Do you find yourself ‘zoning out’ during weight training repetitions or while you’re running for miles and miles on the treadmill? Are you looking for ways to distract yourself from the discomfort of your exercise routine instead of enjoying the physical activity for its own merits? Do you ever reach your fitness goals or do you lose interest or motivation long before a goal deadline? If you have a love-hate relationship with exercise, maybe you should ditch those exercise activities that you hate and start doing those activities you love. There is a strong connection between your mind-body when it comes to the benefits gained during exercise. If we don’t enjoy the activity, it is quite often not going to be beneficial to us. If we are not in-sync (mind/body) during exercise then we are inducing a stress response to exercise that negates any benefits we might otherwise reap from the activity. Instead, take the time to really dig down into your psyche, your memories, your feelings about exercise and consider the ways of moving your body which bring to mind happy thoughts or memories. These remembrances are the keys to identifying those activities in which you can happily engage on most days of the week. There is an oft quoted saying which states that “if we do what we love, we will never work a day in our life.” This same outlook or attitude can be transferred to the fitness activities in which we choose to engage. Once identified, activities that we love to do will seem more like child’s play rather than a prescribed, must-do exercise routine. So before you pickup another dumbbell or drag yourself to another group fitness class, make sure you know, deep down, what really drives you to stay fit; once identified, this knowledge will make reaching your fitness goals a journey you’ll enjoy rather than dread.

You have to fall in love with building the identity of someone who does the work, rather than merely dreaming about the results that you want. In other words fall in love with boredom. Fall in love with repetition and practice. Fall in love with the process of what you do and let the results take care of themselves.  James Clear