I feel good when I exercise but I have a stubborn resistance when it comes to doing it. Why is this?

The more I want to start exercising, the more I do anything else but. And I feel so good when I exercise. I don’t get this stubborn resistance to what I want.

This question was submitted by 'Charlotte'

Mark says...

It's a curious thing, isn't it? We know what we want in the long term is often not what we want in the short term, so what I want in in the long term might be to be slim and healthy and fit, and what I want in the short term might be that sugary donut right in front of me. So we have two systems of priority within us. One powerful way to exert self-control is to remind oneself of one's principles in the moment.

It was found that self affirmations, you know, “every day and every way I'm getting better and better” and, you know “I'm a wonderful person” all those kinds of things, were found to be to make people with low self-esteem feel worse about themselves. They were good for people with high self-esteem or healthy self-esteem, but not good for people with low self-esteem because they kind of knew that they were lying to themselves, and that it wasn't helping them - in fact they would feel worse afterwards.

But affirmations aren't useless, because they were found to be good for exerting willpower. So for example if I decided I was going to exercise then but I find my will weakening - it could be something on TV or whatever excuse that I come up with, as Charlotte says you can come up with any excuse - then I might say to myself, “I am the sort of person for whom self-discipline is important” as an affirmation, repeat that a few times. And that seems to actually be quite effective.

Another effective strategy for exercise specifically isn't so much focusing on how good you'll feel when you've done it - there was some research done on this. it was found that people who focused on how bad they'd feel if they didn't exercise later on were actually more compelled to go exercise, I find that really interesting. So if I'm sitting at home and I decided previously that I was going to exercise, and I find my willpower fade and I start making excuses to myself, I can then imagine what I feel like if later on tonight, or when I go to bed, if I've just sat around all day or if I haven't run out those steps, or haven't if I haven't worked out or done resistance training that day - or whatever. That seems to be a powerful motivator.

We have got an exercise motivation audio session on the website as well which you could check out, but yes, that is a really good way of going about it. Two things - first, focus on your principles; what is important to you - ‘I am the sort of person for whom personal health and responsibility and integrity is important’ and using that sort of self-affirmation or whatever the one you choose is, at times of weakness when that little voice in your ear starts coming up with the excuses. And secondly, remembering to focus on what it would be like if you don't exercise, and that stodgy feeling of having sat around all day. And you know that kind of thing that seems to get you going but you can couple that with remembering how good you'll feel later on as well when, when you're done that.

So those along with self hypnotic techniques might be uh really powerful.