Get moving because you are awesome.

Exercise.

It is a hot topic this time of year…it is January after all…a time when there are fitness challenges everywhere you look. Gyms love this time of year, when people approach the new year with tremendous vigor and enthusiasm resolving to be more physically active. But alas, so often, this momentum dwindles by Spring. Why doesn’t it stick? Why don’t we get active and stay active?

Well, I think it is because most of us have the wrong impression about exercise. It is seen as a form of punishment that we put on ourselves to make up for having indulged over the holidays, or sadly, maybe that negative drive goes even deeper, and there is a desire to change something about who we are. That thought, honestly, breaks my heart, but I know it is true for many people. There is a sense of “I’m not good enough” showing up as thoughts that say things like “I’ll be better when I lose weight,” but the thing is you are already awesome and deserving of feeling good here and now. And deep inside, you know this, and you get tired of the negative voice that got you started at the gym and stop going. The whole exercise routine--that got associated with the baseline belief that you have to change who you are--ends.

But what if you looked at it in a whole new light?

What if you began from a place of loving yourself? Knowing that if you exercise it will immediately increase your brain functioning, paying dividends into your long-term health helping to ward off dementia and Alzheimer’s. (This TED Talk tells how this is true!) Knowing that you will be giving yourself more life through moving your body and your blood flows and invigorates your vitality for everything else you love in your life.

Find joy to be your motivator, not hate. Joy of movement vs. hate of your body. Body changes can take time, joy can be immediate which makes it the better motivator. Every day, after exercising, as yourself, “Am I happier having done that?” From my experience, you’ll give yourself a strong YES because you’ll be feeling proud of what your body can and did do and then you get a win, EVERY TIME. If you look at yourself with the goal of losing weight or something else that makes you feel bad to begin with, you’ll leave feeling defeated because you’ll ask yourself if you reached that goal and then, of course, hadn’t yet (no one loses weight after one workout!) and then you reinforce the negative and that horrid voice in your head says, “see you suck, why bother” and so of course, you’d want to put your head back under the covers. I’m amazed had how many persevere even to Spring with that attitude.

It is critical to show up for yourself because YOU DESERVE TO FEEL GOOD…exercise to feel good, think clearer, have more energy. You will likely get other physical benefits touted as so desirable in our culture, but those are best seen as just a bonus.