Do You Want To Know How Stop Procrastinating and Start Exercising?
For many of us, it is the lack of motivation that is the roadblock to creating a workout routine. One step to creating that motivation is envisioning what exercise will give to you. If you started a routine tomorrow, how would your life be different six months from now?
Hold on to that vision.
Now that you have a vision of how your life would be better, what are some possible excuses for not executing your plan?
- not enough time
- can’t get outside to run/ can’t get to the gym
- too out of shape
- never been able to keep to a routine.
If you have used the above excuses, and I think we all have, you may thinking “this is the way it is.”
Making It Possible
Let’s first look at your perspective of your availability of time. Take out a sheet of paper. List all of your fixed, non-negotiable appointments from the time you wake up until you go to beds (i.e. work, school, dinner). Then look at the rest of your time.
- What time do you have available?
- How are you choosing to use it?
- What are possible times that you have available to work out?
Second, let’s address where you exercise and what you do. Start from where you are and think of what is possible.
- If you do not have time to get to the gym or get outside, what can you do at home?
- While you may not want to invest in an elliptical machine, could you get a video tape?
- What is possible for you?
Third, you may say that you are too out of shape. If you can run or walk two blocks, start there. You don’t have to start training for a marathon.
- If you are not exercising at all now, what would it look for you to do something?
- If you start from where you are now, what exercise goal could you set?
Last, you may struggle to sustain a routine. Like any other goal, when you are first building a habit, you want it to be a reach, but still doable. Routines are easier to establish, if you have the experience of success.
Toward this end, you may consider adopting a minimum and maximum. For example, if your are running 2 miles once a week now, you may choose to have a goal of running 2 miles 2x -4x a week. By using this strategy, you will be successful if you run 2x a week. It is more than you are doing now, but still realistic. You may decide after a set amount time of experimenting this way to reevaluate your goal.
Questions For You
What feels like a sustainable exercise goal?
So, what is one step are you willing to take today to reap the benefits of exercise?
