How to fit exercise into a busy life

Find ways to fit exercise into a busy schedule

Whether you’re a working-all-hours millennial who’s being bombarded with wellbeing content, or a busy mum wanting to get back into ‘the swing of things’, figuring out how to make a workout routine fit into your life can often feel like rocket science. And that’s when we just don’t bother.

So, let’s take it back to basics and go through some helpful tips to get exercise to become a part of your daily routines.

1. Find your time
   I’m sure you’ve all heard that super useful phrase ‘you have the same hours in the day as Beyonce’ (insert eye roll here) but the truth is, we all use our time differently and have different priorities and routines.
   What I mean by ‘find your time’ is that you need to look at your week and actively search out the pockets of time for you to exercise.
   This might be different to your friends or your colleagues, so just because your bestie enjoys a 6am workout, doesn’t mean this is going to be right for you.
2. Find your why
   If you start your health journey out of guilt, or because it feels like everyone else is doing it so it’s the right thing to do, you probably won’t last very long.
   Motivation and willpower come and go, so make sure you have a strong reason that you can come back to in those moments when you want to give up.
3. Get some accountability
   And speaking of when you want to give up, having someone to hold you accountable – be it a friend, family member, or Coach, can be a great help to keep you going.
4. Start small
   Going all in, all at once is never the right way to approach these things.
   I often like to work out three main goals for my clients to start with. These are often things that are easy to implement at first, or the things that might have the greatest impact. Once these are firmly implemented, you can think about 1-3 more. That’s how you make real change; step by step.
5. Allow for flexibility
   You’re not going to be perfect. Nothing ever is. So I like to actually plan in for the eventuality that sometimes things don’t go to plan.
   For example, while I am pretty disciplined with the gym, there are some days when things don’t work out, so I always factor in ‘back-up time’ so I can move my workouts around if needed.
6. Positive reinforcement AKA REWARDS!
   We’re only human after all. I’m not advocating for cheat meals, or using food all the time to reward the things we don’t want to do, but if you need that extra push to get your exercise done, find something that will help motivate you.
   That could be a nice bath after a long run, or some time to binge your favourite Netflix show after an evening gym sesh.
   This healthy lifestyle shouldn’t be all hard work, all the time.

I wish more people would give exercise a proper chance rather than letting fear or excuses get in the way because I’ve seen how much it can improve people’s lives.

Hopefully the tips above can give you some guidance on your own exercise journey, and as ever, if you need a little extra support, I’m always here.