Does this sound familiar?
“I can’t get out of bed” she says. “I so want to get up and exercise, and also have some creative time, I work weekends now so there is no time to paint, and also I’d like to have my own business one day so I can be more creatively fulfilled and not have to get up so early for work – work to my own schedule. I have all these good intentions but I just can’t get out of bed in the morning! The night before I promise myself…but then in the morning I just hit snooze…”
Whether it’s fitting in the stuff we want at the start or the end of the working day, finding that life-work balance that actually works for us can be really elusive. It’s especially tricky when it comes to exercise so that’s what we are going to focus on today.
A few simple tweaks in the way you think and you will be able to break through those blocks and build a habit as a regular exerciser.
Yes really darling, YOU!
Here you go, this is what you need to know:
- If your body keeps telling you that you need more sleep or you are exhausted that’s important information. Hitting snooze repeatedly every day is a message you need to rest more. Go see your GP, get checked for anaemia and other causes of fatigue. If they can’t find anything and you still feel routinely too exhausted PLEASE check if Adrenal Fatigue is your issue on this handy quiz here, and if so get the help you need from my book, e-programme and supplements. I lived with it for YEARS because I didn’t know there was action I could take! Don’t let that be you.
- Assuming you have done the above and physically you are in good shape, the second thing you need to do is WORK WITH YOUR OWN BODY CLOCK. There is a real culture of getting up early, going to bed early in New Zealand. Which is absolutely fantastic if you are also a natural Early Bird! Lots of company at the 6am gym session! Go YOU! Take that natural early morning energy and run with it baby, that’s awesome. If, however, you are a natural Night Owl then flogging yourself to get out of bed at 5.15am each morning is going to feel really bad. It’s not lack of willpower, it’s just your body is not built that way. So, work with what you have and figure out a plan where you can get some of what you need later in the day, or only a set number of mornings that are super early starts. You need to honour and work with YOUR body’s natural body clock, not what some magazine tells you about “getting exercise out of the way first thing!! “Lalalaa!!!” I am a Night Owl myself and so my best exercise time is 4.30pm in the afternoon so I structure my whole day around that. My most creative time is first thing in the morning – that’s when I do my writing so I structure my day around that. As much as you can, with the logistics you have, structure your day around your optimum body clock. It’s truly AMAZING how much difference that makes to your energy levels.
- Look at where you are setting the exercise bar…my honeychild client, bless her sweet socks, was expecting herself to get up at 5am every day to work out before work, and get some creative time squeezed in. She made the classic mistake we make when we are setting ourselves some sort of personal goal, especially around exercise. WE SET THE BAR TOO HIGH. We set the bar at what we expect of ourselves on our BEST DAY. On a day where the sun is shining, and the kids are little angels, and the husband packed the packed lunches the night before (whaaat?!), and the traffic is amazing, and we had a super early night and no alcohol and slept like a baby … then, THAT DAY we could do the 5am start no problem! Thing is – life doesn’t roll like that – and so – we miss the 5am, and then the next day, and then we feel like a failure, and then we hate on ourselves and then it just stops happening. That feeling of failure KILLS IT.
We have to STOP SETTING THE BAR SO HIGH – so you can get a succession of wins under your belt. So that each day becomes a “yes ma’am, I got my exercise in!”, And you get to feel good about it. That in a day when one of the kids is sick, and the washing machine floods the kitchen, and the traffic is shit and the mother in law announces she is coming to stay – THAT DAY – how much exercise could you do THAT day and still keep it as a win?
30 minutes? 20 minutes? 15? 12? 12 minutes. Okay – then that’s what a coach Brooke Castillo who is doing great work in the world – would call a “MINIMUM baseline”. That’s your level people – 12 minutes a day – not “I will get up at 5am every day and do at least an hour every day”. That is a MAXIMUM baseline – and it sets you up for FAILURE. It’s a black and white way of setting a goal in your life that almost 100% guarantees you are going to fail at it.
Because if the bar is too high, the chance of failure is also too high.
So – set it as a MINIMUM instead – 12 minutes, every day. And that could mean being so pushed one day that you just scoot out at lunchtime, walk to the sushi shop 6 mins away and walk back. TICK – DONE! I have exercised today! And other days, when things are going better, you might go for half and hour, or it might be a two-hour bike ride with the kids in the forest on Sunday.
Whatever – the point is that EVERY DAY YOU GET TO FEEL GOOD THAT YOU MET YOUR BASELINE!
A string of 30 “yeses” linked together is SO MUCH MORE MOTIVATING than some super high baseline that you will inevitably not meet once life starts to intervene.
Life is BUSY, yo! Build that into the mix at the beginning. Listen – if you can’t honestly find time to commit 12 minutes of movement to yourself in a 24 hour period you have WAY bigger problems than not exercising regularly. This minimum baseline strategy changes EVERYTHING – just try it.
Right – so next I was going to tell you the BIG ONE number 4 – the secret you need to shift your mindset into a whole another place around this stuff – but this blog is already too long – so I’ll save it for you for next week! Stay tuned sweetcheeks, and in the meantime get the above in place this week:
- Physical checks around tiredness, your GP, or the Adrenal Fatigue Quiz right here. If it is – get hold of my book and supplements and get it fixed!
- Work with YOUR body clock. YOURS. Figure out what works best for your body at what times and try and honour that as much as you can. Be creative, figure it out – your body will thank you for it.
- Minimum Baseline, people! Set yourself up for SUCCESS. How much exercise could you do on your WORST DAY? That – that is your baseline. Lock that in. Make it EASY. Like stupidly, “of course I could do 9 minutes! Der!!!” easy. Get in in place. Start. Start today. Then achieve it tomorrow. And the next day. And the next day. On a better day, if you are feeling it, do more, but just make that minimum commitment to yourself each day and watch the magic unfold.
- Okay – this is the BIG ONE – it’s going to blow your mind and it’s coming at you next week! Stay tuned!
Let me know in the comments below how you get on!
