Expecting yourself to stick to the same fitness routine, no matter what, is why it fails.

Because the only predictable thing about life is that it’s unpredictable.

A kid gets sick. Sleep falls apart. The to-do list explodes.

You can’t know which one is coming or when, but you can know something is, and you can build your routine to expect it.

That’s the whole trick: take two minutes and decide, in advance, exactly what you’ll do the next time life goes sideways.

Here’s the coaching conversation that shows how it works.

One of the biggest lessons from 15 years of coaching is this: once you know it, it will feel like you can see the future.

In a live Q&A, George (not his real name) described a pattern he kept running into.

He’d start strong. A few good weeks.

Then a kiddo would get sick, or some other responsibility would pop up, sleep would fall apart for a bit, and the whole routine would go with it.

The follow-up question he hadn’t considered:

“Have we ever planned EXACTLY what to do the next time something like this happens? A version of your plan that you can commit to when you’re running on four hours of sleep and have a sick kid to take care of?”

He hadn’t.

He’d been treating the sick kid as something that happens to the plan. Not as a predictable part of the plan.

Working through it, here’s what he came up with:

“Next time my routine is thrown off, I’m going to do this 10-minute light workout that I enjoy and will keep me moving without destroying me when I’m already running on fumes.”

Now he wasn’t just reacting in the moment, trying to gut it out. He knew exactly what to do, and it fit what he actually needed.

Life Disruptions Are Predictable

These moments don’t come out of the blue. They are predictable.

  • A kid is going to get sick.
  • Your sleep is going to get messed up.
  • You’ll have way too much on your to-do list.
  • You’ll forget your gym bag at home.
  • Your motivation will come and go.

The exact one and the exact timing are unknown, but the fact that something will happen is inevitable.

Once you accept that the only predictable thing is that life is unpredictable, you can use that to your advantage.

Build Your “Crystal Ball” Plan

Take two minutes and finish this sentence:

“The next time ___ happens, I’m going to ___.”

  • First blank: the thing that knocked you off track the last time you were trying to get into a fitness routine.
  • Second blank: the best version of your plan you can still commit to on one of those days.

You won’t always get it right. Sometimes life will throw something at you that you really didn’t see coming. But the more disruptions you’ve navigated, the clearer your crystal ball becomes — and the better you get at keeping your routine intact when it matters most.