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Come back to this post every time you don't feel like working out.
You know those days where you wake up feeling motivated and you think to yourself, “Today I’m gonna go to the gym, make myself a protein smoothie and then write and self-publish a novel.”? And usually, that motivation wears off by noon. Unfortunately, motivation can only get us so far. The real key is having discipline. Motivation is when you get a burst of inspiration that is enough to have you do something for a short amount of time. Discipline is when you force yourself to do something whether or not you feel motivated until it becomes a habit. Discipline is harder to manifest within ourselves, but it is definitely more sustainable and better for us in the long run. In order to build the discipline it takes to incorporate exercise into our daily routine, below are some things to remind yourself of when you need to force yourself to go.
Think about why you want to do this in the first place. Is it because you want to lose weight? Is your goal to gain muscle? Or maybe you want to be able to fit into your dream prom dress or feel confident in yourself no matter what you wear. Everyone has a reason why they do what they do, so just think of yours and keep it in mind the entire time.
You want to live a long, happy healthy life. A person needs at least thirty minutes of physical activity a day to remain healthy. No matter how healthy you eat, it won’t make as much of a difference if you don’t exercise. Just imagine fat that hasn’t been burned off clogging your arteries, making it harder for blood to pass through. Heart disease is the number one cause of death in the United States and the really unfortunate part about it is that millions of those deaths could have been prevented just by exercising itself.
View fit people as an inspiration or a goal, not an enemy. We have all seen very fit and in shape people all over the media. It could be a famous celebrity, Victoria’s Secret model, or a random person with a fitness page on Instagram. Yes, seeing people who look like that make people who don’t look like that feel insecure, and I have talked about it in my previous post here, but instead of seeing them as an enemy look at them as a goal. Instead of just wishing you could look like that, think yourself, “I can and I will look like that one day.” Every person who is in good shape became that way through hard work and discipline, and if you really want to, you can be that person, too.
You can eat food you like with less guilt. This is one I know from my own personal experience, but I used to go through phases of working out regularly and not working out at all. I never really changed my diet, but I noticed that whenever I was working out regularly, whenever I occasionally ate junk food, I didn’t feel that guilty. That’s because I knew I would be able to burn off the calories eventually. When I wasn’t working out regularly, I would feel horrible after eating something unhealthy because I knew those calories would stay in my body for a while. So when you don’t feel like exercising, just think that in doing so, you can eat what you want freely (but not too freely).
Taking care of physical health also takes care of mental health. Exercising is scientifically proven to alleviate stress, and make you positive and happier. Mental and physical health are intertwined, and taking care of one also helps take care of the other. So not only does exercising improve your physical health. but also your mental health, which is equally as important. It’s basically a win-win situation. You will come back happy, inspired, and stress-free.
You want to feel confident in your body. Working out is not about being skinny or conforming to a certain beauty standard. It’s meeting your own standards. A huge part of confidence is being healthy, mentally and physically. You will feel so much more beautiful and if you know you are treating your body the way it deserves. The human body is so amazing and does so much for us and if we don’t respect our body, our body won’t respect us. No matter what you look like, what your body type is, what your good and bad physical features are, you will feel amazing about yourself after doing your body the small favor of physical activity.
You could be a role model or inspiration to others. We all have someone we admire for having so much determination and discipline when it comes to fitness. Here’s a crazy idea: What if you were that person? Imagine being so amazing, people actually look up to you. I don’t know about you, but I would love if I were someone’s role model. Now I’m not saying you should do something just for the sake of people looking up to you, because if your intentions aren’t genuine, people will catch on to that.
You already came so far; stopping now would be wasting all the previous effort you put in. If you don’t go today, all the other times you did would have been all for nothing. (This is not actually true, but pretending it is would be a good way to trick your mind.)
You will never regret exercising, but you will always regret not exercising. Do you want to live your life with regrets? (Again, exaggerating is a very effective mind trick.)
Makes you eat better. If you spend hours of your life working hard to burn calories, get rid of extra fat, and build muscle, you’ll be more hesitant to casually eat junk food without thinking first. Think of exercising as killing two birds with one stone. I really hate this saying because I do not support the killing of birds but you get the idea.
These are all the things that motivate me on times where my discipline is low. I would recommend printing this out and putting it on the wall to constantly remind you why you are doing what you do. Now, that I think of it, a lot of these apply not only to fitness but all aspects of life, as well. Anyways, I hope I inspired you today and that you will go do some physical activity right after reading this.