Ditch the Guilt!

Don’t let exercise become just one more thing to feel guilty about – one more chore we didn’t get to. Guilt is a negative emotion and if we associate exercise with such a negative feeling we will not be motivated to do it at all.

There are many aspects at play with this and, full disclosure, I’m a Personal Trainer, not a psychologist! But I think that often prioritising our health and well being can feel selfish or self indulgent – taking time out of our busy days to do something for ourselves first and foremost does not always come naturally. And it genuinely can be tough – busy jobs, kids, grandkids, admin, appointments, pets, elderly parents, tip runs, there is always something else to do first. But this can mean we feel guilty if we do find time to exercise and guilty if we don’t – we can’t win!

This is where steadily building small healthy habits comes in. We need to find a way to make looking after our health one of our every day activities, not the last thing we get to if we have got through everything else we think we need to do first.

The first thing is to ditch the guilt around taking a moment to look after yourself. It’s the old oxygen mask analogy –  put your own mask on before helping others. If you are running on empty, always tired, aching joints, sore muscles, no energy then it’s very hard to get through the day’s to-do list and be of any use to anyone.

Secondly, any activity counts, so you may be doing more than you realise. The word exercise can be too intimidating, conjuring images of fit people rising at 5am to bash out a 10k run, deadlifting huge weights at the gym. You may get to that but it’s not where anyone started!

Find something you enjoy! Dance in the kitchen; walk your dog; walk someone else’s dog (with permission!); gardening; sign up to a park run; Zumba; Bouncefit; fishing (you’re outside, not sat on a sofa) …. There’s a lot that counts towards reaching WHO, NHS and Govt activity level recommendations (more on that in another post).

Get in touch to find out more, let’s find out what would work for you, it’s not one size fits all. And don’t let being active be a chore – ditch the guilt!