3 things that stopped me from exercising and how I overcame them

In order to do sports and achieve certain goals, we have to come to an agreement with ourselves. Sometimes this arrangement takes place very quickly: we are happy to set goals for our training (what sport we will do and how often we will do sport). Later on a lot of fractures come when you want to quit everything and you have lack of will or training motivation to continue exercising. The most common reason for stopping to exercise is the sound in our head that begins to sound like: “Today you can rest”, “You don’t need to move so much”, “I’ve done so much, I cannot do workout”, “never mind”, “boring, not interesting” or sometimes you can just “unexpectedly” forget the workout. All of these thoughts are very close to everyone, and I think that all people are struggling with one challenge or the other. I very often struggle with such thoughts in my mind and when motivation is very weak those thoughts take the top and I simple skip the workout. I want to share ideas which help me not to give up on negative thoughts.

So 3 things that stop me from exercising and how I deal with them:

1. WAITING FOR MOTIVATION

One day I read the following phrase: motivation comes and goes, it’s not a steady condition. This fact of motivation has helped me a lot. I realized that you do not have to wait until you are fully motivated to start/continue your activities. By setting the goal, I try to take action even when there is no motivation, even when I no longer want it. This method is suitable for any purpose in life because motivation comes and goes, the only thing that stays is what we do. It is possible that after a bad mood and “unwillingness” a great new day will come when we will be proud of ourselves because we didn’t stop and decided to move forward and achieve our goals.

So, I try not to wait for motivation, but do what I have planned, even if I do not want to do it immediately; I say to myself that I will be more proud of myself if I do this workout and most of all I will feel better. Knowing that I will feel better always helps me to step forward. However, you do not need to overdo it and first properly evaluate your condition, if in fact we feel bad that day, for our body it would be better to have rest or choose lighter exercise.

2. GIVE IN TO INTERNAL CRITIC

We all have that permanent inner critic who tells us unpleasant things in our mind. It’s the voice that says, “You will not succeed”, “You cannot do it”, “It’s not the right time”, “Do not try this because … (x reason), go with what you have already known for a long time” and so on. For many years we have had a lot of experience, including negative, and everything in our heads is simply sorted into shelves. That is because later this critic’s voice tries to protect us. Indeed, he tries to protect us from past failures and this often has nothing to do with presence or future. So is it worth listening to it?

When I hear this voice, I always try to identify it (in this case, identification is equal to perception and consciousness). When I realize that the internal critic is speaking (not myself) it helps me turn that voice off and just continue to do whatever I planned. Sometimes it’s not easy to do so but it’s worth giving a try.

3. DESIRE FOR RESULT, NOT ENJOYING THE PROCESS

I’ve always had this problem. Over time I noticed one thing: the more important the result becomes, the harder it is to achieve it. I wanted the result here and now, that’s why it seemed that if I began to do sports, after a week I would have to see the result on my body. I couldn’t see the result, I was disappointed and wanted to throw everything away. The process itself does not look fun when you do not see the result. Over time, I realized that I was living somewhere in the future, where my goal had already been achieved, but that means I did not live the real life that is now.

With that understanding, I decided to start enjoying the process every day and no longer wanted to just achieve the goal. I just set myself the goal of doing sports for a better mood, and if I feel better when I move, I know that my goal has been reached here and now, not sometime in the future. Enjoying activities day-to-day helps achieve even greater results.