Working out is easier than you think

Yes—yes, it is, especially if you look at it the right way.

Everyone dreads exercise because they’re intimidated by the distance between their starting point (i.e, maybe sitting on a couch all day) and what they think real exercise is (i.e, running a treadmill so hard the gym staff think you’ll break it). This is it’s like falling out of bed, then asking yourself to climb a mountain just to shower: completely discouraging, isn’t it?

It’s A Matter of Perspective

At Blacktie Mealprep, our most successful clients asked this question in their early days, when their confidence is untested and could use some positive reinforcement. That’s a good thing, because any confidence without a reinforced foundation falls apart the moment things get tough.

Your confidence works like a muscle, and for it to get strong, you must exercise it. The same way you start working out your biceps by lifting small weights in the gym, you also start working out your confidence by using it in small ways.

So Start Small

Start by adding small habits. Take that 5 minute walk to your lunch break instead of driving, always take the stairs when you come back from work, and so on. Always make sure what you add is second nature, before you add another thing.

This works because your mind is great at finding shortcuts for things you do repeatedly. This is why as a kid, learning to ride a bicycle was the most difficult, impossible thing you could imagine. But you kept at it, and eventually it became as natural as walking.

And You’ll Win Big

All the balancing and stabilization work you once did consciously to go a few yards before falling over, your mind learned to do on its own. As a result, you may go years without riding a bicycle, decades even, but your mind still knows how to ride a bicycle.

Going to the gym works the same way, and it’s how those jacked up guys and gals became the way they are. They also started small, and finished big because it became second nature once they trained their minds to see exercise less as work, and more like appreciation and a conversation with the one thing that’s truly theirs, free and clear, for the rest of their lives: their body.

Exercise is how you learn to listen to your body, so you can learn to love and care for it.