Congratulations! You’re almost at the finish line of the October challenge. You have tapped in to your real motivation with your list, your vision board, your mini-goal (hopefully that’s almost done), and your motivational mantra. Now let’s use these last three days to finish strong and look at one more piece of the motivational puzzle: excuses.
I have yet to meet anyone, myself included, who does not have some go-to excuses that they use to let themselves off the hook for their workouts and healthy eating. There are definitely times in life when other things take priority over working out, but even in those moments it is still important to take good care of yourself. During these last three days of October, I would like you to do some thinking and identify at least one of your pet excuses.
Are you “too busy”? Is it actually true that you can’t fit in a 10 minute walk with the dog, 25 jumping jacks and 25 push-ups, or a 15-minute solo dance party in the privacy of your living room? Can you at least take 5 minutes to stretch?
Are you “too tired”? Could you plan to do your 10 minute workout in the morning before the day gets away from you? If you are going to sit and watch TV to unwind, why not make good use of your commercial breaks?
Is it too tough to figure out “what to do”? Start where you are and take just one small step. (Or even email me for help!) Go do five push-ups and then see what you want to do next.
None of these ring true? Then tap into your pet excuse and write it down. Next, come up with two ways to defeat it.
For example: my pet excuse is that I don’t want to be sore, because I always have a class to teach or another workout coming up. My two ways of the defeating that excuse? The first is to keep my workout short – or tell myself I will. I will plan a 20 minute workout that will cover most of what I wanted to do, and more often than not I find myself finishing the whole 30 to 40 minute workout that I would have planned it without this excuse in the picture. The second is to get my workout done first thing in the morning. I won’t lie – this one can be tough when I have a client to train at 5:30 or 6 AM. But if I have the workout out-of-the-way and completed, there’s no way I can bargain myself out of it later. Plus, my muscles will have more time to recover during the day, and even get an extra shake out from the Zumba fitness classes I will inevitably teach.
So, for once I say: bring on your excuses! I look forward to hearing them. Congratulations on finishing this challenge!