Everyone, without exception, has had time in their life when they have planned to do something active, only to find themselves incredibly tired and not able or willing to go through with it when the time comes. Whether it is a hard day at work, tiredness after a long journey or the exhaustion of running around after the kids, it is easy to think ” I’ll just do it tomorrow.” But breaking through that psychological wall is important.
The first reason that this is so important is because we set a precedent every time we either do or don’t get up out of the chair. If we slack off, we are more likely to time and time again. Likewise, the more we get out of the chair and take ownership of our fitness, the easier it becomes each time, mentally as well as physically.
There are a few things we can do to spur ourselves on. An age-old trick is to have a third party, such as a friend or relative, in charge of some reward. This could be something as simple as takeaway food and the end of the week, but only if we have completed an hour of fitness in each of the preceding seven days. When we hand power over to someone else, we remove the threat of procrastination.
Another tip for forcing discipline is to have some physical reminder of a gold. That could be a picture of a beach where we want to one day walk along with our shirt off, confident with our own body shape, or a reminder photo of our children and how our fitness means we will spend longer with them over the years. Every time we look, we will be reminded that if we get out of the chair, we will get closer to making that goal a reality.
At the end of the day, the only person stopping us from achieving our goals is ourselves. And like all humans, we’re flawed. Work out what is the main obstacle to your discipline and make your own workaround. It will instantly pay dividends.
