Motivation: where are you in the stages of change to exercise?

Thinking back to your school days, did you like physical education, fitness training classes?  Were you on any sports teams, why or why not? Did you feel self-conscious in the changing rooms? Although the Stage Theory is more concerned with identifying existing and current issues relating to a health behaviour, we think it is also important to understand your past relationship with regard to activity, exercise and sports as it is a likely indicator of how you feel about it today.

If you could change one behaviour towards starting (pre-contemplation, contemplation) an exercise routine, or you already have it in the diary to go for the first time on Thursday next week (planning) or you are trying to stick at the routine you started five weeks ago (action), WHY would it be that one?

Perhaps an easier question would be what behaviour would you change and how would you go about changing it? Answers may include; take my sports clothes to work everyday, do at least 20 minutes of fast walking per day where I build up a sweat, download the couch to 5K app, or hire a personal trainer.

The why question may take you a little bit deeper than perhaps you might enjoy going. It may involve understanding your past behaviour and associated emotions when it comes to sports and exercise. It may raise questions about whom you were with? Were they competitive? Were you? How did they make you feel? Were you always comparing yourself to them?

However, if you can answer the big question, before you know it, you may find yourself beyond the six-month mark of working out three times a week and have found yourself at the maintenance stage of exercise. As Nietzsche once said “he who has a why to live for, can bear with any how”.

Get in touch with Agi and enjoy discovering something new about your motivation to exercise as 2015 gets under way and challenge and amaze yourself. Good luck!