Putting off physical activity is typical among people who don’t have a regular habit of exercise.
There are three common reasons for procrastination:
Out of the three most common reasons for putting exercise off, this one is the easiest to solve. Just like some people find dozens of other tasks when they’re supposed to study for a boring exam, so some people find something else to do when they’re supposed to exercise.
It’s a great example of a lack of intrinsic motivation (not getting pure enjoyment out of exercise). If you’ve recently started practicing a new sport but you’re rarely motivated to go out and practice it, chances are it’s not the right kind of physical activity for you.
The right type of exercise should draw you in and ideally, make you obsessed about it from the get go. If you’re performing it in the afternoon or the evening, it shouldn’t be something that hangs over your head as yet another thing on the to-do list. It should be something you’re looking forward to and would like to happen sooner.
In a sense, procrastination can be a useful tool to help you determine what works for you and what doesn’t. If you always procrastinate before studying, perhaps you’re studying the wrong things. If you always procrastinate on writing essays and replace it with, say, programming, perhaps it’s your subconscious telling you that your strength lies in programming and writing essays is a distraction.
You won’t solve the problem of procrastination if you don’t find the type of exercise that feels right. As mentioned before, the idea of enjoying exercise is one of the most important concepts to introduce a regular habit of physical activity. We’ll be talking about it in greater detail in a later chapter. That’s where you’ll learn how to beat procrastination if it’s because of this reason.
Even if you know that exercise is good for you and that you’ll feel great during and after it, you may still procrastinate.
The reason for this behavior is usually that it’s not an automated behavior for you, and consequently you need willpower to get started. Since the level of your willpower varies, it’s easy to procrastinate even when it comes to the exercises you like.
The underlying problem here is not the activity in itself, but getting yourself prepared to do it – putting on your fitness gear, driving to your local climbing gym, or loading your playlist for a jogging session.
The solution is simple – you need to make exercise so automatic it feels like brushing your teeth or taking a shower during your morning routine. No matter your willpower levels, you don’t struggle with these things because they’re a part of your automated routine, right?
According to Charles Duhigg, the author of The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business[xv], a habit consists of three elements: cue (trigger), action, and reward.
James Clear, a writer and researcher on behavioral psychology, habit formation, and performance improvement, calls it the 3 R’s of habit formation – reminder (cue or trigger), routine (action), and reward[xvi].
In the case of exercise, the cue would be seeing your running shoes by the bed in the morning, the action would be putting them on and going out for a jog, and the reward would be the rush of endorphins. When set up properly, it’s a self-reinforcing mechanism that makes the habit more and more automated until it becomes as natural as brushing your teeth in the morning.
It takes consistent practice to develop a habit, but once it’s a part of your daily routine, you’ll no longer suffer from procrastination-related problems. Pick a cue that will always be the same and that you’ll always follow with a specific action that will be reinforced with a specific reward.
Some good cues to consider:
- a specific time on a specific day. For example, I go swimming either on Tuesday or Thursday at 7 in the morning. After following such a routine for several weeks or months, you can’t help but do it out of habit.
- a reminder on your phone (ideally with a distinct sound or a song). I used to play a specific song and do push-ups while listening to it. To this day, the song still reminds me of push-ups.
- an existing behavior. For instance, if you meditate in the morning, it can serve as a cue to exercise right after finishing your session.
When starting out with a new habit of exercise, start small. You don’t have to start by introducing a habit of running for 60 minutes every single day. Even running five minutes around the neighborhood is enough to make a new behavior automatic. In fact, it’s better to start as small as possible so there’s very little (if any) resistance to it. As Leo Babauta, blogger at ZenHabits.net puts it, “make it so easy you can’t say no”[xvii].
What’s important is not the action in itself, but building the self-reinforcing habit. If you already have a habit of exercising one minute a day, it will be much easier to turn it into 2, 5 or 10 minutes than starting a new habit of exercising for 10 minutes right away.
Lastly, don’t forget about a proper reward. An unhealthy snack after exercise is not a good idea since it won’t help you reach your ultimate goal of improving your health.
Thankfully, if you choose the right type of exercise for you, the feeling of enjoyment will be the only reward you’ll ever need. Alternatively, reward yourself with a healthy meal, a nap, massage, an evening out with friends – anything that makes you feel good while not ruining your fitness progress.
If you’ve been living a sedentary lifestyle for a large portion of your life, don’t expect to become a fitness machine in a week. Start as small as possible and work on eliminating resistance to exercise.
Simple choices to move a little bit more during the day (taking the stairs instead of the elevator, not driving if you can walk there in 5 to 10 minutes) can reactivate your willingness to become more active. Don’t schedule these “exercises.” Just replace your existing behaviors with less convenient, but still manageable changes to introduce more physical activity in your life.
Don’t expect to feel no resistance to exercise if it’s been months or years since you’ve last engaged in physical activity, just as you shouldn’t expect to pull yourself up 10 times if you’ve never done a pull-up in your life.
Start slowly and let the resistance melt by a tiny amount each day until you no longer find it challenging to introduce a deliberate habit of exercise. If you rush things, you’ll only increase the risk of an injury or soreness and a subsequent bad association with exercise.