6 reasons why you do not exercise, and how to eliminate them

“No time,” “bored with exercise,” “not enough willpower” – there is a solution for all of these difficulties.

How we explain to ourselves why we exercise less often than we would like. Below are the most popular reasons cited by the participants and participants in the study as to why sport has not become a habit for them.

Reason 1. “Not finding the right time in my routine.”
Finding the right trigger (time-place-situation) for a new habit is really not always easy. If you can’t come up with the perfect trigger for sports, start experimenting. For example, try doing a warm-up (if that’s your target habit) at different times of the day: in the morning right after the toilet; before breakfast, while the kettle is boiling; at lunchtime, before you go to the dining room; in the evening, after you get home and change into your home clothes, and so on.

Often the successful solutions we can’t think of are found by ourselves when we start trying something.

Also, think about how you can organically fit a few small sports habits into different moments of the day (e.g., walk one stop to work in the morning, take transport the rest; do a light workout in the workplace before lunch; walk up to the apartment without an elevator if the floor is high). It is often easier to incorporate three small habits into a routine than one big one.

Reason 2. “Not enough motivation / willpower / lazy.”
Betting on willpower and motivation is a deliberately losing strategy when we talk about forming healthy habits. No matter how strong your motivation is, from time to time it will come into conflict with your short-term desires.

Willpower is also fickle and is affected by your mood, how you feel, fatigue, and the actions of others. To compensate for the inconstancy of willpower and motivation, it makes sense to purposefully (that is, based on evidentiary psychology and neurobiology) form useful habits in yourself.

Reason 3. “I get up late and don’t have time to exercise in the morning”.
Here I would like to warn against the following development: “Yeah, I have to get up earlier to have time to exercise, so tomorrow I’m going to start getting up earlier and doing physical activity! Problem solved!” In all likelihood, neither (neither sports nor early rise) will happen.

Early rise is a whole set of habits that, in our opinion, should be worked out separately. It’s worth figuring out your daily routine first, and then working on the habit of exercising in the hours freed up, spreading these projects out over time.

Reason 4. “Boring / not fun / hard.”

Here we see two options:

Experiment with myself and try many different sports activities in search of one that is fun.
Purposefully form the habit of doing some simple basic workout. When a task is in a state of habit (behavior “on autopilot,” with little awareness), your attitude toward the process already plays a minor role. That is, you no longer care whether you like the process or not, you are included in it “without becoming conscious” (as, for example, brushing your teeth in the morning).

Reason 5. “I don’t have time for sports.”
When you answer this way, we think it means that physical activity is not a priority for you right now. If so, you should honestly admit this to yourself and stop berating yourself for your sedentary lifestyle by agreeing with yourself, “I understand what I’m losing by not exercising, but I consciously choose to do more important things for me right now.” If sports are still a high priority, but there really isn’t time, see point 1.

Reason 6. “I have a disorganized life / inconvenient schedule / a lot of business trips.”
All kinds of things happen, but even the most disordered schedule usually has constants – daily activities related to basic needs (hygiene, meals, and so on). These needs and related habits can be used as triggers for a new sports habit (Stanford University researcher B. J. Fogg calls them “super-triggers”).