If You’re Too Busy To Exercise, There’s More Than Time Standing In Your Way
by Scott Tousignant · Filed Under: increase productivity
I would like to introduce you to my friend Linette M. Daniels. She is a master at helping you increase productivity and get more done with less.
I’m incredibly excited that Linette agreed to share a fantastic guest post with you today. I can’t wait to hear your feedback. Enjoy…
If You’re Too Busy To Exercise, There’s More Than Time Standing In Your Way
You say you don’t have time to exercise but truthfully, how hard have you tried. When you look at your list of things to do, how close to the top does daily exercise land? Have you stopped to seriously consider the real reason you are perhaps conveniently too busy.
I have heard and even made a lot of excuses for this avoidance behavior. Do any of these sound familiar?
• I don’t have time
• I don’t like to exercise
• Exercise is boring
• It’s too hot, too cold, too rainy
• I don’t see any change in my body
• Exercising makes me eat more
• I am gaining more weight
• Healthy food is expensive
If you’ve been around long enough, you are probably guilty of making or thinking every one of those excuses. But you are still getting on the scale and looking down at a dismal numbers. You are still shopping for clothes you dream of being able to fit. You are still secretly envious of your best friend or neighbor. And you are still eating a gallon of ice cream when you know you should stop at one serving.
Behind all of that is the “thing” that is really standing in your way of exercising. It is the “thing” that only you can claim. I am going to call it your values.
Your values are the ideas, concepts, goals, people and supports you feel are vital to creating the life you want to live. Your goals are based on your values and your priorities are the individual activities you perform in order to achieve those goals.
1. Getting focused is an important step that involves identifying your values, writing goals and setting priorities.
Question: How much value do you place on your health?
2. When situations come up that challenge or threaten to disrupt your exercise time, evaluate them against your priorities.
Question: How does the interruption fit in with my priorities?
Question: Is it worth my health to give in to this interruption?
Question: What impact will a missed workout have on my health?
3. You must analyze your current situation to pinpoint the areas of your life where you’re wasting or inefficiently using your time, energy and resources.
Question: How often do you spend more than 15 minutes looking for lost items?
4. Don’t be overcome by the task. Long workouts everyday isn’t as important as working on the right things and doing the right things right
Question: Are you following an exercise program that offers 10-15 minute segments
5. Don’t schedule every minute of your day. Budget time the way you budget your money.
Question: Do you leave room on your schedule for unexpected interruptions or crises?
I could certainly give you all the politically correct statements to help you exercise like:
• Schedule your exercise time for the same time everyday
• Get up a few minutes early and use 15 minutes of your lunch hour to take a brisk walk
• Keep a calendar of your workouts to you can track your progress and stay motivated
• Remember that exercise generates energy–the more energy you have, the more you’ll get done each day.
• Take the stairs instead the elevator/escalator
• Park far away from the front door to the mall
• Hand wash your car
But you have heard those all before. So I am going to tell you to:
1. Stop making excuses but instead make a decision
2. Stop whining and instead make a commitment
3. Stop being envious and instead set the bar
4. Stop giving in, giving up and existing! Instead get in the game and you call the shots.
Finish what you start
Dare to dream larger than life
Excel in your pursuits
Look at your past as a road map for the future
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams and life the life you’ve always imagined, wearing the perfect outfit!!!!!
Linette M. Daniels
aka “The Business Doctor”
If you enjoyed Linette’s guest blog post today and would like to get to know her and her work better, please visit her blog “Profit and Productivity“.
Great post, Linette!
You have a gift for getting straight to the ‘heart of the matter’. I know I’m guilty of at least three of the excuses. Certainly answering those value questions for myself would uncover what’s really stopping me from making exercise a priority in my life.
Thanks for providing clarity.
Truer words could not have been spoken. It is not what we DO in life that causes us to not be able to move forward–it is what we do NOT do. There is always an excuse for not doing that one thing that needs to be done and we know that it needs to be done. It could be as Scott suggests–exercise–or eating well, or taking time to plan, or so many others. Nike has a great logo–”Just Do It.” If we lived by that for a while, the steps Linette suggests would come naturally.
Great post! My favorite tip is to schedule exercise for a certain time every day. When I don’t do that it seems my work just overflows but when I schedule a time to workout then I tend to plan my work around my workout and it becomes an important priority.
Anita,
I do like to get straight to the heart of the matter and I hope you take action on those three things that spoke to you. We all struggle with some part of living a healthy life but knowing your obstacles is a great start.
Judy,
I love Nike’s logo. I wish I had said it first because it is so fitting to what we need to DO in life. This was a great article for me to write because I was speaking to myself as much as to others. I understand that I have an injury that makes exercise difficult but I am going to follow my PT’s suggestion to try the treadmill for ten minutes a day. That is better than nothing and so I commit to “Just Do It”.
So true, so true. I’m sure more than one of those excuses has come out of my mouth or fell onto my keyboard in the past. Scott’s FLQ videos have definitely been helping me kick that habit though!
Oh Linette,
Get outta my head! I bet that more than one of these is something I’ve convinced myself I’m not able to exercise because of. (Bad sentence, I know.)
To my credit, I’ve scheduled exercise into my daily schedule in Outlook. Not to my credit, though, I sit here and ignore the “flashing” each day the timer pops up to tell me it’s time to get up and move.
Thanks for saying it all so matter-of-factly.
This is a great post
” Don’t be overcome by the task. Long workouts everyday isn’t as important as working on the right things and doing the right things right”
I especially like this tip. Doing the right things right. I need to start deciphering what is right.
Thank you.
Well guys, it has been a very busy month for me. My passion and my purpose got married and I now use all of my talents to empower young people for success.(Youth REACH, Inc.)
And the H in the word REACH stands for health. Young people today are so in need of a healthy lifestyle and one that is quick.
I said all of that to say that reading your comments really confirmed the need to instill healthy habits in young people . . . then maybe it won’t be such a struggle for them as adults.
Karen- Thank you so much for your honesty. It was easy to come up with a list of excuses because I had made them all myself.
Angela- I agree that scheduling a specific time to workout is key, now if I can just stop rescheduling. LOL
Loretta- I am glad that you have successfully kicked the habit of excuses.
Dawn- Thanks for sharing your favorite tip. Like you, I am a thinker and that leads to a lot of deciphering. Thank God Scott has created a program that quick, easy and covers all the right things.
We are heading into a New Year. Be encouraged, tenacious and healthy.
We Can Do It!!!