Hi, I'm Kyle Ingham, Founder of The Distilled Man.
Today, I want to talk to you about a simple trick that will
dramatically increase your motivation to exercise.
Now, before I get started, don't forget
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Now, I'll admit I have not always had the best time exercising.
It's been a bit of a struggle for me,
but recently I came across a strategy
that has just dramatically increased my
ability to exercise regularly.
And now with this new approach
I'm actually able to exercise
four to five times a week consistently.
And not only that, I actually look forward to
exercising now, as part of my morning routine,
and I never did that before.
So let's step back for a moment. Why is it
so hard for us to exercise regularly?
I mean, it's not like we don't know that it's important.
I mean, we're constantly
bashed over the head with the fact that
it helps improve, you know prevent disease,
helps improve overall health,
helps us lose weight, helps lower our risk
for heart disease, diabetes.
I mean the list goes on and on. It's really
basically the closest thing to a fountain of youth
or a miracle drug that exists today.
Yet somehow, all of this evidence
and all this information is not enough
to motivate us to exercise regularly.
So what's the problem?
Recently I picked up a copy of a great book
by Dr. Michelle Segar called
"No Sweat: How the Simple Science of Motivation Can Bring You a Lifetime of Fitness".
It's got a lot of great strategies that
I found personally helpful for changing
the way I look at exercise.
According to Dr. Segar, long-range goals like,
preventing disease and improving overall health,
they exist in some vague future.
And that's the problem,
according to research humans are
hard-wired to prefer immediate
gratification over long-term benefits.
Basically the problem is our "why" for exercising.
What associations we have with it, what it means to us.
And once we begin to associate exercise with being
something that we have to do,
it becomes a chore and it becomes a "should." And that
can really undermine our motivation.
So, Dr. Segar and her team did some interesting studies
to kind of find out what the impact of
people's reasons for exercising was.
And they pulled the study participants
and not surprisingly 75% of those
participants said that their reasons for exercising were external things,
like wanting to lose weight, wanting to have better overall health,
prevent disease, etc.
and then 25% of those people
had other reasons like to feel grounded
or that they appreciated how it made them feel in their daily lives.
So, then they actually measured how much
these people actually exercised over the
course of the next year.
So, surprisingly the vast majority of the people whose goals
were weight loss and overall health
exercised far less than the other group.
And as much as 32% less in some cases.
So, the truth is, people
tend to approach things that make them feel good
and stay away from things that make them feel bad.
So, the way that you feel
about the immediate outcome of
something is going to have much more
motivating effect than what you feel the theoretical value is.
So, rationally you may know that
exercising is good for your heart and
will help you live longer, but it's that
immediate gratification from exercise
that you feel that's going to help you wake up
at 6AM on a Tuesday morning to go running
when it's still dark and cold.
It becomes this gift that we give
ourselves that we actually want to exercise.
So, that idea of reframing
exercise from something that you should do
to something that you want to do
can have a tremendous motivating effect.
You really have to focus on an internally
meaningful reason to exercise.
Enjoying the immediate benefits, so you actually
want to exercise. And for me that's made
all the difference, just reframing how I
think about the reasons for exercise.
Whereas before it seemed like
something that I had to do
that was always a chore.
Now, I see it as almost a selfish pampering act where
I'm going to get immediate benefits
because I do feel better when I exercise.
I do get the endorphin rush, and I do
feel physically better and have less stress.
So, now I want to hear from you
what's your motivation for exercising currently
and how well is that working?
Let me know in the comments.
Also, if you haven't already grabbed a copy of my ebook
don't forget you can click on screen right now
and download a copy.
It's called "48-Hour Gentlemen: Your One-Weekend Plan to More Confidence, Poise and Manly Know How."
Thanks a lot for watching and I'll see you soon.