How To Stay Committed To Exercise 

10 Tips To Staying Committed To Exercise

 Below are my 10 tips to staying committed to exercise.  Number one is non-negotiable in my opinion, but after that the following 9 are in no particular order.

1. Workout In The Morning

Life WILL GET IN THE WAY so, before it does, make sure you’ve already exercised.  I’ve preached this before so check out “Making Time To Workout” if you haven’t done so already.

2. Get A Partner

You won’t always want to workout, but if your partner’s going to show, you’ll be a lot more likely to show too…so, ideally, you’d want to get a committed partner.

3. Prep The Night Before

Make sure your bag, clothes, and equipment are ready to go before you hit the sack.  This way, you’ll be ready to go as soon as your alarm goes off the next morning…and who knows, since you already prepared your stuff the night before, you might have enough time to hit that snooze button once or twice.

4. Dress For Success

When it comes to exercise, comfort and support are key.

So, make sure you got the right pair of shoes, shorts, and headband for the job at hand.

From head to toe, you should look different on power lifting days then you do on cross training days or yoga days or running days or plyo days or….you get the point.

5. Reward Yourself – Get That New Gear

As mentioned before on this site, I am a big believer in rewarding oneself for hard work – especially when the reward is going to make you work that much harder.

So, if your shorts and shirts are too big or if you just want that new workout device, if it is going to make you want to continue to workout and/or workout harder, make the investment.  And yes, it is an investment – an investment in a better you!

6. Stay Goal-Oriented

Be it to lose 10 pounds, run a 7-minute mile, do 20 pull-ups, or just finish a complete set of Ab Ripper X without taking a break (which I have yet to do even though I’ve been at it for almost two years now), the point is to set goals!

Setting both short-term and long-term goals, especially if they have an associated deadline (i.e., next month’s 5k), will do a number of important things such as; give you purpose, keep you motivated, provide you a metric from which to gauge yourself, and pretty much make you feel really good every time you hit the goal(s).

So set goals to both measure success and help you stay motivated.

7. Practice Makes Better

I learned a new saying this year from my son’s awesome Preschool teacher –

“PRACTICE MAKES BETTER!” 

Yeah, I used to think “practice makes perfect” but the truth is there’s no such thing as perfect (not counting Ryan Seacrest’s ability to host a show or Jay-Z’s flow on Crazy In Love) and no matter how “perfect” someone or something might be, there is always room for improvement.

So, stop being your own worst enemy and forget about being perfect! Instead focus on getting better each and every time.

 Jay-Z’s Flow Starts at Minute 2:00

 

8. Have Fun

No matter what you do to exercise you need to make sure you’re having fun.

This is an extremely important tip you shouldn’t overlook.

If you find yourself getting bored or just going through the motions, then do something else!  Be it playing basketball, rolling down a hill, roller skating, playing hopscotch or paintball, or whatever you like, the point is to actively do something you love…but make sure that something you love involves you staying active…both mentally and physically.

9.  Why Do We Fall Bruce?

“Why do we fall Bruce?”

If you don’t know what I am talking about than I don’t know if we can be friends…but I’ll give you the answer anyways… “So we can learn to pick ourselves up.”

Yeah, I love Batman as much as the next geek, but this is a very powerful message.

As noted above, nobody is perfect so, if you fall, get back up.

It doesn’t matter if you fall during a workout move or if you fall completely off the horse and skip a week’s (or weeks’ even) worth of workouts…if you don’t even try you’ll never learn to pick yourself up, let alone stand.

“Why Do We Fall Bruce?”

 

10. “I Can’t” Can’t Exist…

In all my years of working out I can’t count how many times I have heard people say, “I can’t (insert whatever here).”

Well my friends, this is THE NUMBER ONE REASON why people don’t workout!  They either “can’t” find time to workout, or they “can’t” do that exercise move, or they “can’t” lift weights, or they “can’t” run two miles, or they “can’t” whatever the hell it is they don’t want to TRY to do.

There are a million things we “can’t” do, BUT THERE IS NOTHING WE “CAN’T” TRY TO DO!

So, stop thinking “I can’t” and start thinking “I’LL TRY!”

Say “I’ll try to do a pull-up…” and when you can’t just work at it.

Say “I’ll try to run two miles….” and when you can’t, just run ¼ of a mile until you eventually work up to 2 miles.

“And if I never do that pull-up or run those two miles?”

Well, if you never do, guess what?  SO WHAT?!  You’ll be a hell of a lot closer to doing it then you were before not even trying.

So What’s With The Post Image?…It Was Me.
I upped the contrast below to show how the lovely cellulite can go away a bit if you stay committed.