Movement is medicine. When your body is stiff and aching, the best thing for it is to move it. Building strength is crucial — especially for women.
Beyond the benefits for your muscles and bones, regular exercise builds your immunity, which keeps you from getting sick. It boosts dopamine, which helps you focus. It improves your mental health.
All of the benefits of exercise have been studied and reported ad nauseam.
You know all of this.
Knowing doesn’t always translate to doing.
Exercise is one of the most common places we find that gap between what we know we should do — or even what we want to do in an ideal world — and what we actually do.
The simple answer is to say just be more disciplined.
But it’s rarely that straightforward, especially for people who are neurodivergent. Willpower and discipline are finite resources, and some days, you just don’t have the energy to muster for it.
Then what?
Here are 5 steps to help you workout even when you’re not feeling like it.
5 Steps to Workout When You Don’t Feel Motivated
(1) Rely on Rules, Rituals, and Routines
This step is a bit of a prophylactic — it can keep you out of those moments when you “don’t feel like it.”
Here’s how these elements work together.
Rules
Rules are clear directives for what to do and when. One reason we get stuck in “I don’t feel like it” is that we are negotiating with ourselves. You know how it goes:
I have no energy right now. I’ll do it later. I have too much else to do. It’s not a good time.
These negotiations drain our decision energy and leave us depleted. Rules take us out of negotiation. You decide once, and you don’t re-litigate.
My daily workout streak, which is closing in on 11 years, started with two simple rules:
(1) No snooze. Get up and out of bed when the alarm goes off.
(2) Fitness First. Make my workout the first thing I do in my day.
Baked into the Fitness First rule was a rule that prohibited email, social media, or other online activity before my workout.
Rituals
Rituals are small things you do with intention that trigger you to start. For example, getting dressed in your gym clothes as soon as you get up or playing a certain song that signals its time to get moving.
Routines
Routines are how you put it all together. You wake up. You get your gym clothes on. You play your music to get out the door, and you start moving.
This step will take you a long way, but sometimes it’s not enough. Routines get disrupted. Maybe you broke a rule. It happens.
That’s when you move on to the other steps.
(2) Put Yourself in the Right Environment
Environment is more powerful than willpower. Some people can workout at home or go for a run on their own.
Maybe you’re even one of those people, most of the time.
But every day is different. We all go through slumps where it’s just hard to get that dopamine surge to get out the door, or we feel too sluggish to start.
In those cases, leverage the power of environment by going to a place that will ease your path. The energy of the right environment can change your mood and give you the boost you need to start.
The ideal environment is one that meets these criteria:
- Proximity to where you are.
- Well-equipped for the activity you want to do
- Other people are doing the same or similar activity.
If you have to travel far for your ideal environment, then it’s not ideal. The hurdle of transit will be too big to overcome your low dopamine state. Similarly, if you’re just not feeling it, being the only one in the gym may not be enough.
Proximity is power. When you’re not feeling motivated, it’s best to ride the energy of the crowd.
(3) Commit to a Minimum
Nine times out of ten, you just need to get over the hump of getting started. Once you start moving, you’ll feel more energized and be able to ride momentum.
To get over that hump, commit to a minimum activity level and duration.
Ask yourself: What’s the least I can do?
Activity Level
Make this commitment easy and manageable. This is not the time for big goals. The best activities when you’re dragging are those that
- require little cognitive effort
- minimal physical exertion
- are repetitive in their movements
Duration
The most common way most people think about duration is time. For example, walking for 15 minutes. This is perhaps the least inspiring and energizing way to think about it.
It’s also not very helpful when you’re depleted on dopamine and don’t feel motivated.
When you’re in that state and put yourself on a clock, you’re more likely to just watch the clock. This will prevent you from finding flow.
Instead of thinking about a certain number of minutes, get creative. Find a way to measure duration that doesn’t rely on the clock.
Here are some ways you can think about duration that don’t involve a clock:
- Number of sets and reps of an exercise
- Number of cycles of a given circuit
- A set distance on a cardio machine, or walking/running outside.
- A specified number of calories on a machine like a rower, bike, or ski erg.
- The duration of a favorite energizing playlist.
All of these will take you off the clock and help you get into a flow state with what ever you’re doing. This can help you produce dopamine.
Make this commitment easy to meet.
You can always do more. Most of the time when I do this, I go beyond my commitment. But not always. That brings us to our next tip.
(4) Do What You Can
In many cases, once you get over the starting hump, energy kicks in and you realize you can do more. But sometimes, you really are low energy.
Do what you can.
If you’re lifting weights, scale the weights from your normal load. If you typically run, slow it to a walk. If you usually go full throttle, slow it down.
I recently saw a post on Instagram that said
If you’re functioning at 70% And you give all 70% to your workout You gave 100%
This made me feel better after a recent day where I dragged myself through a workout.
And also: let’s normalize that we don’t need to give 100% to our workout. Sometimes we can only give 50% of what we have because we need to hold some reserve for other things in our day. That’s also ok.
Often, a workout gives us back more than we put into it. But not always.
Give what you can give without fully depleting yourself. Let it be enough.
(5) Release Self-Judgement
Allow whatever you can do on that day and in that moment to be enough.
I’ll be honest with you: this is probably the step I find most challenging. If you’re a high-achiever with lofty standards, you might find this the hardest part.
You’ve probably already heard how damaging it can be to compare yourself to other people. It’s equally (and maybe more) damaging to compare yourself to yourself.
Don’t get caught in the trap of competing against yourself. Wondering what’s wrong with me? or berating yourself for not doing more isn’t going to do you any favors. In fact, it makes it hard to find the motivation to come back tomorrow.
Read: 7 Ways to Respond to Self-Judgment.
Maybe it wasn’t your best workout. Maybe it wasn’t even a “good” workout. But you showed up and did something.
Celebrating yourself for what you did will reinforce your identity as someone who shows up. It affirms for you that you can do things even when you “don’t feel like it.” And it strengthens your self-trust that you can follow through on your commitments.
That translates way beyond your workouts.
Need support? In my coaching practice, I specialize in helping high-achieving women with ADHD create sustainable daily practices in using strategies that work for the unique strengths and needs of their brains and nervous systems. Connect with me to learn more.
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