When I analyzed the responses to your most significant health challenges, it became clear that one of the top barriers to achieving health goals is consistency. We live in an imperfect world where the wind isn’t always at our backs and progress doesn’t always match effort. How can we maintain good habits when life is unpredictable, or when the journey doesn’t meet our expectations?

In this interview, Dr. Simon Marshall, PhD and I talk about some of the ideas and situations that cause us to get derailed when working toward long-term goals. We discuss planning ahead for the inevitable imperfect days, coping with injury, and using behavioural principles to overcome the all-or-nothing mentality that keeps us stuck. If you find this podcast helpful, you’ll love Simon’s new training course, Nudge Tactics for Health Coaching where he teaches the new behavioural science on how people make decisions about their health. 

Here’s the outline of this interview with Simon Marshall:

[00:01:17] Behavioural consistency, expectations.

[00:01:34] Expectancy Theory of Motivation.

[00:03:36] Permission to be imperfect.

[00:04:32] Catastrophizing.

[00:07:00] Cheat days.

[00:08:24] Traffic light analogy.

[00:13:07] Coping with injury successfully.

[00:14:20] Appraisal process.

[00:15:42] Investigative health hustle.

[00:18:13] Delusion funnel.

[00:19:09] Symptom journal.

[00:20:40] Book: The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion, by Simon Marshall and Lesley Paterson.

[00:21:03] Performance profile.

[00:23:40] Behaviour change when busy.

[00:25:36] Biology of motivation; creating momentum.

[00:26:29] PowerDot muscle stimulation.

[00:26:53] Study: Paillard, Thierry, et al. "Effects of two types of neuromuscular electrical stimulation training on vertical jump performance." The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research 22.4 (2008): 1273-1278.

[00:27:28] Habit stacking.

[00:28:40] Essentialism; Book: Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, by Greg McKeown.

[00:30:00] forum.nourishbalancethrive.com.