I’m sure you already know that exercising with a friend (or in a class) is a good way to keep yourself on track with your fitness plans.
But, what about if your plans are mostly solitary?
Maybe you like to workout at home.
Perhaps you enjoy going for walks alone.
Or, given current circumstances, perhaps you HAVE to work out alone, no matter what you prefer to do.
Either way, it means that you don’t have that extra boost of motivation to rely on when you are feeling kind of meh about your exercise plans.
If today is one of those meh days, I have a suggestion:
Text a friend.
(Note: you can call/email/message a friend, instead, obviously. That’s just not as catchy as ‘Text a friend.’)
Tell your friend what you plan to do and ask them to check in with you to see if you’ve done it.
(You can also offer to check in with them about one of their meh tasks, too.)
That little bit of accountability can make a huge difference in your motivation and help you flip the switch from meh to done.
After all, most of the time we just need a small thing to tip the balance in favour of our exercise plans. That impending return text could make all the difference.
And, of course, you can set up a regular check-in with your friend if that serves you both well.
Be kind to yourself! Keep moving!
Here are two gold stars today, one for you and one for your friend.
Nice. I’ve used this technique a lot. (sometimes even that isn’t enough, but it was worth a try)
Sounds like a beautiful tree. How about a picture of the whole tree? We are going to take down Christmas-specific ornaments and redecorate the tree for Valentine’s Day with red ornaments, star, red lights (maybe keep the white lights on). We’ll see how far I can push the concept into the year. (I still have candy corn tinted lights up from October.) We keep (solar-powered) lights on a small outside tree in the backyard year round, and every night it makes me smile to see them. Sometimes we change the colors. Right now, red and white like a candy cane.
I love lights, always have, even more so as I get older. I begin to understand why there were/are festivals of light, candles in winter windows, etc…dispelling the darkness has so many aspects and benefits.
It’s definitely worth a try! Nothing works 100% of the time but I guess that’s why it’s good to have a variety of tools to choose from. 🙂
I love lights, too, especially star-shaped ones, and I love the idea of your tree with different decorations throughout the year.
I can’t put a photo into the comments but there is a photo of the whole (rather small) tree, lights on, in this post – https://fitisafeministissue.com/2020/12/29/christine-h-says-yes-to-holidays-but-no-to-holi-daze/ There is a star at the top, too, but it doesn’t light up. I’m going to have to find a lit top for next year.
Thanks for reading!