Strategies for Success!
· Bring the reward to the present. Good habits often have delayed rewards. Exercise requires time and energy and often means you sacrifice participating in other activities such as work, sleep, social time, and Netflix. Furthermore, the rewards that come from consistent exercise (I.e., improved strength, stability, stamina, shapely muscles, etc.) often take time to come to fruition. The cost to exercise can feel like quite the investment with minimal short-term rewards. Bringing rewards to the immediate future can help incentivize individuals to exercise. Some ideas include inviting friends to do your program with you, checking off your tracking sheet after your workout, or commenting in the group about how glad you are you did the workout.
· Build an accountability. If you know you’re more likely to break your commitment to exercise when you’re alone, consider adding in an accountability aspect. Make reservations for your class, tell someone to meet you on screen and hold you accountable, stay committed to responding to group discussions in this group.
· Focus on the start of the Habit Loop. Reminders or triggers are crucial part to making habits feel easy. Reminders for exercise habits can become a time of day, a place, a person, or even an existing habit. One simple way to pick a reliable reminder is to pick something that you’re already doing, like dropping your kids off at school or eating lunch. Find a trigger to remind you to plan and check in.
· There really are no timelines. Ultimately you can move as fast or slow as you need. You know yourself best. When it seems easy, and you’re meeting your consistency goal 80% of the time or more, it’s time to scale up. If you are struggling to meet your consistency goal, scale back and adjust your goal. Set yourself up for success, always.