How to Get Started Improving Your Health

We all have a list of “things” that we say we want to start but for whatever reason, we’ve placed on hold.

Exercise ranks up at the top of the “I want to or need to start”.  Much like water, good food and sleep, exercise is one of our genetic requirements.  Without exercise, our overall function decreases and the longer we go without it, we begin to “lose” the health potential we were all born with.

If we can agree that without movement, we move toward sickness, then why can’t we find the motivation to START moving?

In my conversation with people inside and outside my practice, what I know is that when we’re not inspired, we don’t mobilize.  We’re inspiration driven and inspiration ultimately is all that speaks to us.

In my late thirties, I began running.  Prior to this, I avoided running like the plague. My husband runs, my friends run, and my boys need a role model.   I decided that I wanted to make running a part of my life so that I could better connect with all of them.  

I needed to change what I was doing in order to become congruent with who I wanted to be.  Who I wanted to be was an active, fit, empowered spouse, mom, friend and community member.

This journey, by the way, could apply to a walk, yoga, swimming, tennis, hiking, golf or anything else involving movement.

So how do we start?

In order to “start”, we need to make the new thing a priority.  Our habits express our priorities. 

LACK OF TIME serves as the biggest roadblock to making exercise a priority. In order to create more time, we have to eliminate something that sits lower on the totem pole. 

For example, if I want to run for 45 minutes today, then I may not be able to watch 45 minutes of television on the same day.  This is quite “on point” considering the average American watches TV and hangs out on social media for more than 40 hours per week. 

Sometimes “BEING TOO BUSY” serves as the scapegoat for procrastination.  In order to spend more time on our highest priorities, we must eliminate the distractions which we often package as priorities.

Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “In order to begin, you must begin”. It really doesn’t get any simpler than that.

Go after it, there’s no time like the present!