Has this ever happened to you?  You make promises, preparations and determination to start that exercise program. You have been thinking about it.  You are ready.  But a question remains — “What is the best way to start an  exercise program?”

Even though you have been putting it off for a long time, you finally said “tomorrow is the day that I am going to start”.   And you are well prepared with good intentions. 

But something happened between the night before and the morning after… You got cold feet!

Why?  Because you don’t feel like exercising this morning. Your feelings, in spite of all the preparation and determination, got the best of you. You gave in to your feelings!

If this has happened to you, you are not alone.  So many other people have been in the same situation. The good news is that they overcame it, and so can you.

In this article, you are going to learn how others in the same situation have overcome reluctance to exercising. Ideally, this will give you hope that you can do exercising regularly. 

Here are some tips:

1. The first thing that you need to do is to make a re-determination of starting an exercise program.

This means you need to make a fresh decision to “restart your engine” again. You should not give in to your failure to follow up with any prior determination.

2.  The second thing that would be beneficial is to know why you are doing what you are doing.

You want to exercise because you want to improve your health and vitality. You want to exercise because you will feel good doing what you are doing.

You know staying fit is critical to your health and wellness. Also, you know that your health is your wealth.

3.  Next is to write out your why’s.

Sometimes we are not motivated to do something because our why’s are not strong enough. Thinking about our why’s will not cut it.

Writing brings things to light. You put it on the paper and the light becomes brighter and brighter.

You discover that you really want to exercise because, maybe, you want to feel good, or impress your ‘significant’ other.

The most important thing is to make your why stronger than your reluctance to exercising.

4.    Next you should  make a decision as to how you are going to be carrying out your exercise program.

Are you going to be jogging, walking, running or whatever? Are you going to join a gym or develop a gym at home?

Are you going to go it alone, or have someone else join you?

The most important thing is to start.  Start somewhere!

5.  The next thing you should be deciding is the frequency of exercising.

Do you want to exercise 3 days a week, 2 days a week? Then you want to determine for how long.

6.  Start small at the beginning or you may well end up   doing nothing.

Even if you start with a 5 minute program, that is still a good place.

You should congratulate yourself for finishing your first 5 minutes of exercising.  Remember,that is more than zero minutes that you have been doing before.

Rome was not build in a day and you are not going to start any exercising program by running (for example) one hour your first day.

Again, the tip here is to start small or you are going to fail. In most cases, you don’t know how much you can do until you actually start something.

That’s why starting somewhere, regardless of how small is very important.

The hope is that by following these tips, you will be on your way to developing an exercise program you can continue with.

Any comments, or questions?