How To Get In The Mood For ExerciseWhen it comes to taking exercise many people find it hard to keep fit. They think of many reasons or excuses to avoid doing it. The cause of this situation is what psychologists have known for many years and that is people are likely to do things that they know will reward them in some way and do less things that they find uncomfortable.
When people contemplate starting exercise especially, if they are out of shape, is to focus on the effort and the sacrifices they have to make. When you exercise for the first time your body is not going to be use to it. It is going to feel unpleasant and painful. As the body is not use to exercise it will become breathless, muscles will begin to ache and strain. After the exercise the body will be sore for a few days afterwards. When people focus on this it is no wonder that they do not want to start.
The thing to do is to focus on the benefits rather than the pain. This is easier said than done because with exercise you do not see the benefits of exercising straight away as it takes time. Many people have a real problem with the short term costs and long term benefits. With exercise to see and feel the real benefits you have to consistently do it on a regular basis. At the beginning you are more than likely to feel tired and sore. However, after a few weeks the body begins to adapt and gradually you will see and feel benefits coming through. However, many people find that the short term pain is too much of an obstacle for them in the beginning that they just give up. They do not give it the time to experience the benefits.
The way to get around this problem is by planning ahead and introducing a reward system into your exercise program. A popular system is the points system which is easy to implement. All it involves is rewarding yourself with a number of points every time you accomplish an exercise target. For example, if you exercise for 30 minutes each day that is worth ten points. Each of these points goes towards a reward for example, a new outfit you have your heart set on will take 100 points which works out at 10 days exercise. You can even set a deadline to achieve each target to keep you even more motivated.
You can set as many rewards as you want. The point is that you are giving yourself a reward to look forward to. Over time this will become easier to do as you begin to associate doing exercise with getting rewards. You will also find that over time exercise and keeping fit will become a rewarding experience in its own way.
