Stay motivated when progress is slow

How to just keep going

A few months ago, I decided it would probably be wise to lose a few pounds. Middle-aged weight gain can sneak up on a person pretty easily, and my weight at the doctor’s office was the highest I’d seen in a while. In shoes, but still!

I didn’t need to lose a lot of weight, so I haven’t pursued weight loss drugs. I figured I’d just do it the old fashioned way. Drink a little more water and a little less of everything else. Eat more produce. Work out a little more frequently.

As I know from past experiences losing weight after pregnancies, the scale will likely move eventually, but boy is it slow. Sustainable weight loss — the sort that doesn’t feel like terrible deprivation — often comes out to about half a pound a week. People cycle up and down with their weight through the day, or through the month for women. This range can easily be 3-4 pounds. If you do the math, you’ll see that weight loss of half a pound a week can look like nothing for the first 6-8 weeks. Indeed, if you started your weight loss journey while on the bottom end of the range, the scale could move a little bit in the “wrong” direction, even if you’re doing everything “right.”

No wonder people get discouraged.

The trade-offs of sustainable change

But I do think there are ways to stay motivated until progress is more obvious (and 3 months in it is, at least in the sense that I never see the numbers at the top of my range anymore, and have seen several new ones on the lower side). This is true for weight loss, or any other journey one happens to be taking.

The first is to make sure you’re not changing anything that feels so hard it won’t be sustainable. Even if I never lost a pound it would not feel like deprivation to order a grande instead of a venti of any Starbucks drink with calories. Nor does it feel like deprivation to swap a fancy seltzer for craft beer a few times a week. I’ll still have a beer on a Friday night, but cutting down from 4 a week wasn’t a big ask. Snacking on apples isn’t exactly a sacrifice. The price of sustainable change is that it is slow, but I am also not feeling sad about missing out on a good craft beer at a favorite restaurant — because it’s fine to say yes for occasions that aren’t every day. It is much easier to stick with things that feel like no big deal.

The second is to celebrate any available wins. When progress feels really slow, this might mean celebrating wins based on inputs not outputs. Whether you’re losing weight or not, a good workout feels good. Logging 4-5 good workouts a week is awesome, no matter what happens afterwards. If your goals are financial, having a cheaper grocery bill because you bought the bulk of your groceries at Aldi is worth celebrating, even if your net wealth is no where near you are hoping to be.

A new identity

You can also think more in terms of identity than results. I maintain that anything you do three times a week is a habit. It is part of your identity. So keeping motivated when progress is slow might mean consciously changing how you talk about yourself to take into account this new identity. If you’re trying to write a book, three hour-long writing sessions during the week is an accomplishment, and you are a writer. Talk about this, and refer to yourself this way.

You can borrow motivation from others. This might mean having an accountability partner or group you can check in with frequently. These people can help celebrate process wins when the outcome pickings are slim. I find that motivational literature is helpful too. I like reading weight loss stories, even if these situations are very different from mine. Reading about someone else’s amazing workout makes me want to go for a run.

And finally, it might help to do some mental time travel. Yes, progress is slow and seems negligible now. But now is a fleeting concept. Eventually, time will move forward and if you just keep going, evidence of progress will eventually accumulate. Losing 1-2 pounds a month feels and looks like nothing in the moment, but months keep passing, and after a year it would be quite a bit. So picture yourself in a year. Eventually the year will pass. The difference between nothing and just a little more than nothing isn’t much on any given day. But over the long haul, it is.

How do you stay motivated when progress is slow?