Pick up running with a... calendar! How you can start exercising every day
For many picking up an activity and doing it in a scheduled way is often quite hard. Most of the time people start strong and positive exercising hard feeling great but a few days down the line they find it hard to keep going and stop. Exercising becomes a chore, a very unpleasant one actually. That's because a couple of things are done wrong.
First of all the key to start exercising is to make it a habit. There only way to form a habit is to do it over and over again. There are a lot of ways someone to form a habit but i want to share my own, that is easy and free. In my case i picked up running as the exercise that fits my needs, so i made a simple calendar in order to keep track of the distance i run in each day. If i didn't commit to the run i would mark it as failed on that day.
This method was a good and simple way to mark down and keep track the progress of the commitment. Also as i found out later on it is helpful to record the distance along side the commitment in the calendar.
Second of all and as important as the first is to set a goal for every day you want to exercise. The goal must be achievable and not very hard, at least until the habit is formed. This can be anything from just going out to running 5 miles. But remember the goal you set is the only thing that will keep you from making the activity a chore!
Here i also want to share my goal that got me started. My goal for every time i got out to run is to drip a drop of sweat on the ground. If that goal is not met i would continue running. The initial goal was quite easy and achievable, that kept me going to set a bit harder goals and achieving them down the road. The most important is to avoid making the exercise unpleasant. Climb constantly not only when it is necessary.
Exercising does not just make us physically healthy and strong, it also keeps our mental health strong. Just a week of commitment can change our everyday life a lot. Achieving small things every day add up in something big in the end.
Let me know your thoughts. Share what keeps you going.
Hope this post makes someone start exercising!