My exercise goal is to move my body for five minutes every day.
That’s the whole goal.
Some days I end up running a few miles, some days I stretch on the living room floor, and some days I dance to loud music in my bedroom but everyday I move for five minutes.
Often when I ask someone what their goals are, they say “I want to eat better and exercise more”. These are great aspirations, but they aren’t helpful goals. We set goals in hopes of achieving them. How will you know if you’ve achieved “eating better” or “exercising more”? You’ll have to estimate.
When setting a goal, it’s important to keep the details in mind. Make sure your goal is SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely). I’d also encourage you to set your goal so that it can be done EVERY DAY. Consistency is key when making a lifestyle change so make your goal small enough that you can always complete it.
Tell me if you’ve been here before. In order to “exercise more” you decided to focus on getting 30 minutes of physical activity a day. Because you don’t have a current exercise routine, you decide to start with walking in order to ease into it.
Day 1: You wake up early and start walking! It feels great to be up and achieving your goals.
Day 2: You’re riding the motivation high and and it’s easy to get another walk in.
Day 3: You’re more tired in the morning. Getting up earlier than usual has been hard on your sleep schedule but you manage to get that walk in.
Day 4: You’re exhausted. You lie in bed after hitting the snooze and think about your schedule for the day. There’s probably time to walk after work today so you opt to do that and snag a few extra minutes to sleep.
Day 5: You slept in yesterday and still got your walk in; sounds like a good plan for today as well! Except today, work gets hectic; you stay later than intended and by the time you get home, walking is the last thing you want to do. You skip it.
Day 6: You struggle to wake up in the morning and feel tired again after work. You already missed one day and “failed” at your goal. How about you start again on Monday?
...and there goes the motivation.
In order to make exercise a part of a long term routine, it has to become a habit; we need to take the guesswork out of it. We can’t rely on willpower to carry us through a lifestyle change. It doesn’t work. We have to set goals in a way that makes it easy to stick with.
So instead of making a goal to exercise for 30 minutes every day, what about making a goal to exercise 2 minutes every day? Does it sound a bit silly? Perhaps. Is it something you can commit to doing everyday? Yes.
Motivation can be fickle but wins build motivation. Accomplishment builds self-efficacy. When you succeed in doing 2 minutes of activity consistently, you learn that you’re capable of being active every day. When you feel capable, change will happen.
What change will you commit to doing consistently?
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