Most of us have said some version of this before.

I’ll start on Monday.

I’ll get back on track after vacation.

Once life settles down.

Or perhaps…

I’ll start eating better when I feel more motivated.

If any of those sound familiar, you’re not alone. It’s a very common way to think about behavior change.

The challenge is that motivation doesn’t always show up first. More often than we realize, motivation follows action. Sometimes the hardest part isn’t making a big change. It’s getting started.

Why Waiting Can Keep You Stuck

It’s easy to believe that motivated people naturally follow through on the habits they know are important to them.

Life, however, has a way of interrupting even the best intentions. Work gets busy. Training changes. Travel happens. Sleep suffers. Before long, the routines that once felt automatic start to slip. Waiting until life feels calmer or motivation suddenly appears can leave us waiting much longer than we’d like.

Instead of waiting for motivation to arrive, start by taking one small action.

Why Small Actions Matter

Confidence is often built through successful experiences rather than waiting until we feel completely ready. But a successful experience doesn’t have to mean achieving a big outcome. More often, it means following through on one or two small actions you’ve chosen to work on.

Imagine your goal is to strength train twice a week, but right now you’re struggling to fit in even one session. Rather than trying to overhaul your schedule overnight, you commit to one 20-minute strength workout each week. After a few weeks of consistently following through, you’ve built confidence that this routine can work. From there, adding a second session feels much more realistic.

That’s how momentum grows. Not because motivation suddenly appeared, but because one small success made the next step feel achievable.

Where Do You Start?

One of the most valuable aspects of coaching is helping women identify the right first step.

Evidence-based recommendations provide an excellent starting point, but they rarely tell us how to make those recommendations fit our own lives.

One woman may decide that her first step is preparing a recovery snack before every long ride. Another may begin by eating a small snack before morning workouts. Someone else may focus on establishing a consistent bedtime before making any changes to her nutrition. The recommendation may be similar, but the starting point often isn’t.

Health coaching helps bridge that gap by identifying realistic first steps, learning from what works (and what doesn’t), and building habits that fit your life. Think of it as a series of supported experiments. The goal isn’t to find the perfect first step. It’s to choose one that’s realistic, try it, learn from it, and adjust if needed.

One of the questions we often explore in coaching isn’t: How do I become more motivated?

It’s: What’s one small action I’m ready to take this week that’s aligned with my goals?

That answer looks different for everyone.

For one woman, it might be completing one 20-minute strength session each week. For another, it could be packing a recovery snack before a long ride or preparing a snack the night before an early workout.

A coach I greatly admire often reminds his clients to simply “do the thing.”

It sounds almost too simple, but that’s often where meaningful change begins. The “thing” doesn’t have to be big. It simply needs to be the small action you’ve committed to taking. Following through on that commitment builds confidence, and confidence makes the next step feel possible.

Meaningful change rarely starts with a sudden burst of motivation. More often, it begins with one small action, one decision, one commitment, and one step forward.

Ready to Take Your First Step?

You don’t have to figure it all out on your own.

If you’re ready to stop waiting for motivation and start building habits that fit your life, coaching can help. Schedule a complimentary information call to explore what coaching with Nutrify might look like for you.