remember running, intentionally, just for the sake of running and not because I was playing hide or some other game with the neighborhood kids, I was in elementary school.

Our gym teacher Mr. Stock was explaining to the class that President Reagan was very invested in how long it would take us to run a mile, and as such, we needed to run four laps around the track that we were standing on, while he stood at the finish line with a stop watch, shouting out our finish times.

Beyond having a stitch in my side and chaffing from jeans, all I remember is that I hated running.

Fast forward to college and eight years in to organized sports, my lacrosse coach had us running something called heart attacks. All you need to know is that they worked hard to deliver on the title.

I hated running.

My mindset around running was that it was something that caused great pain, that I had to do as quickly as possible (I was slow), and was often used as a punishment in practices for being late or under-performing.

Of course I hated running.

During my junior year in college, I came across a book about Holistic Spirituality, and low and behold there was an entire chapter on the meditation and spirituality of running. I was a really self-reflective kid, and really interested in anything that might help me understand myself better.

In this book, running was positioned as a chance for some alone time. An opportunity to be out in nature. A chance to be present and mindful in your body. Time to pray and meditate.

This was the first time running was presented to me in a different light. Where for most of my life, it meant being punished in sports, was all about going as fast and as hard as you can, suddenly someone was putting a new hat on the idea of running. 

There would be no stopwatch. No timer. Just whatever music I had on my Sony Walkman (remember when the battery was dying in those?) and some peace and quiet.

I write this not because I'm suggesting you take up running (though I still enjoy it, for the above reasons). But I am curious about what your mindset is or has been around your fitness and nutrition journey. Has it been filled with shoulds? Misery? Someone else's terms?

We tend to put a lot of pressure on ourselves in all areas of our lives and fitness and nutrition is no different. Most of the coaching that I do isn't around the nuts and bolts of exercise or even nutrition. It's around mindset.

I created the image above for my clients when we talk about having success in their fitness journey, and especially in this world of virtual training. Most of our work happens between the "life got life-y" and "ok, now I see how this works" part of the journey.

The part where we begin to not only see how movement and healthy habits can fit in our lives, but we believe that we can make it work. My high school vice principal always said "believe to achieve." And that is perhaps the biggest shift you could have.

Human behavior fascinates me.

One of the reasons I enjoy coaching is that we are constantly trying to solve the puzzle that is human behavior.

What makes one person successful where nine other people struggle? How is it that one person can get up every morning and take their vitamins and go to the gym when another person in very similar circumstances struggles?

When you ask the person who was struggling to adopt habit change what they needed to succeed, the answer is almost always the same:

Motivation. They need motivation.

But the fact is, motivation is completely unreliable. If I only took my fish oil in the morning when I felt like it, I’d never take my fish oil because if you take a minute to think about putting two giant capsules of oil into your mouth just ‘ewwwwww.

I regret even writing about it because now I’m thinking about fish oil and trying not to throw up in my mouth.

The problem with relying on motivation is the blame and shame game that happens as a result of that line of thinking. Relying on your ability to feel like doing something makes everything your fault.

The most cringe-worthy line I hear from clients when we ask what we can do to better help and support them is:

“There’s nothing you can do – it’s me. I’m the problem. I just need to do better.”

Nooooooooooooooooooo! No. Nooo! All of the no’s you can find. Go out and round up every single no and that’s still not enough no’s.

The problem isn’t you. The problem is relying on the notion that you should always feel like doing something.

The solution?

Outsmarting motivation.

Most of us having periods in our lives when the motivation is a little higher, and September is often a time when, as we've written about before, we're riding a motivation wave.

So the best thing you can do if you're feeling that wave of energy right now?

Create your habits. Are you committed to taking your supplements? Awesome. Pair the action with another habit that is already hardwired into your daily routine. As soon as you put your toothbrush back in the holder, take your fish oil. As soon as you turn the coffee pot on, drink your first glass of water.

You get the idea.

The best thing that you can do for yourself when you feel like doing something is to build the routine. And that way when you no longer feel like doing something, it doesn't matter as much - because it's become a part of your routine.

And if you're struggling with any part of the process, we're here to help. You can always sit down with a coach and chat.

Be kind to yourself.