Are you making exercise one of your top priorities? If you don't, you are setting yourself up to fail. Expecting exercise to get done means making it happen. This may sound a bit harsh, but it is the truth. If you expect to get into a regular habit of exercise, you need to move it way up on your list of priorities.
I have one client that has tons of responsibility surrounding his job, and because of his eagerness and willingness to work with me and to make workouts happen, we meet at 5:30 a.m. on Mondays. For me, this means I am getting up at 4:15 a.m. because I work straight through to the end of the business day. Do I enjoy getting up at such an hour? No, in fact, I hate it. I do it because that is how much I believe in what exercise does for people. You do not find time to exercise, you make time to exercise.
I am relentless in carrying this message to others. This is also why I find myself doing training appointments seven days per week. If a client has to reschedule on me, but is willing to figure out another time to get it in, then I must do the same. In regards to my own workouts, I often find myself pushing myself to the gym on a Friday or Saturday night after having had a night out. This is not easy for me to do because I profoundly love my bed and getting to bed early. Despite my own reluctance to go, I have never regretted going- ever! Honestly, the hardest part is showing up. Once there, I find myself getting into the flow and making the most of being there by getting a great workout.
It is not easy to be intrinsically motivated all the time, but through gained awareness of having great energy, maintaining a healthy weight and feeling strong I have learned to treasure what I have going. The good I have going stems from consistent application. The consistent application comes from making exercise a top priority. Making it happen means working hard to do so. This sometimes means saying no to fun, staying up a little later or putting together a backup plan. Sometimes it means staying longer, or making more frequent, shorter trips to the gym in order to get the time in.
I firmly believe one can get wherever they want to go with enough focus. Graduating into an "exerciser" means getting rid of the old list of excuses for avoiding the commitment and creating a new list of reasons why this should be given top priority. This is the secret to making it happen.
