How to Build Self-Discipline After 40 Without Motivation

Nikkiey: It's one of the truest tests of discipline that exists, in my opinion, because it requires you to override the impulse. Truly self-discipline. I mean that, literally.

Maggie: It's amazing. You think that you're like, I got this, I've been doing this for years. And then you still hear something like that and you're like, no, I needed to hear that.

Maggie: You're going to have doubt. You're going to have those feelings of, I am not where I should be. We got Jana over here. She's lost 20 pounds in the last three months. We start comparing ourselves. We go to pretty dark places. And none of those feelings, none of them, are going to give you the results you're looking for. And I am here to say this with my full heart: gratitude is the antidote for that.

Nikkiey: What's going on, WarriorBabes? Hey, everybody. For those of you that are here tonight, which is 400, almost 500 of you, thank you for showing up in August, in the depths of summer, when I'm sure you have tons of stuff going on right now. So I just want to applaud you for being here, because being here and showing up live, the energy can be conveyed stronger. The things that we talk about just land harder. It brings you into this moment right now.

I've been notorious for watching recordings of something while I'm driving, and I have to pause it and go back 10 seconds, then go back 20 seconds, and then I find myself out in space and I have to rewind it a whole two minutes. So being here in the moment is extremely valuable to you and to your journey. I know some of you catch the recordings, but there's just something different about showing up.

I think tonight it's going to be short and quick, but it's going to be extremely effective, what Maggie and I want to talk to you about. You know that we like to lean a little bit more into the mental side of things, the mindset side of things, something that we honestly believe matters. You know I say nutrition is king, exercise is queen. But mindset has to be above those two things. Because if mindset ain't right, then the nutrition isn't going to be nutritioning and the exercising isn't going to be exercising, if that makes sense. Your mindset's got to be on point in order for those two things to work.

And that's why tonight we're going to lean into talking to you about self-discipline. Before you think that you may already know this, just stay with me. A lot of social media has been going off saying you don't need more discipline, you don't need to lean into this category. I thought for a second that I leaned too hard into the discipline thing with you years ago and that I needed to be a little bit softer. But I've been checked on that myself, because I firmly believe that if you don't develop this skill, things will be a lot harder for you and for your journey moving forward when it comes to nutrition and exercise. And I believe it is genuinely a skill.

So I don't want you to get off this call tonight and be like, I hope that I wake up with more self-discipline because of the call that Nikkiey and Maggie had. That's not going to happen. But what I can promise you is that if you lean into the things we're going to talk about tonight, over time it will be developed. For some of you who are in year two or year three of this journey, you've built self-discipline, so some of this will probably be a reminder, maybe a wake-up call if you find yourself backing off a little in this realm. And for those of you that are newer, we hope that this lands for you, because this can genuinely be a game changer for you long term.

So get out a pen and paper and write things down. I want you to take notes on everything Maggie and I cover tonight, because we want you to implement it starting tomorrow. The more you do that, the more you're going to develop this kind of mindset over time. And if you're a VIP, I can say to you, winners, you have that winner's mindset. This is going to help you feed more of that winner's mindset, because a lot of you are already winners. I think this will help you give more credit to yourself for developing this type of skill set over time.

And I want you to hear this personally from me, because, as I just said, discipline at the beginning of my journey was everything I had to lean on. And I got a little soft in the last couple of years, thinking, oh, maybe it's not discipline, maybe some people need a little more empathy with it. Maggie does a really good job being more empathetic. I do a really good job of just giving you the straightforward, no-BS, direct type of love. You can agree with me on that, right, Maggie?

Maggie: I think we can both agree on that.

Nikkiey: You are very much, let me hug you and be your best friend. And I'm going to be the tough sister that leans into you. That's why Maggie and I work so well together.

But I'll say this: 99% of the reason why I am successful in the journey, and I'm sure Maggie can also agree with this, and in what I've experienced in my life, is directly correlated to my ability to act despite how I feel. I am not always motivated. I am not always fired up. I am not somebody that's like, I can't wait to get to the gym, I can't wait to get my workout in. I'll be the first one to tell you that is not me. There are some days where I don't want to do the thing.

First of all, I'm having a really hard time. Some of you know that I was on vacation last week. I was on PST time, and I'm having a really hard time coming back to EST time. I don't know if you've experienced that, but it is a real thing that I'm struggling with. I'm waking up at eight o'clock and I'm like, where is my day? Because when I was on PST, I was waking up easily at 5 a.m. and I was having no problem.

So to do what I had to do yesterday, which was go to the gym, meal prep and get my life back in check, I did not want to do any of that. I was disoriented, because the time difference is just wild. But despite how I felt, I knew that if I went to the gym, I would feel better. And sure enough, I did after I got done at the gym. And I knew getting my meal prep done would set me up for the rest of the week. Once I was done, I was like, I feel so much better knowing that my whole week is now set up with the food that I get to eat. It just makes me feel locked in.

But I'm not motivated to do those things. I built the discipline to get the things done no matter what emotion I'm feeling in the moment. Now, being over a decade into it, I have the feeling, but I'm like, okay, let me act despite what I feel. And I want you to develop that type of motto: I'm going to act despite what I feel.

I'm not saying your feelings aren't valid. Trust me, I know what it feels like to not want to do the thing. But the way I think about it is, if I don't do what I need to do, I'm not going to get to my goal. If I hadn't meal prepped yesterday, today would have been a wash with my nutrition. So I want you to think of that, act despite how you feel, because your feelings are always going to want to hold you back. We're going to get into this tonight, but they're always going to hold you back in the old self, the old patterns of the old you. And that urge to go act anyway is you developing that new emotion that can soon override those old emotions. We're going to dive into that tonight.

Because you can't rely on your own motivation to go work out or to hit your macros. Some of you probably already know this. It's going to ebb and flow. You've heard me say that before. People always say, I just have to start when I'm motivated, or when Monday comes around I'll start again, because I'll be motivated at the start of the week. Your motivation is going to ebb and flow. That tank is going to run dry, and it will at the most inopportune, worst times.

You're fired up at the start of a journey. You're fired up joining WarriorBabe. But I'll tell you, that motivation is going to wash out quick three months in. It's going to wash out quick six months in. And this is the emotional side of why people quit. Then they wait for it to come back. I'll just wait till I'm motivated again.

So I want you to stop relying on that motivation feeling, stop relying on the feelings, and really start developing your self-discipline muscle. Think about it this way: discipline is the ability to control your feelings and overcome your weaknesses. It's the ability to pursue what you know is right despite the temptation to abandon it. That's the best way I can articulate it to you.

Does that make sense? It's the ability to pursue what you know you have to do in order to get to your goal, which is work out, track your macros, get enough sleep, drink your water, get your steps in, those basic things, despite the temptation to abandon doing those things. And that temptation is typically your feelings of not being motivated. I'm tired. I'm exhausted. I had a long day at work. Feeling incompetent, feeling imposter syndrome, feeling scared to get into the weight room. Those are feelings. But it's like, okay, I have this feeling of being nervous or scared to go into the weight room. Cool, I can acknowledge it. But I'm going to still go act anyway. Does that make sense? Cool.

So for today, we're going to talk about five specific strategies that I want you to write down. And I'm going to give you the bonus one right out of the gate. It's consistency. So write that down as the bonus, right at the top of your page: consistency. Then we'll talk about the five.

You know consistency is what produces consistent results. You don't need to be perfect. You just need to be consistent. You know from Atomic Habits, if you've read that book, every single time you take action toward your future self, it's a vote toward the future self that you are becoming. And if you are consistent the majority of the time, you are going to win.

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Nikkiey: If you are inconsistent, that inconsistent effort is going to produce inconsistent results. So if you're wondering why you're not seeing results, I would ask yourself honestly, am I being consistent? And I would beg you to be really honest with that. Am I, six or seven days of the week at least, logging and paying attention to my food? And not only logging and paying attention to my food, but actually eating what I put into my logs? Am I getting my workouts done? Am I being honest with the check marks inside the app? Being honest with yourself is your gold. That's your self-check. That's what's going to create the momentum you're looking for to be consistent.

Okay. So consistency is the bonus one. The first strategy I want to talk about is resisting impulses. Specifically, I mean urges that are not connected to the goals you are going for. Let me explain it like this. We all have urges throughout the day, and they are typically tiny and constant ones. Like, okay, I just feel like a snack, even though at the end of the day your macros are done. Or, outside of nutrition, and this one may land hard for you, I just want to check social media. I want to look at my email for no reason, just because I unlocked my phone.

Or the kids have leftovers on their plate, and I don't want to waste any food. It's just sitting there, so I'm going to eat my kids' leftovers. Or, and I'm so notorious for this, you have a peanut butter jar and you're weighing out your peanut butter. You've got the grams, 16 or 32 grams. And you're like, but I could just lick the rest of the peanut butter off the spoon. Resisting that urge means you go straight to the sink, run it under the water and wash that spoon off.

Those are the impulses I'm talking about. They feel small, and individually they might be. But the habit of immediately reacting to every single one of them, without a pause, without a choice, is what keeps you stuck. Some of you would just go lick the spoon. Some of you do the whole thing on your phone. Some of you are like, oh man, I just want a snack, and immediately you're already eating. You need to run the impulses, not let the impulses run you.

To understand impulses a little deeper: they're loops. They're trained loops. Your brain is wired to certain cues and certain behaviors. I could go into the whole cue, trigger, reward, behavior loop that he talks about in Atomic Habits. But your brain is wired this way, and typically that behavior happens automatically before your conscious mind can even weigh in to help you decipher the impulse.

For example, and I'm notorious for this as well, we all are: you unlock your phone, and you have this whole map. You immediately do this whole course of action without deciding to. You unlock your phone, you open Instagram. Once you're done with Instagram, you open your email. Once you're done with your email, you open Facebook. It's this loop, the same order every single time. Have you done that? You know what I'm talking about?

Maggie: Yeah. I'm guilty too.

Nikkiey: And I'm speaking for myself. I literally will do this on the couch after today. It's been a long day.

Maggie: Playing games, right? Chocolate after dinner.

Nikkiey: I mean, I can't wait to have my four pieces of Dove chocolate. But yeah, you know what I'm talking about. It's a loop. And then 10 minutes later you look up from your phone and you're like, holy cow, how did I get here? I just started scrolling social media, and I had to remember that I had an email I had to check.

So what I'm saying is, resisting these impulses is a practice. It's the practice of inserting a pause between the cue and the behavior, because that pause is where your choice lives. That next choice lives there. I hope by the end of the week you're going to catch this with your phone, because that was pretty much the hard example I gave you, and maybe your screen time will go down.

The same thing happens when you want a snack, or you want to skip a set at the gym because you're short on time, or something like that. When you feel the impulse, catch it, pay attention to it, and then decide. Not react. Decide. It's like, okay, I feel like checking social media. Pause. Not right now. Close the phone. Put the phone down. It's so rewarding when it happens. It almost feels like I've gamified it. I feel like eating what's left on the plate. Nope. It's going in the trash. I'm not hungry. I'm not doing it. Think about it as a game with yourself.

The more you practice this, the more automatic the pauses become. It's hard to completely wipe it out, and I wouldn't expect anybody to, because like I said, I'm so guilty of it. But you'll notice it get less and less over time. That is discipline. When you eventually catch the impulse before it can fully form, that is discipline. That is control. Being able to catch yourself saying, I don't feel like going to the gym right now, and still doing it anyway, is the ability to decide rather than allowing the emotion to fully form so that you don't end up going. That's discipline.

And it applies to every area of your life. It applies to the phone. It applies to food. It applies to your time. It applies to literally every area. You're going to feel a lot of resistance when you go to make this change. Embrace that resistance, and recognize that instead of reacting to every impulse, you are deciding to choose a better behavior.

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The second one I would lean into is learn to love the pain. This one feels deeply personal to me, and I want to be transparent with you, because I think it truly matters. I'm not talking about loving the pain of an injury or breaking a bone. I'm not talking about any of that. I mean the physical exertion: the heart racing, the muscles burning, the sweat dripping, the moment in a set where you feel like you just want to stop and drop the weight. Most people avoid that.

I'll never forget this. When I started my fitness journey, I got my mom on board with everything I was doing, and she said, I don't like sweating. And I was like, what? Sweat is not an indicator of your progress, don't get me wrong. I don't really sweat nowadays, because my body has adapted to this type of training. Unless I'm doing conditioning work, I really don't with strength training. But at the beginning of your journey, you will.

And people avoid it. Oh, the muscles are burning too much, I've got to stop. Oh, my heart is racing too fast, I've got to stop. People avoid that. They find the comfort and they stay there. They find a place or a pace where it's comfortable, where they're just on the brink of sweating, and they slow down their intensity. I've seen it all the time. When I used to do in-person training before WarriorBabe, people would just stop. I would catch it and I wouldn't let them. But they would do enough to say they worked out without ever actually pushing past their edge. And then they wonder why they're not feeling challenged.

This is why I would lean into you. If you feel like you're going through the motions in your workouts, I would challenge you: why are we stopping here? That could also be why you feel like you're not seeing the results you expected, because growth doesn't happen in comfort. Growth literally happens on the edge. It happens when you push into the discomfort. It happens when you create metabolic stress on your muscles, when you create that cardiovascular challenge. It's the moment that feels like it's too much and you go through it anyway.

Have you been on the other side of that? First of all, your central nervous system is completely taxed, but it feels so good. If it doesn't challenge you, it doesn't change you. When you go through it anyway, in that moment where you push and you feel like it's too much, it's amazing. You get to the other side and you're like, holy cow. Not only does that build your confidence as well, but that is where strength is built, physically and mentally.

And as I said, I was going to be transparent with you about why this hits on such a personal level. Not many of you know this. I really haven't shared that story. I grew up in a very difficult environment. And when I was in my sets a decade ago, I would channel that. I would push myself through the hardest sets by channeling something that was real. When my sets got hard, I would take my mind to the darkest alleys of my life growing up, and I would channel those experiences into fuel. I would push through the pain in the gym because I had pushed through harder things outside of it. And I would let that be my fire.

Now, I know that's not everybody's method. Some of you use your kids as fuel, or you channel the stress at the end of a hard work week, or what your boss said to you, and you let that out inside the gym. For me, I put on Linkin Park and I just get into it. I don't know about you, Linkin Park or Papa Roach, one of those heavy metal bands from growing up. You think about who you're doing this for. I think about how I'm doing this for my future self, the things I get to experience, a strong body and mind. And then when you put that song on, it just hits different. It hits so good, and it carries you through.

I'm curious, and some of you are popping in some mindset fuel: what songs do you listen to? Do you listen to any heavy metal bangers like that, or punk rock? Whatever your method is, the principle is the same. You have to find a way to walk toward the hard part instead of away from it. Nickelback is good. Yeah. Last Resort, Papa Roach. There you go.

When I was training for bodybuilding back in the day with my coach, we called his gym in his house the pain cave. I kid you not, it was called the pain cave. And I'll never forget what he told me when I was pushing through some of the hardest sets. He would always say, this pain is just temporary. Let that sink in. In those workouts, that pain is just temporary. You're going to leave the gym, get in your car, drive off, and you're not going to be in pain.

So when I say love the pain, I mean love the burn, love that sensation, love your heart racing. Love those things, because first of all, you're doing something a lot of people aren't able to do. One of my really good friends is in a wheelchair. She'll never experience this type of pain. We get to do this. We don't have to do this. We get to do this.

Maggie: Yeah. Being able to move is a real blessing.

Nikkiey: Being able to go to that type of exertion and pain inside the gym is a real blessing. So learn to love that pain. Learn to love that burn. Learn to welcome that challenge. Learn to see the discomfort as evidence that something is actually happening in your body. That's where you grow.

So that was the second one: learn to love the pain. The first one was resisting your impulses. The third one is sleep. I know this one might surprise you. We just talked about some really in-depth stuff, and now I'm going to talk about sleep. But sleep is truly self-discipline. I mean that, literally. Going to bed at the same time. I took it for granted in the last week. It has been a process trying to get back to EST time, I'm not going to lie.

But challenge yourself to go to bed at the same time and wake up at the same time every morning. I know Maggie wakes up and does her routines. She goes outside, she steps on the grass. That stuff matters. It's one of the truest tests of discipline that exists, in my opinion, because it requires you to override the impulse to stay up. There's another impulse to resist. Or to not hit snooze. It requires you to treat your sleep schedule like a non-negotiable commitment to yourself. These things make such a huge impact on your self-discipline.

At the end of the night, when you're watching TV and it's nine o'clock and you know you need to be in bed at 9:30 but you're in the middle of the show, you stop it anyway. You know you can pick it up the next day. And not hitting the snooze button is really hard. I did that the last two days just trying to get back into the rhythm. But that is truly an act of self-discipline. You don't hit the snooze button. You get up and you start moving anyway.

Because when you go to bed and wake up at consistent times, your body learns that rhythm, and it starts producing the right chemicals at the right times. It knows, okay, at 8:30 melatonin is going to start producing, and it gets you sleepy. Then cortisol is what wakes you up in the morning in a healthier, appropriate way. It fires you up. And then dopamine at the right moments is what supports your mood and your motivation at the right times.

When you mess with that schedule, going to bed at midnight one night, especially on the weekends, or staying up until 10 p.m., or hitting snooze on your alarm, or sleeping in on a Saturday morning, you throw all of that off. Melatonin shows up at the wrong time. You walk through your day feeling like a zombie, or you crave high-calorie comfort foods because your body is trying to compensate for the dysregulation of going to bed at all different times. Your training suffers. Your recovery suffers. Your results suffer.

I genuinely believe this might be one of the most important strategies on this list: getting your sleep right. And I mean really right, consistently every night. Again, weekends are weekends, and you don't have to be perfect. Consistent doesn't mean perfect. It just means the majority of the time you are going to bed at the same time and waking up at the same time. And I promise you will see faster results in this program and every other area of your life.

So police yourself on this. Even if you're in the middle of a good show, like I said, police yourself on it. And if you're not tired yet and your mind is racing, you're wired and tired, that's even more of a reason to work on this strategy.

All right, so we've got resisting your impulses, love the pain, and sleep. Maggie's going to take the last two. And the last two are arguably the best two as well, on top of sleep. Maggie's going to take the show on the last two. You've got it, Maggie.

Maggie: And end with a bang.

Nikkiey: Like you always do.

Maggie: We'll end with a bang. That was fantastic, though. I love hearing all that. It's amazing. You think that you're like, I got this, I've been doing this for years. And then you still hear something like that and you're like, no, I needed to hear that. I needed to hear that. It's easy, especially when you start feeling a little overconfident, to start letting things slide, because you're like, I got this. So it's nice to get that reminder. You start dipping your pinky toe off the rails, and sometimes you've got to get it back on. So thanks, Nikkiey. That was fabulous.

I love, love, love strategy number four. And I didn't used to. I thought it was woo-woo, like, yeah, whatever. But the more I've studied health and nutrition and lifestyle, the more I see this is really important. As some of you might know, when I first started my health journey six or seven years ago, I started listening to Ben Azadi. Do any of you follow him? He's just a sweet dude. He was big into fasting and keto, and he's changed his way of looking at some things. That's why I like him, too. He admits when he thinks, man, I was wrong on that.

One thing he's always stuck with, he calls vitamin G, and I love that. It's gratitude. Gratitude changes your brain. It completely changes your brain. So I want to talk about that, because your brain changes when you live this lifestyle. It's important that we recognize what is changing, why it's changing and how we can target that change for even better results.

So before you start rolling your eyes at me, like, yeah, yeah, gratitude, whatever, and you're where I was, hear me out. I don't want to talk about toxic positivity. That drives me nuts. This is completely different. It's not about pretending everything's hunky-dory. This is very specific, a practical mental skill. And if you look at the most successful women, they practice this, and they practice it with consistency. So it's kind of putting all these things together.

Let me ask you this. How many of you spend a significant portion of your day thinking about your future? About what has not happened yet. Results you haven't seen yet. Progress you haven't made yet. A body you don't have yet. Okay, there are the thumbs. We all know how that feels. All of us have done that, and it's cost us something.

When you're constantly living in the future, in what it should be, what you want it to be, what it's not yet, why is this taking so long, you're completely blind to what is actually happening right now. And what you're going through right now, at this moment, is significant. You're making progress. You're building the habits.

And gratitude changes you on a cellular level. You've got to read some of the studies. They're amazing. They've actually looked at people on the cellular level and what happens when they start practicing gratitude. It changes you. It actually brings down your cortisol and helps you burn fat. This is scientifically proven. But you're not going to see any of this if you're too focused on, oh, that wedding, that reunion coming up, why aren't I seeing these changes, I've got to fit into those jeans. That's one of those impulses. You've got to recognize it and reel it in from there.

Here's the thing about mental state. Anxiety is just going to live there. You're going to have doubt. You're going to have those feelings of, I am not where I should be. We've got Jana over here. She's lost 20 pounds in the last three months. We start comparing ourselves. We go to pretty dark places. And none of those feelings, none of them, are going to give you the results you're looking for. And I am here to say this with my full heart: gratitude is the antidote for that.

Gratitude is usually thought of as just a feeling that washes over you when something good happens. This is different. This is gratitude as an actual discipline. Something you practice daily. Something you do absolutely intentionally to actually change your brain, those neural pathways. You have the power to do that, and to actually see what is happening instead of just what's missing in your life.

Here's the exercise. I want you to write this down, because I really want you to try this, and you will be amazed at what it does for you. Every morning, before you look at your phone, before you check anything, write five things you're grateful for.

In a book I was reading, and it'll come to me, they talked about thinking of yourself at the end of the day and writing what you know you're going to be grateful for at the end of the day. I'm so grateful I was able to call my mom and have that conversation. I'm so grateful I was able to get in my protein and I'm fueling my body. I'm so grateful I was able to show up for my family because I had more energy. That's the way I like to do it, but do what works for you.

Because what happens is you start looking for those things in your day. It's your reticular activating system. You know the whole red car thing: you buy a red car, and then you see that everyone and their dog has a red car. It changes your entire day. It doesn't have to be big. It can be tiny little things. I'm so happy I woke up today. I'm so happy the sun is shining. I'm so grateful I have food in my body. I have food in my refrigerator. It might even be, I have a coach in my corner. Or maybe I got stronger this week. I'm noticing changes. My kids made me laugh yesterday. Whatever feels real for you, write it down.

And I tell you, once you've done this for a couple of months and you go back and look at what you wrote, it's beautiful. You realize how your brain has changed. You realize you've started noticing even more details that you are grateful for. Your life changes when you practice and you take vitamin G.

This starts your day in a state of abundance. You're like, I've got it made. You're not thinking about everything you're missing out on. Here's something that's genuinely true: lack attracts more lack. Gratitude attracts more things to be grateful for. That's how your brain works. It's not woo-woo. That's how your brain filters your experiences. So when you start the day looking at what's good, you are craving to find more of it. Your brain just starts searching for it. Your brain likes that win. Oh, there's another one. Oh, there's another one. I got a good parking spot. That package I was waiting for finally came. You start noticing these crazy things and feeling grateful and abundant more than you ever knew was possible.

This is part of your fitness journey. So stop telling yourself that you're not where you should be. Because believe it or not, where you are is exactly where you should be. There's something to know and to learn from exactly what's going on right now, today. That's not failure. This is a moment you need to process, understand and look at.

If you were grateful for every single step of this process, the slow ones, the hard ones, you would be able to see it accumulating. See this process. It keeps you from feeling impatient. You wake up in the morning and you're like, what's today going to bring? Yesterday was pretty great. That is such a better way to wake up in the morning. Like, man, I have a feeling something great is going to happen today. I tell my husband that all the time. I say, something really cool is going to happen today, watch. And without fail, it happens. Without fail.

So be grateful for the month you built the habit. Be grateful for that week you stayed consistent, even when it was really hard. Be grateful for this body. Like Nikkiey said, we are so lucky to have bodies that can move, that we can teach and protect and change. Be grateful for that. Be grateful for the process that's happening, even if you can't see it, because it's happening.

Gratitude is not just a mindset tool. This is a discipline. And it will completely change the way you experience this journey. You will see your success. You will feel your success. You will feel grateful for your success. So if I tell you to do anything, start. I would put it on your phone. I open up my notes and put five things I know I'm going to be grateful for at the end of the day. And it's changed my life, honestly.

All right, I didn't cry. Are you proud of me? I felt it coming a few times. Yay, I did it.

All right. Strategy number five is relentless persistence. And this is a core value. This isn't just a tactic. Relentless persistence is not about just being stubborn. It's about having a completely clear vision of what you're building. When you combine all these things together, everything Nikkiey talked about, your gratitude, all of it is building. It's contributing to your health, your fitness, your life.

And here at WarriorBabe, it's not just about what we look like. That's this much of it. This is so much more than that. This is you as an overall beautiful woman who we want to have the best, happiest and healthiest life. So all of these things matter so much, but you have to practice persistence. And sometimes you have to say no to things you know just don't align. If you're a people pleaser like me, this is a hard one. This is really hard.

This actually happened. I was at a family reunion this weekend, and of course everyone wants to stay up and play cards. And I'm tired. I'm dying. I know I want to have a really good day. But in my head I'm justifying: these are people I love, I can stay up and laugh and have fun. But you know what? I'm going to feel way better if I don't. It's not aligning. I know I need to go to bed. So tomorrow I'm going to have an even better day with them. I'm not going to have to leave to take a nap. I'm not going to feel ornery. And I'm going to feel better because I'll make better health choices. So yes, I said no to a couple of things that in the past I wouldn't have, because they didn't align with the way I know I'll feel my very best.

So now I do much better at planning my days. I plan my weeks. I plan my macros ahead of time. I know what workouts I'm going to do this week. I know what things are going to look like before life happens, because I know life's going to throw me a curveball. You know, too. Every day there's going to be a curveball. And you've got to sit back and say, okay, what's it going to be? How am I going to deal with it? Just be ready, because it's coming at you. It will.

But if you have those things in place, you're not making decisions from ground zero. You've got a plan, and it probably includes a good backup plan. You have that structure. You have the plan. You just have to execute it. You just have to do your thing.

And that's the part most people skip: they just don't say no. You have to practice it, because it's hard. The first time you do it, you think, oh no. You want to apologize. You want to go back and send them a text: hey, I'm so sorry, is that going to be okay? Don't do it. People aren't taking it as hard as you think they are.

Say no when it doesn't serve you. Say no to the invitation that pulls you off track. Say no to the social situations that don't bring you happiness and are going to totally derail you. People are going to make fun of the way you're eating. Say no. You get to. But if you want to say yes, say yes, too. There's nothing wrong with that. I'm just giving you permission to say no when you want to, and it is totally fine.

I know it feels hard. Some of you are people pleasers just like me, and your armpits start sweating just thinking about this. Some of you have been taught that saying no is selfish, or that it makes you seem ungrateful. And it's not. Think about when someone you love and appreciate tells you no. Do you have bad thoughts about them? This is what changed it for me. I don't. I'm like, oh, good for them. I didn't know we could do that. We can say no.

When I first started doing it, I realized, oh, I still like them. I actually have a little more respect for them. And that's what helped me decide it's okay to do that. They might even like me more if I say no. I might even be a better example if I say no. So set those boundaries. The only one who can do it is you. You've got to set your own boundaries.

Every time you say yes to something that doesn't serve you, you're saying no to something that actually does. You might be choosing to just be distracted and not keep your goal in mind. That's just a little temporary comfort that's not going to give you lasting results, and you're probably going to feel a little disappointed in yourself. We don't want that.

Here's the part of persistence I want to stick with you. No one's going to do it perfectly. You don't have to do it perfectly. Not me. Not Nikkiey. She told us about all the mistakes she made. Girl still got her food prep done. She did it. She might have hit snooze, but she still got it done. Not even the most disciplined people you know do it perfectly. No one's going to operate at 100% with all of these strategies all the time. But the women who win are the women who do these things most of the time. That's it. Most of the time. They get back up. They put their pinky back on the rail. They recommit on Tuesday instead of waiting for Monday. They don't let the hard day get to them. It's okay.

There are really two types of women. There are more than two types, but the two that come to mind, you know them. You talk to them. There are women who make excuses. I see them in the gym all the time. I don't know why people do this to me, but they'll come up to me in the gym and start telling me why they missed their workouts Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I'm like, it's okay, you don't need to report to me. But I see it right away. Oh, my grandkids came over. I had a headache. The excuse makers. They have a really hard time looking at themselves, pointing the finger at themselves.

And then there are the women who just make stuff happen. They just do it. No matter what, they make it happen. The women who make excuses, guess what? They get really, really good at making excuses. They get better and better at it. And the women who make it happen get better and better at making it happen. So who's going to get the results?

Which one are you going to be today? Which one are you going to turn into? Ask yourself that in the morning. Who am I going to be today? Am I going to be the girl I'm proud of when I go to bed tonight? Which one are you going to be this week? What do you want people to say about you when you walk out of a room? What thoughts do you want them to have about you? You're the girl who makes it happen.

And you're powerful. You have so much power within you that you just need to let out. You are confident. You are here. You've been showing up. You've been doing this. You know what it takes. You know how good it feels when you hit it. You are persistent. You keep showing up here. You are amazing. If you knew, we need to start recording how we talk about you when you are not in the room. Now I'm going to cry.

Nikkiey and I had to film some reaction videos this week, reacting to some of your success stories, and we couldn't make it through them. We're so proud of you. We're so amazed by you. We're grateful for you. I hope you're grateful for yourself and what you're doing.

Nikkiey: Maggie, you're pulling tears out of me.

Maggie: I know. That's a lot. Shouldn't have talked about it. Gosh dang it. You deserve to put your mask on first. I remember the first time I was sitting on an airplane and heard the flight attendant say, don't put it on your kid first, put it on you. And I thought, oh, that's so rude. My mom had to explain it to me, and I was like, oh, yeah, that's really smart. Put your mask on first. Do things that are in alignment with yourself and your goals. Your family needs you to put your mask on first. And watch what happens. Just watch.

All right. Gosh, we went way longer. Nikkiey, we thought this was going to be short.

Nikkiey: I know. We said at the beginning we were going to be short. Too many good things to talk about.

Maggie: Okay, really quick, just a recap. Write down the bonus. Write down consistency at the top of your page. You're going to do it. Be honest with yourself: where am I being consistent, and where am I not? That's your starting point. Find a place where you can do a little better. Write it down.

Pick an impulse to resist. Pick one thing. You know off the top of your head, the first thing that came to mind. Pick it and do it. I already know what mine is tomorrow. I can't wait.

Set your bedtime. Set it tonight.

Write down the five things you're grateful for. If you want, you can do it my way. I like my way. It's pretty good. What are you going to be grateful for at the end of the day?

And then say no to one thing that does not align with you. Don't think about everyone else's needs. Think about what you need.

All right, did you write that stuff down? Because that's some good stuff. I'm so proud of you. I'm so proud that you're here, so proud of everything you're doing. My heart's just full that I get to be in your presence. So thank you, everyone. I sure love and appreciate you.

Nikkiey: Love you guys. I hope you all have a great rest of your night. Bye, everyone.

Hey, really quick before you go, I have one small favor to ask. If this episode brought you value or sparked something in you, take just a moment to hit that review button. Your rating and review make all the difference in helping more women discover the tools they need to transform their fitness and their confidence. It takes less than a minute, but it can change the path of someone else's journey. Thank you so much for leaving that review. I appreciate you so much.