Get yourself to the gym each day, even if you don’t think you want to work out. Just heading out to the gym can help you immensely.
Ensuring You Stick to Your Health and Fitness Program
Given the large rate of failure of health and fitness program worldwide, it is easy to see why anyone will have a fair share of apprehension when they try to get into such a program themselves. They are bound to think whether such programs will work for them or not. Even when you join a gym, however much enthusiastic you are, somewhere in the corner of your mind you wonder how long you will be attending the gym. Such damaging feelings start when you haven’t even had your first workout at the gym.
Mainly this happens because the world over people are joining health and fitness programs and then leaving them midway, reducing even very well-meaning programs to mockery. It is their weakness that makes them quit, but the world doesn’t waste any time in jumping to
the conclusion that something is not quite right with the program.
One of the best favors you could bestow upon yourself is to condition your mind into thinking positively about the program you are about to join. Don’t keep any space for pessimism. There is no reason why you should think that the program won’t work for you. Think that it will work. Think about all the benefits you will get because of that. Think about your sexier body shape, your healthier heart, your improved physical capacity, and you will want to carry through.
Think about how you will become a better individual. Think about how you will be able to travel to all those places when you are healthier. Think about how your bank balance will improve because you will become more productive. Think about how you will get better
prospects at work because you are healthier. An improving professional life is what sets most of us thinking. Also think about how you will be able to spend more quality time with
your friends and family. Think how you won’t be the one sitting in the corner when they are having fun right in front of you. You will be ableto join in the revelry as well. If nothing works, take a look at your children, if you have them. Wouldn’t you like to be with them for a
longer time? Wouldn’t you like to see how they progress in life under your guidance?
We come back to square one actually. The best thing to make any health and fitness program work is the right motivation. And determination.
You have to make sure you keep yourself pepped up so that you follow through till the end. See yourself in a newer light. That will really help this highly important task you are embarking upon.
Head to the Gym… Even if You Don’t Want to
One of the ways in which you can motivate to keep working out is by simply taking the effort to go to the gym. Research shows that most people who quit their gyms don’t do it because the exercises are toostressful to them; they do it just because they don’t want to make the trip to the gym! Sounds corny, but it is true. If you have joined a gym before, you will be aware of this feeling. You don’t mind the exercises, but you do feel bored about putting on your gym gear and heading out to the gym, which is probably too early in the morning for you. If you don’t want to go to the gym on one particular day, try this ruse. Try telling yourself that you will just warm up a bit on the treadmill and then move out. Tell yourself that you won’t do anything that needs you to exert much. When you convince yourself that way, you are likelier to head to the gym.
But when you are there, you will see a change happening in your way of thinking. When you see all those people diligently working out there, you will get motivated too. And when you start out on the treadmill, you will find that your stamina is building. When that happens, you will tell yourself that you could try one more exercise. You might go on to the exercise bike. That may induce you to go to the weights and then the resistance training and so on. Sooner than you think, you will find that you have had your complete workout!
Studies show that this approach works in 90% of the cases. i.e. 90% of the people who come to the gym reluctantly, thinking that they will only work out for 5 minutes, end up working out their full routine.
The same applies with other things. If you are feeling lazy about going for jogging, convince yourself by saying that it is only for a few minutes. You might tell yourself that you would do nothing more than one lap around the park. But when you are into it, you feel that you
might as well complete the whole thing.
