You know the benefits of being active. You own the shoes and the clothes. You may even have a membership to the gym. What’s missing? It might be more than motivation, it sounds like you may need an attitude adjustment!

Start by thinking of yourself as an active person—perception often turns into  reality. Exercise has a way of increasing positive beliefs while decreasing negative ones.  The snowball gets bigger and starts rolling faster—you get the idea.

It’s time to put yourself first again. It was normal as a toddler and easy as a teenager but this time it is a conscious decision to block out some time for yourself to do something for you.  The hours that you spend working out are an investment in your own health & wellbeing.  Exercise  increases your overall energy level as well as reducing stress and building lean body mass, just to name a few of the good things. But did you realize that it also improves your mood?  You could be healthier and happier all at the same time.  And research indicates that it works with any type of exercise that you enjoy. Need I go on?

Now make a list of all the activities that you have enjoyed in the past and any that you would like to try.  Put 2 of them on the schedule for each week. Yes, it’s December and everyone is busy but you’ll be glad that you took a couple of hours out of the 168 available to do something that is good for you! Who knows, you may want to add another one or two when you see how good it feels.

Once you have established the routine of lacing up your tennis shoes and heading out the door, you won’t require quite as much thinking.

On second thought, don’t think about it—’Just Do It’!  Nike may own the trademark but you can use it to turn your “I really should” into “I did it!”