Jul 122008
 

You know that regular exercise is an essential component of healthy living, yet it remains a chore, or at best sporadic. You feel frustrated with the number of times you’ve started to exercise, and then given up.

A friend told me that she doesn’t want to exercise for the sake of it, she wants to love her exercise. What a great idea! Then your exercise becomes a pleasure rather than a chore – you fall in love iwth it!!

3 steps to take

1.  Sink into a deep motivation

Just like falling in love, you need to have a deep, single-minded focus for your exercise. The ‘7 Why’s’ is a good way to achieve this; here’s how it goes:

The ‘7 Why’s’ is a good way to do so; here’s how it goes:

  • First, write down the main reason you want to exercise. Eg I want to exercise to keep fit.
  • Now ask yourself, Why do I say that? and write down your response.
  • Again, ask Why? to your response. Then write down your new response. Repeat this process up to 7 times in all, until you get to what feels like a deep motivation.

For example:

“I want to keep fit.”

Why? …to have a toned body.

Why? …to look good.

Why? …to feel good in myself.

Why? …to feel healthy.

Why? …to reflect a healthy mind and soul.

Why? …because my body is the temple of my soul, so I want it to keep it in tip top condition.

Exercising with the intention of providing a healthy house for my soul is a much deeper motivation than keeping fit, so I’m much more likely to stick with it.

2.  Find exercise you truly enjoy

A deep intention alone won’t necessarily carry you through exercise you don’t like, so the next step is to find a type of exercise you really enjoy. There’s a multitude of exercises to choose from; walking, jogging, exercise routine, gym, tennis, dance, etc etc.

Here are some questions to prompt you:

  • Perhaps you exercised more when you were young. What exercise did you really enjoy then? What exercise did you always want to do, but never had an opportunity?
  • Do you prefer to exercise alone, or with others?
  • Maybe you have friends who enjoy their exercise; would you like to try what they do?
  • Could you check out local exercise classes or clubs?

Be prepared to try out more than one exercise until you find the one for you.

3.  Be fully present when you exercise

Even with a deep intention, and exercise you enjoy, you can still sabotage your enjoyment if you spend time thinking about other things, particularly the other things you could be doing!

So once you start your exercise engage with it fully, and allow yourself to enjoy it to the full. As Eckhart Tolle explains, this means gently turning away any thoughts about the past and future. Just allow yourself to be fully present with your exercise. This is quite a different experience to listening to your iPod while you jog or work out at the gym!

The Delicious Nugget:To fall in love with your exercise you need to: sink into your deeper motivation, find exercise you truly enjoy, and stay present while you exercise. Then the chore turns into pleasure!

Please let me know how this goes for you…

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  One Response to “How to fall in love with your exercise”

  1. Keep up the good work.

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