Why Being Consistently Good Beats Being Occasionally Great
Consistency beats perfection every time. Learn how to ditch the all-or-nothing mindset and build sustainable fitness habits that actually stick in this episode of Get Sculpted.
Ever feel like you’re either all in or completely off the rails?
You’re not alone... and you’re not broken. But if you’ve been white-knuckling your way through strict plans, chasing perfection, or falling off the wagon the minute life gets messy… this episode is the reality check (and relief) you didn’t know you needed.
Because the truth is? Occasionally great doesn’t create lasting results. Consistently good does.
We are calling out the truth on the perfectionist trap that keeps high-achieving women stuck in the start-stop cycle. That loop where one missed workout feels like failure… and if the plan isn’t followed 100%, it’s like, “Why bother?”.
This episode isn’t about getting more disciplined or doing more. It’s about redefining success on your terms. It’s about creating standards that are actually doable in your real life (you know, the one with kids, work deadlines, hormones, and life happening daily). It’s about making progress that sticks, without burning out every six weeks.
We’re not just talking mindset, we’re giving you the tools to flip the script and build a routine that works long-term.
Here’s what we break down:
Why “all or nothing” is secretly sabotaging your progress
How giving 80% consistently beats giving 110% in random bursts
The truth about sustainable fitness (spoiler: it’s not a 6-week challenge)
Why your “bare ass minimums” (BAMs) are the secret weapon to momentum
How to reframe off-weeks without spiraling or starting over
What peaceful success looks and feels like, and how to create it for yourself
So here’s your challenge:
Where have you been expecting perfection… when what you really need is consistency? Call it out. Adjust your approach. And commit to showing up, not just when the stars align, but even (especially) when they don’t.
If you have 40% to give and you give 40%, you gave 100%. That counts.
-Coach Marilynn
Screenshot this episode, tag @getsculpted.ca, and let us know the one standard you’re raising this week. We want to hear what resonates with you and what you’re taking action on.
And if this episode helped you drop the guilt, release the pressure, or finally feel like you're not alone in the messy middle, leave us a 5-star review. Help us reach more women who are ready to stop starting over and start owning their progress, one consistent step at a time.
Mentioned Resources
Book - The Gap & The Gain: The High Achievers' Guide to Happiness, Confidence, and Success
Connect with Get Sculpted
Thanks for joining us on this episode of Get Sculpted! If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review on Apple or Spotify to help us reach even more women ready to cut through the noise and get the real deal on fat loss, muscle building, and what it really takes to build their 2.0 sculpted self inside and out.
This podcast is brought to you in partnership with Leah Bryant Co.
More about the Get Sculpted Podcast
Welcome to Get Sculpted, the podcast designed for women ready to transform their bodies and level up their lives with science-based strategies and actionable advice.
We dive into the essentials of fat loss, muscle building, and metabolism optimization by helping you work smarter, not harder.
This isn’t about quick fixes or fad diets; it’s about creating sustainable habits and stacking wins. We’ll help you fuel your body, strengthen your mindset, and build your 2.0 sculpted self from the inside out.
We’re your hosts, Jordanna, Marilynn, and Tijana. We have over 20 years of collective experience in the training, nutrition, and body transformation business, with over 1000 transformations and counting.
Ready to get stronger, more empowered, and embrace a healthier, more resilient you? Join us every week and start sculpting the life you deserve!
The unedited podcast transcript for this episode of the Get Sculpted podcast follows:
What's the point of trying? This episode is one that you're gonna wanna settle in for and definitely share with other women in your life who you know are thinking and believing the same things. So hello girls and welcome to the podcast.
Jordanna Nativ (00:40.943) Hello.
Tijana (00:41.897) Hey, this is one of my favorite topics and I think it's gonna be really valuable for people in our community and out of our community.
Jordanna Nativ (00:43.834) I love it.
Perfectionist Trap: All-or-Nothing Thinking
Marilynn (00:47.81) Yes, absolutely. So let's kick off by saying that a lot of women, especially, and we know this because we are high achievers, perfectionists, and those of you who like to feel like you're in control, they tend to approach fitness with an all or nothing mindset. We've talked about that mindset a lot on the pod. Either they're all in, they're tracking their food, they're hitting every workout, they're doing everything right, or they're the other extreme where they're doing absolutely nothing. And the problem with that, of course, is it creates this exhausting cycle where you're pushing hard.You burn out, then you quit, and then you start again. And that cycle continues over and over and over. But the issue here isn't discipline. The real problem is you are holding yourself to a standard that is completely unrealistic. And it's an unrealistic version of what progress actually looks like. And the three of us get it because we used to think the same thing, right? If we weren't hitting our workouts and sticking to our meal plans, then we felt like we were failing. Been there, ladies? Right? Right? Yeah.
Jordanna Nativ (01:42.011) 100%, like 100 % didn't even seem like enough. was like the 100 % was the minimum expectation and I had to go beyond that every single time. So I'm psyched for today's episode. It's gonna be a good one.
Tijana (01:47.656) I need more.
Marilynn (01:48.781) Yeah.
Right? Yeah. Yeah. And I know myself as well. I always held myself to this unrealistic standard, right? And then when life got messy, I felt like I failed. So it took me years. I know it took you girls the same to realize that consistency beats perfection every single time. And success is not about being perfect. It's showing up in a way that works with your life. So today's episode is all about breaking this down for you. We're going to talk about
Tijana (01:55.498) Yeah. Marilynn (02:19.915) why all or nothing is sabotaging your progress. We are going to get into why being consistently good is way more powerful than being occasionally great. And we're going to talk to you about how you can build real consistency without burning out. So, Jordan, I would love to kick it off with you. Let's talk about why occasionally great doesn't cut it.
Why Occasionally Great Doesn’t Cut It
Jordanna Nativ (02:39.162) Yeah, I think with Occasionally Great, it's so interesting because this is when most women are, they're not doing enough when they're doing the Occasionally Great, but they're going all in for like this short period of time. And that short period of time is actually why they're struggling because they're doing this all in mentality, this, I'm gonna give it that 150 % for the six week challenge or the 75 hard or the whatever it is.Tijana (03:04.858) Mm-hmm. The diet.
Jordanna Nativ (03:07.416) the diet, the challenge, the whatever, and those parameters are so strict that it's almost impossible to maintain and to bring it into your life. And that's where I think most people go wrong still, even now with so much information about the diet industry. These short bursts are so unpredictable, sorry, so unsustainable, and you can push yourself for a few weeks. can, you know, I remember hearing girls say,
Jordanna Nativ (03:37.397) you could do anything for like 30 days. You could do anything for 90 days or even in a workout. You can do anything for 30 seconds. Yeah, that's true. But what happens after that? And what happens when you want to maintain the results? You know, and this is, think, the crux of that start and stop cycle where people then get this burnt out feeling where not only are they stopping and starting again over and over and over again,
Marilynn (03:39.661) Mm-hmm. Jordanna Nativ (04:03.32) but you're also carrying the weight of the failure from the previous time.
Marilynn (04:06.721) That's right. That's right.
Tijana (04:06.964) And you're not celebrating your wins either. This is one thing we always talk about therapy, but my therapist always says is if you don't actually recognize how far you've come, you're never gonna amplify more of that. yeah, there's a book called The Gap and the Gain. don't know if you, have you guys read that?
Jordanna Nativ (04:22.52) I haven't read that one.
Tijana (04:23.718) you would like it. It's all about high achievers and how we tend to live in the gap, which means like what haven't we achieved yet, what haven't I achieved yet, what haven't I achieved. And we're not in the game, which means, holy crap, like look how far I've come in the last four months, six months.
Tijana (04:37.606) Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think we need a pot on just that, but it ties into, you're never actually celebrating. Like you're always kind of putting yourself down for not living up to this really unrealistic standard that you're not even supposed to maintain all the time if you can barely do it for 30 days.
Jordanna Nativ (04:53.74) It's like, you're always looking forward to the next thing as opposed to taking a minute and living in the moment. Exactly. I,
Jordanna Nativ (05:02.938) Exactly. And also like I heard this analogy. I thought it was kind of funny to this to this topic, part of the topic. It's kind of like when you go, we have most of us, we color her hair. I definitely do. I have some grays going on that I'm, you know, trying to keep under wraps. And it's like trying to color your roots and then washing it out before the timer's up because you're rushing to try and get the result. But you're
Tijana (05:18.132) mine are growing out, but yeah.
Jordanna Nativ (05:28.81) doing that like over and over and over again, you're never really going to get the color that you're really looking for, the richness, the coverage that you might need. And therefore, like that full transformation, you're always going to be disappointed and think that you have to start over. But really what happened is you didn't wait long enough for the magic to actually happen. You didn't do follow the steps properly. You didn't wait long enough. And you just did like the quick fix yet again. And so that's why so many people end up disappointed.
Jordanna Nativ (05:56.897) And then they get resentful and being like, I have to start all over again. I have to try this again. And you know, that's also where that relationship comes with like dieting and exercise because we talk to a lot of women who have this really negative perception and relationship with these things. They see it as like drudgery. So that's the other thing that this short burst of like hardcore and then falling off. Exactly, exactly.
Tijana (06:17.778) Yep, reinforces
Jordanna Nativ (06:19.29) So the big takeaway here is that these short intense bursts, they don't really create real lasting change. They might make some initial progress. They might be great to kickstart things, but you have to have a much longer plan that's gonna get you to the real goal and not just get you to the goal, but keep you there long term. That's really the idea is that you don't really wanna be dieting forever.
Marilynn (06:44.193) Right, and having to restart over and over and over.
Jordanna Nativ (06:46.906) Exactly. So Tia, I'd love for you to like kind of take it over here and talk to us a little bit more about what does that flip side look like?
The Power of the Messy Middle
Tijana (06:54.492) Yeah, one saying that we love coming back to is we don't want 75 hard. We want 365 consistent. Right? And you know what? It doesn't sound sexy, right? I get it. It's like, yeah, I'm really hard. But it's like, OK, are you a hard ass if sure you're hard ass for 75 days. That's great. But there's something to be said for for all the time. And the magic is in the middle. That's another saying that I come back to, know, because it's not about the destination. It's about who you become in the process. And this is why you can'tMarilynn (06:58.027) Yes. Love that. Yeah.
Jordanna Nativ (06:59.94) Preach!
Jordanna Nativ (07:15.234) Hmm. I love that.
Marilynn (07:15.906) Love that.
Tijana (07:24.392) discount the power of what are your everyday habits? How do you actually spend your time training, eating? How do you live your life? What standards do you set? We always talk about these things. And this is your 365 consistent. And for me, one thing I come back to for myself is just like you guys, I'm used to.
Marilynn (07:35.405) Mm-hmm, that's right.
What If 80% Was Enough?
Tijana (07:42.773) I was used to giving 110 % and then feeling so disappointed when I didn't meet that. And then another insight I had from therapy was what if we gave 80 % consistently? What if it wasn't so up and down and up and down? What if the magic is in that middle, right? Like what would giving a consistent 80 % be like? At the beginning you might be like, oh man, I got more to give, I got more to give. But most of the time you're way better off never kind of dipping below a certain point and just hovering there. Because that's when you stack those wins.Jordanna Nativ (08:09.54) The way that I like to think about it is that 20%, you're saving it for the days when you have nothing left and you've gone to the point where like, there's just those days, know, the kids didn't sleep well or, you know, the days are dragging on, you have extra responsibilities or you have a work project that's really just taking all of your energy. And if you go at 80%, you're preserving some of that 20%, that energy for the days when you're maybe like living on a 40 and
Reframing Progress and Building Better Habits
Jordanna Nativ (08:38.956) If you're at a 40 and you can give itself another 20 % and bring it up to a 60, heck, you're probably doing way more than you would have otherwise, right? You're maybe still getting your steps in, you're still drinking your water, eating mostly on planned foods. Like this is where that messy middle is that's gonna get you that consistent progress over time. I think it's very underestimated.Marilynn (09:00.589) Totally. And I know we've been saying a lot of sayings today. We've got our favorite things, but a saying that my therapist talks to me about, or at least did when I was in this cycle, was if you have, let's say, 40 % to give and you give 40%, you've actually given 100%. And I remember, like, obviously that sounds so simple, but when she said that, it did, it clicked so much. Because what does that 100 % look like at different times in your life, at different stages?
Tijana (09:01.563) I agree, yeah.
Jordanna Nativ (09:04.014) Yeah.
Tijana (09:25.458) Right, seasons.
Marilynn (09:27.27) Right, exactly. So that's one of my favorites that applies to this.
Jordanna Nativ (09:27.512) Mm-hmm, seasons.
Define Your Standards and Thing Long-Term
Tijana (09:30.973) Yeah, and even if I zoom out for a second as to kind of what we're talking about for the listener, it's really in the beginning, you want to define what those standards are for yourself. And then you basically want to have kind of your minimum standards and hey, this is where I want to stay consistent. And don't get me wrong, sometimes you are going to have stints where, hey, I'm in a fat loss phase, I'm prepping for photo shoot. You know, I really want to double down. And sometimes you're going to have those periods where you just don't have as much to give, like you said, George. So I think that's important to recognize. And I think a good thing to start is to justMarilynn (09:55.531) Right.
Jordanna Nativ (09:56.228) Mm-hmm.
Tijana (10:00.926) ask yourself, can you see yourself doing this exact same routine that you're doing now for the next five years? Do you still see yourself maintaining that? And if I asked someone who was, I always loved saying that when keto was big, I don't think it's as big, thank God, but I feel like now it's carnivore. You'd ask people, they'd be like, five years, no, honey, not five years. And I'm like, so why are you doing it now? Please tell me that. If you're not gonna do it in five years, there's no point in
Jordanna Nativ (10:19.268) We're moving on.
Marilynn (10:22.957) Yeah, that's such a good point.
Jordanna Nativ (10:24.826) Mm-hmm.
Tijana (10:31.048) wasting so much time and energy on that now. So you really want to define what's something you can follow for a lifetime, not just what you can follow for six weeks. Cause to your point earlier, you can do anything for six weeks. And then I think giving yourself as well, to not be perfect because you're human and there's 8 billion of us and we're all, you know, not immune to making mistakes in the journey. So it's also knowing that when that does happen, it's not the slip up that defines you. It's
Marilynn (10:41.133) Yeah, that's a really good point.
Jordanna Nativ (10:41.732) Mm-hmm.
It’s Not About Being Perfect - It’s About Coming Back
Tijana (11:01.534) how fast you can come back from that and come back to your standards. And I know you guys can relate to that. We're all kind of recovering perfectionists, right? Yeah.Marilynn (11:02.679) Yes.
100%. We're all nodding going, uh-huh, uh-huh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's true. And it's so much more fun now. Like, I see fitness now as fun. I see it as like a positive challenge. And it's Jordanna Nativ (11:09.626) We're just a bunch of recovering perfectionists trying to embrace our mistakes and the journey along the way.
Marilynn (11:26.067) It's changed everything, my relationship with myself even, because now I'm not hating my life every single second. you T, you said about like the journey too. This is how we build these habits. So when you're going fast and furious, that's the other thing you're, you're missing out on the joys, but you're actually missing out on the habit building. So it's, it's so important to be in that middle. I'm glad you brought that up.
Tijana (11:47.569) Everything is an opportunity. That's how I frame it for my clients. And this is what I tell them too. In a check-in when they might say, gosh, this was not good moment for me. I had to slip up. I'm like, okay, and what are you gonna do differently next time? Can we move on without guilt from this? Or if it was even a really good couple of weeks, I say, awesome. How can you be 1 % better? What does that look like for you? Because I think often we think more, more, more. I need to do more. It's not enough. It's not enough. Two things can be true. You can say, I did really well.
Tijana (12:16.688) and I'm gonna do a little bit better. And that's how you slowly become your 2.0 self. So it's really defining what does a 1 % improvement look like? Because if you improve just 1 % better every day, you'll be 37 times better in a year.
Marilynn (12:25.847) Mm-hmm.
Marilynn (12:30.891) Yeah, I love that.
Jordanna Nativ (12:31.802) I love that. And I also think even on the weeks or the check-ins, like when I'm reading things from our clients, I'm like, well, even though you had a couple of slip ups or things didn't go perfectly to plan, what did you do well? Because you couldn't have fallen flat on your face 100 % of the time either, every day, all day, 24-7. also even...
Marilynn (12:47.49) Right. Percent every day.
Tijana (12:52.305) Yeah.
Jordanna Nativ (12:55.534) you know, we're so quick to see the negative. It's really, really easy to fall into that trap. And it's also redirecting them to come back and be like, you did some things right here too. So maybe we're at maintenance this week instead of making some progress, but that might be a win in of itself too. So it's really pulling everybody back and kind of saying, what's the win here? How do we redirection and, you know, keep going exactly.
Marilynn (12:57.57) Yeah.
Marilynn (13:05.217) Mm-hmm. Yes.
Marilynn (13:15.234) Mm-hmm. Keep going forward, Yeah, that's a really good point.
Tijana (13:21.076) Yeah, absolutely. I think that's really what it's all about. It's giving yourself permission to do that. And that's really the message we want you guys to take home is that it's not about being perfect. It's just about taking imperfect action. The small wins really do add up. And that's why we preach consistency. It trumps perfection every single time. If I looked at 52 weeks of your year at the end of the year, how many were you consistent and how many were you inconsistent? Because I can tell you, even if you think those 30 day stints of being balls to the wall are great,
Marilynn (13:30.477) Mm-mm.
Marilynn (13:34.615) Mm-hmm.
Jordanna Nativ (13:44.088) Mm-hmm.
Marilynn (13:48.182) Yeah.
Tijana (13:48.348) I can guarantee you would, your average would still suffer. You would not get a passing grade compared with being consistent.
Marilynn (13:54.734) I actually think that's so important too to zoom out like that and look at the year because we also get so fixed on the moment. That's really powerful actually. I'm gonna use that one.
Tijana (13:59.668) Mm-hmm.
Tijana (14:03.25) Yeah, I'm already thinking of, I don't know about you guys, as we're recording this, I'm already thinking of clients who beat themselves up so much. like, I'm going to send this to you. I, know, if you know, you know, but it's just that reminder that you are headed in the right direction.
Jordanna Nativ (14:03.364) Well, the mat-
Marilynn (14:08.959) Yeah. Yeah.
Jordanna Nativ (14:17.882) And the math doesn't lie. If you were to do two or three six week challenges and you went all in for that, it's what, 12 or 18 weeks out of the year? But if you're consistently working out and food prepping three days a week for the entire year, you're actually way further ahead. You've completed way more workouts and as a result of that consistency, the results follow. Like it's math, it's science at that point.
Marilynn (14:17.933) Absolutely.
Marilynn (14:22.881) Yeah.
Marilynn (14:31.787) Mm-hmm.
Marilynn (14:38.433) That's right. Yes.
Tijana (14:40.754) and you enjoy the process. And that's another thing I think it's reframing like you always say, George, peaceful success. Like success doesn't have to mean that your legs feel like cinder blocks or that you're starving.
Jordanna Nativ (14:47.535) Yeah.
Marilynn (14:52.333) It's true!
Jordanna Nativ (14:53.75) It's true. And the other half, the other half of that quote, so for peaceful success is if it costs you your piece, it's too expensive. So it's it's going back to that. Like how much pain like do you really want to be in for this short stint to get this temporary result to celebrate that result just for it all to like fade away back to the beginning again? It's painful. Never enough.
Marilynn (15:00.597) Yeah. Ooh.
Tijana (15:01.928) Yes.
Marilynn (15:07.042) Yeah.
Marilynn (15:13.677) That's right. Yeah.
Tijana (15:14.278) And it's never enough. It's still never enough. Yeah. So Mare, talk to us about how you can actually build consistency without burning out.
Practical Ways to Bui8ld Consistency (Without Burnout)
Marilynn (15:18.849) Yes. Yes, because we love our practical strategies. So we definitely want to talk about, yeah, what can you do now to build that kind of consistency? Because like we talked about long-term fitness is about having a plan and a strategy. So first thing, you got to just ditch that all or nothing mindset. That's the first thing. Believing that you have to do everything right or it's not worth doing is...100 % sabotaging your progress because that mindset T you touch on this turns one slip up into a big issue where it's not the slip up. It's how you respond to that slip up. So take that all or nothing mindset and really just ditch it.
The second thing is creating a minimum effective dose or what I like to call and I think you girls might use this too, your BAMs. I call it your bare ass minimum with my clients. It is the smallest consistent action that you can commit to that is still going to allow you to make progress even if you can't do it all. Because guess what? We can't do it all all the time. So just to give you a practical example, like let's say you have a really busy work week coming up and you've looked at the calendar, you've tried to schedule your workouts and that the four or five workouts, it just ain't happening this week.
Jordanna Nativ (16:03.254) Mm-hmm. Yup.
Tijana (16:03.913) Yeah.
Marilynn (16:25.313) Well, what can you do instead of thinking, well, this is just, you know, this week's nothing. It's a bust. Can you do two? Can you do one? Something is better than nothing. So what this does is it keeps the momentum going instead of you starting and stopping, starting and stopping because that just adds to that feeling of failure. And third, already touched on this. Be kind to yourself and give yourself permission to be flexible. Some weeks you're going to feel like you're rocking it. You're at the top of your game.
Jordanna Nativ (16:42.916) Mm-hmm.
Tijana (16:49.545) Mm-hmm.
Marilynn (16:53.759) Other weeks, you're going to feel like you're on the struggle bus and that's normal because life happens and life is not static. It changes. So you're not failing. You're just a human being literally living life. So stop holding yourself to an unrealistic standard of perfection because success is built on what you do most of the time. Right. and even more importantly, it's sustainable. So you're going to get results, achieve your goals, and you're going to feel good about it.
Jordanna Nativ (17:20.772) what I realized being a perfectionist for pretty much my entire life is that you're really being quite mean to yourself. So mean, nothing is ever good enough. You're always trying to push yourself harder. It doesn't even matter the circumstances you find yourself in. It's just never good enough. And like, what a bully I was to myself in these types of situations. And I know we're really focused on the quick fixes of
Marilynn (17:28.801) So mean. Yep.
Marilynn (17:41.601) Yeah.
Jordanna Nativ (17:49.561) you know, the short term diets and stuff like that, that people have been doing, but this really does carry over into everything else. It is the mindset you hold. And if you hold that for the quick fix and how you treat your body and what you feed yourself and how you move, you're certainly going to be doing that in other areas of your life too.
Marilynn (18:03.469) Mm-hmm.
Tijana (18:08.84) Yeah, I completely agree with that.
Marilynn (18:09.261) That's a good point.
Okay. So as we wrap up today's episode, we want you to just reflect on what we said. We want you to take a deep breath and we want you to remember you absolutely do not need to be doing it all perfectly and certainly not all perfectly all at the same time. And the big takeaway is you don't have to overhaul your life to make progress. Real progress is small, sustainable actions over time. So it means showing up despite it's that taking imperfect action.
And all of it counts. So here's your challenge this week. Take a look at your current routine and ask yourself, where have you been setting unrealistic expectations for yourself? Like George said, like be real. Where have you been maybe bullying yourself and not giving yourself the credit where it's due? And I want you to also look at, know, where in your life are you expecting perfection when what you need is just consistency, then adjust your approach. So instead of it doing it all at once, focus on those small achievable steps.
Jordanna Nativ (19:04.57) Mm-hmm.
Weekly Challenge
Marilynn (19:10.957) and just commit to being consistent, not for a day, not for 75, not for, you know, whatever it is, this challenge or that challenge for the long haul. What can consistency look like for you 365 days of the year? So we want to thank you so much for tuning in today. We love when you are tuning in and we get to share our thoughts. So if this episode hit home for you, we would love to hear from you. We would also love for you to share it with people in your life who near needs to hear this message too, because we know that there are recovering perfectionists out there.And I bet you know some. So next week we'd love for you to join us because now that summer is in full swing, we are going to be talking about how you can still stay dialed in with your goals, even though you're attending those patio hangouts, the barbecues, the cottage weekends, and we want you to be able to enjoy summer. So we're going to talk about all that next week and we'll see you then.