“In order for man to succeed in life, God provided him with two means, education and physical activity. Not separately, one for the soul and the other for the body, but for the two together. With these two means, man can attain perfection.” ~ Plato
I am constantly reminded in my own life how connected my mind and body are. As my days fill up with work and other stuff, I tend to sacrifice my workouts. See, much of my work, writing, respond to emails, and coaching clients are quantifiable tasks. It’s easy to see if I’ve completed them or not. Skipping a workout, on the other hand, has no immediate visible repercussions.
What I find though, is that instead of my life getting less frantic when I skip my workouts, it becomes more frantic.
Jeremiah and I were talking about this the other day and he summed it up pretty well: “People think exercising takes energy. The truth is that exercising creates energy.”
Getting physical creates the energy you need to do all the really hard stuff in the rest of your life. But, sometimes it is hard to stay on track.
So these are the tricks I have used to get back on track when I fall off.
1. Remember why you are training – Most of us are not competitive athletes. Don’t get caught up in others goals. I had a conversation the other day with someone who said he wanted to get bigger. I knew a little about him and we had a discussion on why he wanted to be bigger. It turns out what he wanted was to be stronger and faster. That changes the way he needs to train.
2. Put the training time on your calendar – You need to plan time on the schedule. Either do it at the same time each day or if you have a more complicated schedule, plan the week ahead when you are going to train. It is harder to skip it when you see it in writing. Also scheduling it in shows that there is time to do it as long as you stick to the schedule.
3. Have a plan – Don’t just schedule training and figure it out when you get there. Our lives are busy and our brains are juggling a ton of ideas. If you have to plan the workout in the middle of an already full day, the chances are better that you are going to skip it and save the mental energy. If you don’t know what to do, join a group class or hire a coach.
What Plato was so eloquently saying was that everything is connected – not just everything in your body, mind and spirit, but everything in your life. Take care of your body and it will take care of you.
Question: What tricks do you use to get back on track?