Health and Fitness Through Exercise
Even with the strongest resolve, we all succumb to moments of weakness and will find the same excuses when we fail. “I will make up for it tomorrow;” “I didn’t have time”, “I had a drink because everyone else was having one”, “I will pick up again next week”. These are common excuses that we all use to justify not doing the things that seem to involve simply too much effort, but, if you make enough of the excuse in the short term, they will prevent you from achieving your ultimate goal in the long term. With a written goal-driven plan for your programme, you are far more likely to succeed.
Without motivating yourself, you may give in to the occasioned bout of laziness and its not that you don’t want to achieve the targets that you have set yourself, but sometimes you can loose sight of your long-term goal. You can’t be perfect all the time (life would be just too boring) but most of what you do has positive or negative consequences for you and to some degree, a healthy lifestyle is about balancing the two to achieve equilibrium.
Having said that, there are times when it may not be possible to stick with a training programme that demands a good deal of commitment. A traumatic experience such as bereavement or other person tragedy might mean that you have to set your programme aside temporarily. It’s all put of maintaining a balanced approach to your fitness programme. Perhaps your children take up a lot of your time and just want to rest when they go to bed. Maybe you don’t really believe that you can ever have the body that you want and all of the effort is for nothing. Such self-doubt can be terribly undermining. If you don’t’ really believe you can achieve a good, you are doomed to failure before you’ve even began. You will never know what you can achieve unless you try and don’t give yourself a proper chance at success unless you have set yourself clear and reliable goals.
If you feel that you don’t have time for a fitness programme because of work, the children or family obligations for example, start putting your own needs first. In fact you will find that regular exercises will probably help you to perform better at work and give you more energy so that you can enjoy your children and make the time you spend with your family more satisfying.
Reassessing your goals
Of course, there will be times when you would not be able to work out and it would be unrealistic to expect you to be able to stick to a programme 100 percent of the time. When you set a short term goal, you can still make up to it. Assess what you have missed and add extra work to your schedule when necessary. So, for instance if you miss a session, you might have to concentrate on an aerobic work out next time you train. If you miss one day of training over a month, don’t worry. If you miss one or two sessions a week you may need to reassess your long term goal. If you eat breakfast five days out of seven and it is only an apple, you have a slight problem that must be addressed. You can always reassess your goals, whether long or short term. If you find that despite your most valiant effort you still can’t meet them, your short-terms must now become your long-term goals and you must focus towards achieving them in the foreseeable future. Otherwise, you will loose sight of your long term goal and it will become more and more difficult to attain. This undermines the importance of setting goals. It is merely emphasized how valuable it is to set realistic and achievable ones and to understand your own limits and motivation levels.
Building resolve, the first step on the path to a healthier life, is the most difficult and subsequent steps become easier and easier. If you feel yourself starting to falter, think back to other challenges you have met in your life and remember how even the most difficult things often seem less daunting in retrospect. It is easy to stay motivated if you have the support of the people around you-your friends, family and work colleagues. There will always be someone who cannot wait to tell you a way out past failure or suggest a better exercise routine or more effective diet. The trick is to stay more focused on your programme and keep your personal goal in sight.
