How to Get Motivated to Exercise

My wife and I were chatting this morning. She decided to sleep in this morning instead of getting out of bed and going to the gym – nothing wrong with that, but after our conversation I learned something really valuable about how she motivates herself to go to the gym and exercise.

She told me that she woke up this morning and *pictured* herself at the gym doing her workout. She made the picture big and bright, but that wasn’t enough to get her out of bed. The picture wasn’t enough to motivate her.

But I know my wife very well. There are times when she is very excited to go to the gym. So I got curious and asked,

“What does get you excited about the gym?”

And she said, “When I focus on how the *feeling* I have after the gym – after my workout and even the next day. I feel like a gladiator!”

As she said those words she started flexing like a real gladiator… she looked pumped up and excited.

So in a nutshell, my wife’s strategy for getting motivated to workout and go to the gym is to focus on the feeling she has after her workout.

“That’s interesting,” I thought.

It’s not the picture of actually working out that motivates her, but the feeling she gets after the workout. It made me think about what motivates me to go and play hockey at 6:30 am every Wednesday morning – and it turns out that it’s the same thing.

It’s the feeling of walking out of the hockey arena after a really good workout. I feel great and I also realize I’ve got the whole day ahead of me. That’s what gets me up at 5:00 am to play hockey.

So the next time you’re trying to get motivated to go to the gym, focus on the feeling you get after you go – then you’ll go :)