How Do I Motivate Myself to Exercise?

Part of any weight loss program usually includes Exercise. Yes, exercise. It’s a word that makes it onto almost everyone’s to-do list. It features in many people’s resolutions. It can be a goal, a chore, a joy, or a hassle. The old paradigm was that you have to spend more calories than you eat, therefore, exercising hard erases your nutritional indiscretions. That implies that exercise is penance or punishment.

But the truth is that all calories are not created equally, and that exercise isn’t necessarily connected to weight loss in the ways people think it is. Nutrition accounts for 80-90% of weight loss, but exercise still has a vital role to play. Bodies are made to move. In today’s society, because we spend so much of our time engaged in sedentary activities, it’s important to engage in deliberate movement in order to maintain strength, flexibility, and endurance. Movement has a positive effect on mental health and stress relief, on how efficiently our metabolism operates, and on our quality of sleep. If you can get outside to move, you reap all the benefits of fresh air and sunshine as well. 

A great weight loss program helps you tap into that motivation and exercise. But how? Motivation can be an elusive goal, since it is something that can’t be forced. Forcing it creates resistance that can actually be counterproductive. What you can do is work on cultivating the conditions that make it more likely to get moving.  If you want to motivate yourself to exercise, it can help to take the “should” out of it. Rename it. Tell yourself, “I’m choosing to move my body today because I want to be strong, and I want some endorphins, and I want to enjoy being outside.” 

Tips for Cultivating Motivation:

1. Connect to your Big Why. 

Take the time to actually write down the things you love about your life and your body and your job and your hobbies—all the things you love, and write down how being strong, flexible, and fit will help you keep doing those things. Write about the people that you love and who love you, and think about how being healthy allows you to show up for them. Connect the aspects of your health that you’re working on, whether it’s nutrition, sleep, movement, mental health, or other things, with the larger purposes of your life. This is another way to shift your focus from “I should” to “I want.”

2. Make it part of your identity.

Are you a walker? A jogger? A biker? A hiker? Are you a person who moves and is going to keep on moving? What do walkers, joggers, bikers, and hikers do? They get out and walk, jog, hike, and bike. By telling yourself that you are a healthy person who moves their body, you help reinforce the habits of a healthy person who moves their body. You create a feedback loop where your identity defines your habits and motivates your behavior in ways that contribute to your health. 

3. Build the habit and rely on discipline.

There are going to be mornings when you wake up ready to take on the world, and you can go ahead and harness that motivation and run with it (maybe even literally!). There are also mornings where it feels like a monumental task to even get out of bed. Having some habits in place can help on those days—and sometimes being able to accomplish the small habits will open the doors for more ambitious plans. For example, if you have the habit of brushing your teeth before bed, it doesn’t really matter how tired you are—you brush your teeth before bed. It’s an established habit and doesn’t actually take that much energy to accomplish because it’s already a part of your routine. If your wake up routine is five toe-touches, ten squats, and fifteen push-ups, that’s a small enough goal that you can hardly NOT do it. And when you’ve finished, you might find that you are motivated to get out and exercise a little bit more. If you don’t, at least you will have done that much. 

Here are Some Ways to Build Habits, Nurture your Motivation, and Invite some Fun into your Exercise Routine.

1. Add Other People

Pick a workout buddy, or call a friend to go for a walk, or make plans to do a zoom class or other exercise class together. Having company can motivate you to exercise because adding the social element brings some fun into the mix, and it builds in consistency and accountability. 

2. Change Up your Routine

Humans enjoy novelty! Having a routine can be a shortcut to success because it can take all the decision making out of the equation, but if you find yourself bored and unmotivated it might be time to shake things up. Try a new activity, a new place, or new class and bring some variety into your day-to-day.

3. Plan To Move and Write It Down

Instead of just telling yourself in your mind when you plan to work out, actually write it into your calendar. Block off that fifteen or twenty minutes to get moving, set a reminder on your phone, and then just do it. 

4. Make Exercise Easy and Convenient

If you’re working out at home, set up an area to do that, with everything you need on hand.  Fill up your water, make a playlist, and lay out your workout clothes the night before. Try to second guess your future excuses. 

5. Break It Up

If you feel overwhelmed by the idea of carving out a chunk of time, try breaking exercise into smaller sessions. This can help motivate you to actually get it done.  You can try fifteen minutes of HIIT in the morning, a quick set of squats in the bathroom at work, a quick walk over lunch, and fifteen minutes of yoga in the evening. They DO add up. 

6. Don’t Get Sidetracked

If you miss a day, so what? You missed a day. Get back to it.

7. Adjust your Goals

If you find your motivation lagging on a consistent  basis, you might want to revisit your goals. There is a sweet spot when it comes to goal-setting. If things are either too hard or too easy it’s easy to get discouraged or bored. Take the time to consider your long-term goal, and to break it into a manageable timeline. 

These tips can help motivate you to exercise. If you’d like more support on your weight loss journey, TruBalance offices are all equipped for virtual appointments, and our experts are all ready to help you reach another level. For a day-to-day glimpse at how busy entrepreneur, wife, and mom of four Dr. Traci Kiernan fits some movement into every day, you can check out her e-book A Week For Your Health. Her cookbook, Eating on Purpose, is packed with delicious recipes and also has tips for movement and motivation.