Do you want to lose weight, improve health, increase strength, or have another fitness related goal? If so, then your real goal is to make fitness a habit. A habit is something you do so regularly that it becomes hard not to do. A good example is brushing your teeth. You do it everyday and it feels weird if you don’t. Brushing your teeth is such a built-in habit that even if you skip a day, you still go back to brushing your teeth the next day and everyday after that. So how can you make going to the gym a habit? It’s going to take time, but with small steps you can get there!
To start, let’s go over what you can do while sitting on your couch before even getting to the gym. The big first step is to create some goals. When creating your goals, make a short term goal and a long term goal. Your short term goal should focus on building a habit, while your long term goal can focus on results. Results always take time, so your short term goals should always focus on habits and changes, such as going to the gym twice a week. Your goals should be easy to measure and attainable. If you are just starting out, having a goal of hitting the gym for two hours every day may be too big. Look at your current lifestyle and schedule and build goals that can easily fit in.
Once you’ve got your goals hashed out, the next step is to visualize success. There are two visualizations you want to do. The first is visualize yourself achieving your goal. If you want to lose 40 lbs, visualize yourself 40 lbs lighter. Don’t just visualize the image of yourself 40 lbs lighter, think about how you will feel as well. The second visualization is visualizing yourself taking steps to reach that goal. In the same example, you can visualize yourself at the gym working up a sweat, or cooking healthy meals. Visualizing your success and how you will reach it helps to motivate you and get you in the proper frame of mind to reach your goals.
Now that you have your goals and have visualized yourself succeeding, it’s time to get started. Here are three methods to help simplify the addition of new habits into your schedule. A great way to start building your habit is to tack it onto habitual things you already do. An example is working out right after work. Additionally, schedule your workouts. At the beginning of the week, fill out the following sentence “I will workout on [day] at [time] at [place].” If you have a calendar you use, write it in. Seeing your commitment will help you remember to do it and you will be mentally prepared for it. Another method is to use “if-then” planning. Start thinking about your new habit as a part of another action. For example, “if it is 5:00, then it is workout time.” That is a very simple example, and you don’t always need to use “if”, it can be anything to help tie in the habit to something else. Other examples are “after dinner I will workout.” Or, “when it’s dinner I will cook a healthy meal.” Keep repeating your selected sentence to yourself as you build your habit.
Finally, when starting, keep it simple. If starting a new workout routine, ease your way into it; if changing your eating habits start by cutting out one thing. If you start with a difficult workout or entire diet change, it will be physically and mentally difficult for you, and failure is highly likely. Another way to keep it simple is to eliminate reasons to give up or to have cheat days. Pick a gym right by your work or house so it isn’t too far. Don’t buy that bag of chips when at the grocery store, so it’s not at home to snack on later.
If you do have a cheat day or skip the workout, make a note as to your reason why. This will help you track what exactly is stopping you from building that habit. If you keep skipping the gym because you had a stressful day at work, you need to look at reducing your stress levels. When making your notes be specific. Don’t write down “no time” because when you look back over your reasons it doesn’t tell you much. Write down “no time due to child’s school play.” It helps show you that you skipped the gym for something that is more important rather than “no time, Bond marathon was on TV.” Just be real with yourself, no one else needs to look at your reasons list.
Good luck building a healthier you! Let me know what other methods you’ve used to build up new habits.
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