Ever said to yourself, “Next Monday, I will start exercise?”

Oddly enough, you actually get round to do it on Monday and feel great after the run, gym etc.

Then Tuesday comes and your body is aching and you decide to rest.

Wednesday comes and you’d slept late the last-night so you postpone your next work out to tomorrow.

Thursday comes. You actually wake up on time but have zero motivation to do it. Friday, you then conclude that maybe exercise isn’t for you.

Well, I have seen many people who supposedly want to start exercising who follow this exact pattern. They start good for one day, then wane off as the week progresses.

So I decided to write and highlight a few of the things you could do that could help start and maintain an exercise habit.

The disclaimer is the first point.

1. How much it means to you

How much does exercise, and in turn, your health mean to you? I said this point was a disclaimer because no matter how many hacks will follow in this article, if you do not have the intrinsic motivation to want to be healthy and exercise, they won’t work.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, I realised just how important health was. It was the healthier people who were handling the virus better. It also put into perspective that if I am not healthy, everything else won’t matter, in particular, wealth, school, career, goals etc.

What use is it to want wealth so as to gain freedom but are condemned to taking a tablet a day for hypertension?

In addition to that, exercise helps maintain my mental and emotional health, keeps my brain on its toes and increases my creativity. In other words, exercise is absolutely essential to who I am and what I value.

Now the question to you is how much is your health important to you?

Side note: I see that many people also rely on the fact that they are still young hence they’ll exercise later. Truth is that the diseases that occur in old age are due to a lack of a strong, healthy foundation set now when one is young. Of course your health is going to deteriorate inevitably, but at least start deteriorating from 90% than from 60% or 50% of health.

2. Don’t start high

One big hurdle I see for many people is the pressure to want to run their fastest 5km everyday, lift their heaviest weight etc. Actually run themselves into the ground because that is what exercise entails.

False.

With exercise, you do more by doing less. Instead of starting out with the intention to run 5km, just get out the door and walk for a start. Walk for even 200m. Why is this important?

You are training your mind to just get out the door and do something, building discipline to exercise. Especially if you are starting from scratch, this is the best thing you could do for your habit training.

Once your mental gets used to the habit of getting out the house and doing something active, you will natural increase the workout intensity. But beware…

3. Do 80/20

The world’s best athletes follow an 80/20 approach in which 80% of the time, they do light exercise. This is exercise that leaves with enough air to carry out a conversation or sing (when no one’s around of course). The other 20% is moderate to hard exercise that leaves you gasping for air.

An example of what this looks like is if you decide to exercise for 5 days in the week, 4 of those days are your light exercise days and only 1 day is for hard exercise.

This tries to shoot down the belief that people should be doing hard strenuous exercise all the time when light exercise is all that you need. What that looks like is jogging at a light, comfortable pace or walking.

4. Post, post, post

There is social pressure when posting such things. The fact that you are now aligning yourself with exercise, posting helps you maintain that habit because you have an intrinsic desire to look consistent with whatever you make public.

So completed a 1km run? Post it. Done a ten-minute workout? Post it.

Not wanting to disappoint the eyes of others is a strong motivator for human actions. Might as well put it to good use.

5. Discipline Over Motivation

Another thing is to know and believe that you will never be motivated to exercise except on the first day. On so many runs, during the first kilometre, I ask myself why I am doing this anyway. That’s a lack of motivation.

But you must be disciplined, striving to keep up an image to yourself that you are someone who does what they say they’re going to do. Point number 4 also acts as a hack for discipline.

Conclusion

These tips are by no means complete. I will keep on adding more and more, but these are what are relevant to the people I have recently interacted with.

I hope it helps.

Tell me about your exercise journey and the challenges you face and I will try to help and chime in with what I know.