How To Discipline Yourself Into Working Out

Is that little evil voice in your head getting the better of you when you want to work out? No need to whip yourself over it. Self-discipline to overcome this procrastination can be learned in small, easy steps. Here is how.

Too Tired, Wrong Mood…

We all have one of those days when we just don’t want to do anything but lay on the couch and watch TV.  It could be several different things, such as you’re too tired that day, or maybe just being in a bad mood – whatever metaphor you create to make that excuse, it’s still just your evil side trying to talk you out of being productive.  Unless you have a fever, there should never be any excuses not to push yourself.  The more we train our selves to overcome making excuses, the more disciplined we become, and that’s how we’ll always reach our goals.

In the past, when I didn’t feel like working out, I too just didn’t, because I wasn’t disciplined at all. It took me a lot of work on my self to overcome my “I don’t want to attitude “.  I would like to share with you a few things which really helped me to push my self on the days that I’d rather not to.

Keep It Short!

Start at the moment when you catch your self trying to make an excuse.  Instead of feeding into the lazy thought, tell your self that you’re only going to do a little bit of work, such as 8 minutes of High Intensity Interval Training –  Tabata style (10 sec rest, 20 sec maximum effort, for a total of 16 rounds).  That equals exactly 8 minutes.

The idea is to put together exercises hard enough for you to do in those 20 second intervals. What else can you do in such a short time and be so productive?  Pick 4 exercises and repeat them for the total of 4 rounds.  You can do that or sit on the couch for 8 minutes, which one you think will make you feel better later on?  Whenever I start spinning that idea in my head, I automatically have my workout shoes on – they literally put themselves on :).

Keep it short if necessary. Four minutes of working out are still better than zero minutes!

If eight minutes seems like a long time, then do just 4 minutes of Tabata, it’s still much better than doing nothing.  It will speed up your metabolism, even if you didn’t get the best work out of your muscles, your metabolism will still skyrocket – and that’s already a productive mini workout.  Once I finish my 4 minutes, I already feel better that I pushed my self and most of the time it gives me the drive to do more.

Hold On To The Feeling After Every Workout

You know the feeling you get right after you finished a good training?  Hold on to it, because this is your tool which will help you to push your self at all times. One of the main things to keep motivated is the feeling you get right after a great workout.  If you always remember it,  you’ll never skip your training unless, like I said earlier, you have a fever.

As an added benefit, when we use these small ways of disciplining ourselves into training our bodies,  we often also develop a sense of more discipline in all other aspects of life.

Pictures courtesy of “tanna valentine” and “blue2likeyou“.