Make Yourself Do It

Making yourself do something doesn’t sound like much fun. Eating all my brussels sprouts and doing my homework are things that I’ve had to make myself do. So how does exercise get lumped in with homework? When was the last time you heard a kid say: “I don’t want to go outside and play, can I stay in and do my homework?” I’ve never heard that and I don’t think I ever will.

Something happens we reach adulthood that makes us feel like we need to do certain things. The problem is that we often make ourselves do things we don’t want to do. In fact, that is one of the definitions I heard about adulthood when talking to a group of kids. They thought that being an adult was all about doing things you don’t want to do because that’s what adults do.

I agree that there are certain things that need to get done. Work, family and other things come to mind, but you don’t really have to do these things either. When I’ve said this in front of a large group I have always gotten a rise out of the crowd. They say, “Yes I do!” or “I’ll be homeless if I don’t work!” This is true, but you still have a choice. You chose to set goals for yourself. If a home and family are among your goals, you have to do what it takes to reach them.

That is where the real challenge comes in. I haven’t met too many people that want to be living on the street. I haven’t met many that want to be poor or struggle to feed their family. That is why so many of us work hard to get these things. It is no secret and it is no small task. We work very hard day in and day out to make sure we get what we need and even what we want.

That doesn’t mean we don’t want health. You see, I haven’t met too many people that don’t want to be healthy either. I’ve yet to run into someone that says, “I want to be sick and have my health steadily decline as I age causing me more and more pain.” No one wants that, yet many get it.

Why can we make ourselves do some things, but not others? Why can we make ourselves work? Better yet, why can we make ourselves work so late that we don’t have time for anything else? It’s a mystery to many, but I can tell you why we are able to do that.
It all comes down to a four-step process. We’ve covered this process before in a previous article and I’ve discussed the steps with hundreds of employees to make sure they understood how they too could get themselves going. Yes, you can make yourself do anything. You’ve already been making yourself stressed and tired by working so hard. You’ve gotten used to making yourself do things you don’t want to do. With these four steps (and a newly added fifth step) you can make yourself exercise too.

Step 1: Make Time

Setting time aside is the first step to getting into any routine. No matter what you are doing, you have to set time aside to do it. I’m not talking about finding time or wishing you had more time. I’m talking about sitting down and planning to do it when you think you are able to do it.

Step 2: Make an Appointment

Now that you see time available and can commit to it, you have another opportunity to make it more likely to happen. When you have a meeting at work with your kids’ teacher, what do you do? You set an appointment. When it’s on the calendar, it gets done. If you do that with exercise and it will get done too.

Step 3: Make it Easy

The first two steps will help you do this, but there is more you can do to make your routine easy. I am tired of hearing about how hard it is to get enough exercise. Exercise is something we had to invent because we stopped moving on our own. Exercise used to be built into our daily lives. Even our generation was active as kids. We played naturally and didn’t need someone to tell us to. We didn’t need to make ourselves do it. Find an activity that you really love to do and do it. You can also do little things to make it easier on yourself, such as reminders or preparing beforehand.

Step 4: Make it happen

The simplest way to look at exercise is from your own perspective. What you want to do is in your own head and no one else can tell you what that is. You can hear recommendations and feel nervous that you can’t do it. You can hear about others and feel discouraged that you aren’t where they are. The only control you have is to decide where you are now and where you want to go. Follow the first three steps and you will be closer to step four. The only thing left to do is to commit to it and go.

The beauty of exercise is that we actually want to do it. It is easy to commit to something you want to do. That is where the fifth and final step comes in. I’ve been kind of negative on making yourself do things as we’ve sited working late and homework. As negative as it’s been, maybe that is what we really need.
After all, we make ourselves work. We make ourselves sick and tired by working too hard and never doing what we really want to do. The key to the final step is to remember that you want to do it and then make yourself do it.

Step 5: Remember that you want to do this

When it comes to exercise, we don’t need much of an excuse. When it comes to work, no excuse is big enough. Let’s flip that around and commit to exercise. I’m not suggesting quitting your job and exercising all day. The funny part is that I’ve talked to many people that think that is what it takes to get enough exercise. Nonsense! All you have to do is focus on a short time period that is realistic. (step 1). Next you can put those times on the calendar to make them concrete. (Step 2) By doing these things you are making it easy. You can take it further by finding little things in your day to day routine that make it even easier and more likely to stick with. (Step 3). Finally, there just has to be a certain amount of commitment. You have to just decide that you will make it happen. (Step 4)

Finally, we come to the final step. In a way, we are putting exercise into a category that we are used to. We are used to doing things we don’t want to do. We have become experts at making ourselves do it. Why does this work? It works because we can find enough reasons to do it.

It is the reasons that keep us going. Your health, the health of your children and all the enjoyment you get from living healthy is a series of reasons. Exercise can give you more of it all. Are they enough for you to make yourself do it?