High-Functioning But Inconsistent Habits: Why Knowing Isn’t The Problem
You’re successful, capable, and self-aware. So why do your health habits feel inconsistent?
How can you lead a team, manage a schedule, and hit deadlines, but somehow your meal prep and workouts keep slipping through the cracks?
The issue isn’t that you don’t know what to do. This issue is that no one has helped you connect it all.
You’re Disciplined in Your Career, So Why Not in Your health?
You are go-go-go when it comes to business. You’re extremely busy, highly competitive, high achieving, productive, the “super-star” at work. So your nutrition and workouts should be the same, right?
You would think so, but somehow, as soon as you get off of work, you can’t seem to get your butt in the gym, prep the meals, control your emotions, or really do anything productive. It’s almost like work sucked all the adult out of you. You’ve used up all of your mental energy and it’s left you with zero energy — mentally or physically.
These patterns of exhaustion, lack of motivation, and burn out are extremely common in high performers. Many high achieving professionals also harbor perfectionist or all-or-nothing mindsets. They believe that if it can’t be done perfectly, to the T, it isn’t worth it.
It doesn’t make sense. You are disciplined. You are hardworking. You have a good work ethic… when it comes to work. But the second it has anything to do with your personal life or a personal goal that isn’t tied to your 9-5, these statements seem to fall apart.
So what gives?
Your health is different from your job. Your health is personal and 100% up to you.
Your job gives you instant gratification through the pat on the backs and meeting shout-outs, in the career title, and in the salary or commission. Your job is also something socially acceptable to miss things for. It is socially acceptable for you to have to miss drinks with friends or Thursday night trivia due to work events.
Work is also your means of survival. If you don’t show up to work, you won’t get your paycheck that week — or worse— you might get fired. Your work gives you purpose, satisfaction, gratification, money, structure, community, social hierarchy, and responsibility.
Work not only gives you external rewards through praise and money, it also gives you internal rewards like satisfaction for providing for your family, purpose by providing a service to your company or to others, and a role in society, where you feel like you are contributing to the world.
Exercise, nutrition, and mental health on the other hand, are second thoughts. Exercise is something that you do if you have the energy. Nutrition is something you think about when you’re feeling motivated. Mental health is something you focus on when you’re forced to. These are all left up to the universe to decide if they are important enough to take up some of your precious time after you finish the work day.
No wonder you can’t seem to lose those last 10 pounds or finally switch to whole foods! You have no time, no energy, and no mental capacity to even think about what it would take to get there. Even if you did, how do you begin to balance all of these self development ambitions you have? Do you start with your mindset, nutrition, physical health, or none at all? How do you even start when you have no motivation left at the end of the day?
The Real Problem Isn’t Motivation
First off, if you’re waiting for motivation to kick you in the butt, you’ll be waiting your whole life. A lot of people assume that consistency in diet and exercise is due to the presence of motivation. This is where most people go wrong. Motivation is the most inconsistent feeling on the planet!
What actually creates consistency is discipline. Think about it this way: It’s 6am and you were out at trivia with your friends late last night. You didn’t get home til 11pm and didn’t get to bed til close to 12am. But alas, you have work and you need to shower, get ready, walk the dog, and eat breakfast before having to leave at 8am to make sure you get into the office on time. So you turn off the alarm clock and roll out of bed.
Does this sound like motivation to you? No! It sounds like discipline. You are not always motivated to go to work in the morning. In fact, you are probably never motivated to go into work in the morning if it means you have to lose your last hour of sleep, get out of your warm, cozy bed, and drive an hour into the office. So what keeps you from hitting the snooze over and over and taking your last day of PTO? That’s right, discipline! You know that in order to get a paycheck, make a living, and provide for yourself (and maybe your family, too), you have to be disciplined and do the thing you don’t want to do most of the time.
Where so many people go wrong is assuming that as long as they stay motivated (which is impossible), they will reach their health, nutrition, and mental health goals. This facade makes a health and wellness journey so much more challenging because motivation is fleeting. You will have to flex your discipline muscle more often than not, and it won’t be easy, but it is required.
Another assumption many people make is that consistency = perfection. Wrong again! Consistency just means you show up on a regular basis. More times than not, you are present, whether that’s at the gym, making the healthy choices when you’re out to dinner, or taking a deep breath before responding to someone with attitude. It does not mean you never miss a workout, you never have a cookie, or you never snap at your partner. Consistency means that on a typical day, you are there, doing the thing and if you miss a day, you get right back on track the next day, meal, interaction, workout, or whatever it is you are being consistent with!
You can think about consistency in work-related scenarios too. Imagine if every time you were 10 minutes late to work you just didn’t show up? Or if every time you didn’t make a sale you went home for the day? You’d probably get fired! So what do you do instead? You show up to work anyways, you pick up the phone and call another lead, and you don’t call it quits after one small hiccup. You don’t give up and you keep putting the reps in.
Why High-Functioning Adults Struggle with Habit Consistency
You’ve probably already heard you “need discipline, not motivation” or to value “consistency over perfection”. This isn’t news and it’s not a brand new concept. You might already know and yet you still seem to struggle with being disciplined and making those behavior changes. So what is it about high achieving adults that makes discipline outside of the workplace so difficult?
Many high achievers over-rely on willpower. They are so used to willing themselves to do just about anything to succeed in work they think applying the same methods to their wellness should work just the same.
If you consider yourself high-achieving, you likely pride yourself on being disciplined, having good work ethic, or being a workhorse. You probably enjoy working late hours, going above and beyond on your projects, and being the go-to person for many of your coworkers. When it comes to your health, willpower and unsustainable habits only work for so long and in so many areas of your life at the same time.
Many high-functioning adults struggle with health and wellness consistency for several different reasons:
You don’t receive the same instant gratification you receive when you perform well at work.
You are only motivated extrinsically, not intrinsically.
You are a perfectionist, 2so you are either all-in or all-out.
You don’t receive gratification fast enough
When making physical, nutritional, and mental behavior changes, you need time. These types of changes require a lot more reps over a lot more time. You will likely not see any changes for a few months, let alone a few weeks. When you can’t tell if something is working, you find it to be pointless and give up.
You end up working harder at work or in another area of your life because you feel that you can at least see the progress there. You spend more time working on the areas of your life where you seem to find more return on your investment quicker. This leads you to cast your health habits and mental health practices to the side because they don’t seem to be as rewarding as the actions you’re taking elsewhere.
You are relying on extrinsic motivation
We’ve already discussed that motivation is not a reliable source of behavior change, more specifically extrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation is a type of motivation that is derived from the outside environment. Think rewards, punishments, or societal expectations.
After a period of time, extrinsic motivation fades because you have no personal tie to that goal. It doesn’t feel important to you and it ultimately doesn’t feel worth it.
What you should try to find more of is intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is derived from the genuine enjoyment or pleasure from doing an activity. When intrinsic motivation drives you, you have a deeper, internal motivation to do something. Intrinsic motivation drives behavior a lot longer than extrinsic motivation.
You have an all-in or all-out mentality
This type of perfectionist mindset is extremely common in high-achieving adults. When high-achievers are on, they are on. But, when they are off, they are really off.
This is because many high achievers seek out intensity. When intensity is valued more than consistency is, sustainability is thrown out the window.
Intensity in a health and wellness journey can look like extreme restriction, over-commitment to exercise, and shutting off all internal cues in order to achieve the “optimal” routine. If one workout is missed, one meal is skipped, or one other small thing is off, the entire routine is thrown out the window because perfection is no longer achievable. This is why many high performing adults are constantly starting over.
Consistency is a systems problem, Not a character flaw
When you are lacking consistency, you need to look at all three areas of health, not just one. Your physical health, nutritional health, and mental health all play a part in consistency. When one piece is missing or unstable, the whole system falls apart. You can only maintain good exercise habits and nutrition habits so long as your mental health stays stable. Your mental health can only be optimal if your exercise and nutrition is in a good place.
When you find yourself in all-or-nothing loops, binge-restrict cycles, and on-again/off-again routines, this should be a signal that at least one of these three areas are off: physical health, nutritional health, or mental health.
All-or-nothing exercise routines = poor mindset around exercise + physical exhaustion
Binge-restrict cycles = over-restriction + poor mental health
On-again/off-again routines = extreme overcommitment + toxic relationships with food & exercise
Rarely are any of these scenarios isolated silos of your health. When you are in cycles with your diet, exercise, and mental health, you are likely dealing with a dysfunctional relationship with more than one, if not all three, of these areas of health.
This is not your fault. These habits, behaviors, and mindsets are deeply rooted in your body and have been developing for a long time, maybe even your entire life. You have likely been trying to treat these unhealthy cycles by targeting one of these three areas: either your diet, exercise routine, or mindset. The problem with this method of treatment is you’re only addressing one part of the equation. What you should be doing is treating all three.
What happens when mental health, movement, & nutrition communicates
When you treat all three of these areas at once, you finally connect the puzzle pieces. You are finally able to see the full picture and determine what is actually going on beneath the surface that is flooded with symptoms.
Symptoms that you need integrated care, rather that individual care, include:
Binge-restrict eating cycles
Yo-yo dieting
Constant food noise
Poor body image
Body dysmorphia or obsessive thoughts around food
Beliefs that a perfect routine is necessary to get results
All of these symptoms are signaling to you that it isn’t just about willpower, motivation, or discipline. You may have deeply ingrained mindsets and behaviors around exercise and food. Trying to treat these mindsets and behaviors by only addressing what’s on the surface causes you to continue to reinforce what you have already been struggling with.
What your next step should be, is committing to addressing all three areas at once. When you treat your physical, nutritional, and mental health all at the same time, you are giving yourself a real fighting chance to make true behavior change. You are able to connect the dots, undo unhelpful mindsets and self-beliefs, and re-frame your health and wellness journey.
You are giving yourself the opportunity to create sustainable habits, eating behaviors that support your goals, and exercise routines that leave you feeling energized, rather than depleted. You are able to feel satisfied with the effort you are putting in physically and mentally. This is the type of change that creates real, lasting progress.
What Integrated Care Actually Looks Like In Practice
When you integrate your mental, physical, and nutritional care, you are receiving holistic treatment, rather than fragmented care. Integrated care looks like having a full health and wellness team that communicates and collaborates to create a care plan that feels aligned rather than overwhelming.
Integrated care doesn’t mean seeing more professionals or adding complexity into the mix. It actually means the opposite. Your care team should create a plan that includes all three essential areas of health that can seamlessly integrate into your current life. They should communicate with each other and with you. Your entire team should be on the same page, helping you make the meaningful changes that address the mental and physical areas of your health in a way that is proportional to you.
In this structure, each professional is given the ability to stay within their area of expertise while sharing insight so you are not left to connect the dots on your own. The focus shifts from fixing one issue at a time to supporting the whole person.
Over time, this coordinated care helps you move away from the cycles you have felt stuck in, and towards a lifestyle that you can thrive in.
The Future of Wellness
The future of health care and wellness will involve more collaboration between providers. Holistic health care is on the rise, and mental, nutrition, and movement specialists will not exist in isolation. In order to provide care that truly supports people long term, professionals will need to work alongside one another.
Many individuals are already investing in therapy, exercise, and nutrition support, yet still feel like their efforts are disconnected. As the wellness and healthcare industries evolve, more integrated approaches to care will likely become an important part of helping people feel well in a sustainable way.
If these ideas resonate with you, I share more thoughts about integrated health, consistency, and sustainable habits through my writing and content. You can support this endeavor and mission by subscribing to the newsletter so you can stay updated on future projects, collaboration opportunities, and ways to get involved as this work continues to develop.
