Once I'm in there, I give it my best. Some days my best sucks. I don't worry about that. I got my ass into the gym. It's the habit that matters.
It's about consistently showing up.
For context, I'm 34 and clinically considered morbidly obese. My relationship with exercise, like virtually all obese people, is one of yo-yo diets and countless failed attempts at getting fit. I never before lasted more than a few weeks.
A big part of the problem, I came to realize, was being too results-oriented. I'd be highly motivated those first couple weeks when the pounds seem to drop so quickly, then lose all motivation when the weight loss slowed down to a healthier rate. Then I'd get depressed, quit, and binge eat until I reached a new low of physical fitness and self-esteem, and start over.
This time around, I just get my ass to the gym. That's it. I don't care what the scale says. I do try to eat better, but I don't beat myself up about it when I fail -- because beating myself up just causes me to binge some more. I just pick myself back up and hit the gym the next morning.
Here are some results so far:
1) I've discovered I actually LIKE lifting weights. So I do mostly that. I look forward to the feeling of my limbs being like jelly. It feels like accomplishment. To be clear, I've never, ever liked any form of exercise before. By changing my focus to "just show up", I've freed myself to find something I like, rather than trying to keep up with anyone else.
2) I've been tracking my weight, and after an initial loss of 25 pounds I've put back on another 10. But, my waist line has gone down 3 belt notches, so I try not to take the number on the scale too seriously. Sometimes it's up, sometimes it's down.
3) My focus at work is through the roof. I just feel better. Less sluggish. Able to concentrate more, which is mega important as a programmer (preaching to the choir, I'm sure).
4) I sleep better and wake up on time without much of a hitch most of the time. I'm still not super chipper first thing in the morning, but I don't hit snooze either.
5) I have more energy to give to the people I love, i.e. my kids and my partner. I'm still not superman, but I'm not sitting on the couch begging to be left alone either. I play. I do stuff.
6) I just plain like myself more.
Second, don't beat yourself up when you fail. We all fail at times. What you can't do is let a simple failure snowball. Recognized you failed and get back on track. A trick I use is not to wait until tomorrow to go to the gym, go right then even if you've already been today. And when I say right then, I literally mean right then if you can.
Finally, don't focus on the scale. Focus on doing the right things every minute of every day and the scale will follow. Again, it's the process and finding how you can live your entire life as healthy as you can.
Eighty percent of life is showing up.
A super key part of encouraging a good habit, IMO. Showing up is the hard part, and if you give yourself permission to just tool around or leave early if you're not feeling it, at least you're still cultivating the habit.
Going during my lunch hour worked better than trying to go in the morning or evening, since I was already constrained to be nearby at the start and end of that hour (plus I don't drive), whereas outside work it was easier to sabotage myself by thinking that I could be doing something "more productive".
There are always plenty of excuses in the moment too, so I adopted a mindset where going to the gym was a given, and anything that encroached on that was an inconvenience; e.g. if I had some errand to run I would instinctively plan to do it before or after work rather than at lunch. As someone who tries to be helpful and humble, it really took effort to prioritise my own wellbeing sometimes!
Another trick I did was to mark every (week)day that I turned up at the gym with a big X on a physical calendar, which gamified it by trying to avoid breaking the current "streak".
Probably worth saying that it worked too! I focused on strengthening my arms (e.g. if I was only there 10 minutes then that's all I'd do) and they went from mostly fat to noticably muscular after about 3 months.
Unfortunately I moved a few years ago and never managed to get back into a good routine :(
1) Get up at 6am every morning even on the weekends and go right to the gym. It sucks for a little while, but it has really raised my life productivity to a new level. My sleep has gotten much better. My head hits the pillow and I'm out. I naturally stopped looking at my phone after 9-10pm because I was just ready to sleep.
2) Anytime I think about something I don't want to do, I stop whatever is I'm doing and do that thing instantly. It has really flipped around my mindset, and made me realize many of these things I put off only take a few minutes anyway. So much is done, that I end up with tons of free time at the end of the day to work on other things. Freeing my mind of nagging procrastination also does wonders.
> Go to the gym for 15mins first thing in the morning, EVERY DAY.
After a month of pain and progress, 20-30 min workouts become the norm. After 3 months, you're a new person.
A few months with a personal trainer got me past my fear of the gym. That was huge.
Once I'm sitting at my computer, looking at code and no one has interrupted me yet taking the next step and doing what I should do is simpler.