138. Phases of Progress

Have you ever heard the saying, “If it was easy, everyone would do it”?

This is true for almost anything that’s worth doing – starting a new job, renovating your house, and, yes, even losing weight.

The truth is that it’s usually not the end goal that makes everything feel unattainable, but rather the phases of progress you have to go through to reach your goal.

I know we all want our progress to be fast, easy, and predictable.

But it’s just not.

Every single one of us works through four phases of progress, some of which are much more trying than others.

I’m breaking them all down in this episode to help normalize exactly what it looks like to make progress that lasts.

You can listen to the episode here…

Or keep reading the post below:

Four Phases of Progress

Anytime you set out to reach a goal, you will find yourself going through the four phases of progress.

You can’t skip a more uncomfortable phase or a phase that’s taking you longer to work through so it’s important to learn about and understand what is happening in each one.

The phases are:

1. High will, low skill – you have the desire, commitment, and motivation, but you lack the knowledge to implement change.

2. Low will, low skill – you’re still lacking a lot of knowledge and skills, but the newness has worn off so you’re also lacking desire.

3. Low will, high skill – you are still lacking motivation, but you’re starting to see that the skills you’re developing are paying off.

4. High will, high skill – you’ve gained the necessary skills and you know success is inevitable so the motivation to continue has returned.

Each of these phases pushes you towards your ultimate goal and teaches you something about yourself along the way. Being able to navigate each phase without abandoning your goal is the only way you’ll find success.

The Grind

No matter what your goal is, once you reach the second and into the beginning of the third phases of progress, you’ve entered in the “the grind.”

This is the part of the process where you’re either not seeing a lot of progress or the progress you are seeing is slow.

This is where most people give up, because when you lack motivation everything feels harder.

Getting through the grind, though, is the only way to reach phase four where you know you’ll find success – try as you might, you’ll never be able to jump from phase one to phase four.

So how do you get through the grind?

A big part of what you need to focus on in the grind is your belief in yourself and your belief that what you’re doing is going to work.

You have to allow yourself to be a beginner who’s imperfect and makes mistakes and learns from those mistakes instead of beating yourself up over them.

Developing a commitment to continuing to move forward and staying consistent with the things that matter most is key to getting through the grind and these two phases of progress.

Working on building your mental fortitude and accepting that you can’t force progress will keep you moving along towards phase four.

Handling Setbacks

It would be so nice if once you reached your goal, you could just live in phase four forever without worrying about how to manage setbacks. Unfortunately, that’s not how the phases of progress work, because challenges and setbacks are inevitable parts of life.

Take weight loss for example, once you reach your goal weight, there is always the possibility that something happens in your life that causes you to lose focus.

When you find yourself feeling slipping back into old habits, you don’t need to try to find a shortcut or something drastic, you just need to go back to basics.

Over time, you will develop more and more belief and confidence in yourself and when you are challenged you’ll know you can handle whatever the situation may be.

Remind yourself that in order to progress and grow as a person, you need to be willing to put yourself in new situations that you can then learn how to master, you need to not quit when the going gets tough, and you need to challenge yourself to do things that you don’t already know how to do.

If you’re ready to set attainable goals with the support of knowledgeable coaches who believe your success is inevitable and want to help you get through the phases of progress, check out estheravant.com/coaching for more info.

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Send your screenshot to admin@estheravant.com with the subject “Podcast Review”.

Thanks for listening!

Connect with Esther

And if health weight loss is the area that you’re struggling in, please reach out to me, talk to our team, we can help you with this.

About the Show

If you’re tired of gaining and losing the same weight, feeling like you’re the only person out there struggling, and want to learn how to lose weight and live your healthiest, happiest, and most confident life – without perpetual dieting – this podcast is for you.

Fitness industry veteran, certified personal trainer, sports nutritionist & coach, Esther Avant, will help you learn how to enjoy the process of truly changing your lifestyle and guest interviews will help you realize you are not alone in your struggles.

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