7 Ways to Motivate Yourself to Get Moving
So your brain knows that you want to work out... but you just can't get your body to comply.
You know all the benefits of exercise... and you want them... but for some reason, the dots just aren't connecting and you're having trouble getting off of the couch.
This is a familiar place for me. I've been there myself many times. And it's the number one question I get from clients:
How do I motivate myself to get up and get moving when I just don't feel like it?
Honey... I have tons of strategies for you. I use these every day of the week. Because the difference between someone who gets their workouts in regularly, and someone who doesn't, isn't that it's easier for the first person. It's that the first person is better at self-motivation.
Yes. You heard me. Self-motivation. It comes from inside you. We aren't born with it and it doesn't just magically appear. Just as muscles get stronger with routine exercise, our power to motivate ourselves gets stronger with practice.
So when you think you have zero motivation, try one of these mental workarounds. They're all part of my bag of tricks and I've used each of them at one time or another.
Just put on your workout clothes. If I do this, and then skip my workout anyway, I need to change into my pajamas directly from my workout clothes without having had the workout clothes on for a good reason! And that kind of makes me feel silly... so I usually do the workout.
Make a deal with yourself that you'll do the first five minutes of the workout and then stop if I you want to. When I've done this, I don't think I have ever ended up wanting to stop.
Make an appointment on your calendar. When you get the alert, honor it just like you would any other appointment.
Make plans to work out with a friend. I've got a couple friends I'll sometimes invite over to my house to work out with me and then we get some girl time in afterwards over coffee. The social aspect just makes it more fun.
Think about how good you'll feel having it done.
Put on some great music that gets you feeling pumped up and wanting to dance. From there, it's not so hard to press "play" on your workout video and get started!
If all else fails, do some other type of physical activity... walking or yoga... anything to get moving. The more you move, the more your body remembers how blissful it feels to get movement in regularly. The more you'll crave it and the less you'll dread it.
