Positive Reinforcement
Thanks Maria, Michelle and Cheryl for sharing your struggles with getting started on exercise and for the terrific suggestions.
I love the idea of rewarding myself for achieving a goal, no matter how small, on the way to a regular exercise routine. We trained our puppy the same way and it worked like a charm, so why not me?!
At the risk of making you dizzy with this line of thinking, here’s the next round of excuses: identifying my reward AND giving myself permission to take it. For example, my husband won a massage as a door prize at his company holiday party last year, and promptly gave the certificate to me. Here is is, 6 months later, and the certificate sits in my file, unredeemed. So, even when I can identify the reward, I have trouble giving myself permission to take it. In a round about way, I can use the lack of an identified reward as a way to put off exercising one more day. One more excuse! Yikes.