Ready for change to stick?
| Ask yourself a few questions when trying to change your relationship to fitness just doesn’t seem to stick: 1.) Is your “motivation” just an activated nervous system?If there’s a sense of urgency, a compulsion-like pull to do it NOW OR NEVER, or a feeling like it will relieve guilt, then that is actually an activated nervous system, and not a sustainable motivator. (Thanks to Virgie Tovar for putting her finger right on this truth for me.) (Not exercising is not a moral crime; guilt isn’t applicable.)Grab my Freebie “How to Build a Fitness Habit(…and one way NOT to that you’ve probably already tried!)” to find out how to get REAL motivation that isn’t just a fight-state nervous system response. Trust me, it’s a lot more pleasant without that. 2.) Does your exercise plan honor the current season you’re in?If this is the busy season at work/school/home, will you really be able to find time to fit in multiple hour-long, sweaty workout sessions a week? Or is one a week more do-able? Maybe 10 minutes in the morning where you don’t sweat is actually all the capacity you have at the moment.And that’s just it: a moment. This season will pass, and another will come, when you can re-evaluate your capacity for adding in/changing your movement plans. 3.) Do you know what “success” looks like for you?If you think exercising will give you unlimited energy, prevent all injuries and illnesses, or make you lose weight, then every time you workout and those things don’t happen (which would be 100% of the time, for those keeping track), not only does it NOT motivate you to do it again, it actually massively DE-MOTIVATES you. You didn’t just not succeed, you FAILED, and our human brains will go to extreme lengths to avoid that.So if you exercise without an achievable measure of success for that one workout session, you’re actually training yourself to avoid all future attempts. Some goals you might like to try: figure out what I like about this kind of exercise, see if I can do this without sweating, feel more in my body and out of my head, lubricate my joints. If you want more help figuring out how to answer these questions (& lots more!), that’s exactly what I do in 1:1 Intuitive Fitness Coaching. So before you take another attempt at trying the same thing over again–but you swear this time will be different… somehow–and maybe demotivating yourself because you don’t know how to coach yourself to find your wins… Let’s problem-solve together! Reply to this email, and we can set up a free 30 minute consultation call so we can talk about what exactly has been tripping you up when it comes to having a great relationship to fitness. |
| Want to try a class before working with me one-on-one? Grab class recordings! |
| TTYL, Deanna |
