Motivate Yourself To Exercise

It all seemed to be going so well: you got up an hour early to go for a run or get to an exercise class before your workday started. Or maybe you brought a stuffed gym bag to your job so you could hit the fitness center at day’s end.

These traditional plans for getting the physical activity we all need can work very well, month in and month out, for some people. For the rest of us, life can mess up our exercise routines, big-time. An injury, illness, children’s schedules, demands at work, elders’ needs, boredom, fatigue, a tightened budget—all can contribute to blocking our efforts to become, and remain, physically active.

These suggestions can help motivate you past an exercise block:

Do less, not more. It’s important that physical activity feel good in order for you to enjoy it—which leads you to want to repeat it. Pushing yourself to start exercising at a highintensity or frequency rate or to match a previous high level, results in a negative experience and keeps you blocked. Instead, move more slowly and for shorter sessions. Activity can be accumulated over time and doesn’t have to be vigorous to be worthwhile.
- “When you decide to do less, you do more,” Dr. Segar says. “People have grandiose plans to do 40- or 50-minute workouts. If you understand that everything counts, you get more physical activity…(than before when) you wouldn’t have done anything because you didn’t have the full 50 minutes.”
Distraction helps. Dr. Welch’s research shows that listening to music while exercising brings positive feelings because it activates the brain region that controls negative emotions. Lower intensity also produces a positive psychological state, so be sure to include a cool-down period after activity.
Change your mindset. If you’ve been trying for years to lose weight by exercising and it hasn’t worked—or you got only short-term results—maybe it’s time to rethink the result you want. The goal you set is the starting point for your behavior, Dr. Segar explains. Motivation fuels that behavior, like gas stations on a road trip. If your goal changes to wanting to increase your feeling of well-being, you will be more likely to become more physically active in ways that fit your life, help you feel better and are more sustainable for the long-term. Your motivation is then less likely to be thrown off-track or become blocked.
Be a good coach. Use positive self talk (“I feel proud of myself for doing this today.”) while exercising and afterward, Dr. Welch advises. This helps improve your psychological experience of being active and encourages your decision to repeat the activity later. For more on how a positive approach can help you, go tohttp://www.healthywomen.org/wellness
Take charge for yourself. Plan one do-able physical activity you think you might enjoy—a five-minute walk, say—and put it on your calendar. Or simply walk out the door and do it right away. Record it on a chart or planner when you finish. Then, if you feel good about that walk, schedule another of the same length for whenever you can next do it. Continue with that pattern of scheduling one activity session at a time and recording your successes.
Cut yourself a break. If you fall off of your schedule, don’t waste energy agonizing over what you “should” have done—just begin again with one activity session.

And don’t think that you must join a gym or an exercise class to achieve motivation. Those external forces do little to sustain long-term physical activity for life.

{Source}