We all have our favorite, or maybe not so favorite, exercise workouts, and we try to stay “motivated” to keep them up. But sometimes, that motivation slips, our good intentions stray, and we lose our forward motion.
What do we do?
Well, while there many motivational tips and tricks and just plain self-discipline, there is one way you can make your exercise workouts more regular and more effective.
Add one word to “exercise” and/or “workout”. It’s a powerful word when used properly.
The word is… “routine”.
Yep, that one.
Many people approach exercise in a casual, add-on, kind of way. They look at all the stuff they are doing already and try to figure out where they can add in exercise. Their motivation? They really SHOULD get more exercise.
So, they work out when, where, and if they can, and life intrudes. Since the workout has been squeezed into some niche in their lives, it’s easy to pop it back out and set it to the side when something “more important” happens.
Now, we often already USE “routine’, such as in “exercise routine” or “workout routine”, but, we usually simply are referring to the group and/or sequence of exercises we have chosen to perform.
We really need to think of “routine” in the sense of a regularly scheduled, and practiced, set of exercises. A regular workout should be “penciled in” so to speak in our daily calendar, and other things scheduled around it.
“No, I can’t come to the bake sale at 2:00 this afternoon. That’s when I exercise.”
Once you’ve made that workout a “routine” part of your life, who needs motivation? Do you need motivation to shower, brush your teeth, or get dressed before you go out?
The point is, once exercise becomes part of your life, becomes a routine act, you don’t have to stay motivated. In fact, you will find that you feel something is wrong when you miss, or are about to miss a workout.
Make sense?
Okay, ready, set, exercise. Get that workout routine started and make it an integral part of your life.
