You wake up in the morning and hit the snooze on your alarm/cell phone one too many times, but you still have just enough time to throw some gym clothes on and get a quick breakfast before heading out the door. Just as you start to pull out of the driveway, you realize you don’t have your wallet or if you’re a female, your purse, hand bag, (my nana called hers a “pocketbook”) whatever you call yours.. So you put the car in park, head back inside to search frantically throughout the house looking for your wallet/purse. You eventually find it under a pile of clothes from the day before. Now frustrated by this whole ordeal, you realize you no longer have time for the full workout you had planned.
So now it’s decision time. Since you won’t be able to do the workout you’d envisioned, you think “screw it”, it’s not worth it to go at all.
I see this all the time and in fact, am guilty of it myself. There are so many little ways we talk ourselves out of working out. We either have poor planning or we’ve forgotten altogether why we work out in the first place.
The three most common excuses I run into are listed below, along with their respective fixes.
Scenario One
“I only have 30 minutes so what’s the point”
There will be days where you get a late start to the gym or only you have 30 minutes to get your workout in. I get it, life happens. 30 minuets of exercise doesn’t seem like enough time for most people to get a good workout in, but on the contrary, it is plenty of time.
The Fix
The obvious way to address this is to make sure you plan your day ahead of time. Take 5 or 10 minutes the night before and get all your clothes together and make sure your lunch is packed for tomorrow.
Doing this takes the stress out of getting out of the house in the morning and will help you feel like you’re starting your day off on the right foot.
So ok, you’ve done that and still your day goes haywire and now you only have 30 minutes to squeeze in a workout. Instead of bailing altogether, abbreviate! Think about how to get the best bang for your workout buck.
For example, if your planned workout looked like this:
A1. DB Goblet Squat
A2. Chin Ups
B1. DB Bench
B2. DB RDL
C1. Sled Push
C2. Med Ball Slams
You could do this instead:
A1. DB Goblet Squat
A2. Chin Ups
A3. DB Bench
A4. DB RDL
A5. Sled Push
A6. Med Ball Slams
Yes I know they are the same exercises but instead of doing 3×10 of A, 3×10 of B and so forth, change it up and make it a six exercise circuit, doing one set of each exercise and moving onto the next as many times as possible in 30 minutes. Mission accomplished – ass kicked and workout done.
Scenario Two
“I don’t have time”
So this is different than the “I don’t have the time I planned on working out”. This kind of time excuse is the one everyone uses when working out is not a priority. It happens when we forget our “Why”. Your why is the reason you work out, the reason why you eat healthy. This is what motivates you to make time for what is important to you.
You have heard it said, “If it’s important to you, you will make time”. Maybe you don’t want to hear it or admit it but it is flat out true.
When you forget why you are doing something, you will soon lose interest in doing it, because it no longer has meaning or value to you, so why make time for it.
The Fix
Stay with me here – go grab a piece of paper and number it 1 through 6, and then at the top, write your goal. Now ask yourself why you want that goal and write it in line one, then ask again why and write that on line two, and so on.
Example:
To weigh X pounds (my goal is 200 lbs)
1.To look good
2.To feel good
3.To be able to do activities that I can’t do today
4.To do things with my fiancée
5.To enjoy life
6.To be happy
As you can see my goal is to be at 200lbs but my why is to be able to be active, enjoy time with loved ones, and to enjoy life. Those are what actually motivate me to workout. Not looking good. The emotional why and remembering that why keep me motivated to work out.
Now find yours
Scenario Three
“There was a super moon and solar eclipse last night it’s a sign not to workout”
If you are looking for any excuse under the sun to get out of working out, then maybe working out is not for you. Maybe you need to refer back to scenario number two and find your why and see if working out and eating right fit into your life goals. If working out in the traditional sense isn’t for you, think about what would work and what you are willing to make time to do. Otherwise, you will use any and every excuse to not do it.
The Fix
Find out what you really want and commit to it.
Best
JW
