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Reasons to Exercise: Staying Motivated to Workout

It isn’t easy to stay motivated doing anything, much less sticking to a workout routine. In the spirit of keeping this short and simple today, I’ll just say that in order to keep going you must be committed, not necessarily motivated. Motivation is fleeting the same way that feelings of love and infatuation are. It is the same as any other type of relationship. If you want a really good relationship with another person, romantic or platonic, to last, you’ll have to be willing to humble yourself at times and do things you don’t necessarily want to do. You’ll have plenty of fun times, but there will also be times when you simply don’t want to be bothered. It takes effective communication. There’s some nurturing involved and ultimately you have to decide if a relationship with the other person is really what you want. The same applies to your health.

Effective communication with yourself could be journaling, meditating, using a fitness or period tracking app—paying attention to yourself, overall. Humble yourself to know that some exercises and eating habit changes are not always going to agree with you or you with them. Most important is choosing yourself. It is even easier to stay committed when you’re doing something you enjoy or you’re with someone you enjoy.

Honestly, even though I love the feeling I have when I finish an intense workout, I have a love/hate relationship with it, or at least with certain modalities. Spin, for instance, is something I dread before I get on the bike, talk trash about while I’m on the bike, but feel wonderful when the workout is over. My bread and butter is yoga and pole/exotic dancing. However, I need the cardio and muscle conditioning, so I lift weights and do pushups, too. Health is what I want. Strength is what I want. Because I decided that I want those things, especially since having those things make it even easier for me to engage in the activities that I really enjoy, I engage in the activities that aren’t necessarily at the top of my list of favorites.

At the end of the day, I just want to feel accomplished. Doing squats today makes me feel strong. Doing the camel pose in yoga or a roundabout on the pole makes me feel graceful, flexible, and capable. What have you committed yourself to? 


(Working on my roundabouts)


(Camel Pose)

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Comments

  1. UnknownApril 18, 2019 at 11:15 AM

    Great post! Feeling accomplished is so motivating!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Life as LynsApril 18, 2019 at 4:32 PM

    I've always wanted to try pole, it looks like such a good way to build strength. However, I cant even do a pull up so that's my goal for this year as well as the splits!

    ReplyDelete
  3. That GirlApril 20, 2019 at 8:27 AM

    I never thought about journaling about my workouts. Awesome idea!

    ReplyDelete

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