Letting Go of Perfection and Exercise Procrastination
Do you characterize yourself as a perfectionist? I’ve noticed that a lot of people use perfectionism as an excuse for exercise procrastination. A lot of the time, people delay starting a task because they fear not being good enough or that they will fail and their view of themselves as a perfectionist will be burst. In this blog post, I’m sharing my views on why it’s important to break the cycle of perfectionism and procrastination and techniques you can implement for your fitness routines to combat this problem. Keep reading to learn more.
What is Perfectionism?
There are different types of perfectionism, from the perfectionist, a person who doesn’t want to fail, a dreamer, someone who thinks about a task way too much but never actually starts it, a worrier, who doesn’t like trying new things and the defier, who will overpromise and underdeliver. Do any of these resonate with you? Whichever you are, just by identifying that you have these behaviors will help you to overcome the associated procrastination.
Breaking the Cycle of Exercise Procrastination
The first step in breaking the cycle of procrastination is to figure out what is holding you back. When it comes to your fitness, what are you afraid of? Does going to the gym with others who are further along on their fitness journey intimidate you? If so, you can opt for an at-home fitness routine like my programs where you can go at your own pace without feeling pressured by the gym environment. A big part of procrastination is thinking that you will miraculously gain motivation or that conditions need to be perfect before starting. By developing your discipline and moving away from relying on motivation, you will notice that you are able to achieve more on a daily basis. It’s unsustainable to think you will always be motivated. Another way to break the cycle is to only aim to be good enough, not perfect as it does not exist. For example, aim to do light exercise or 20 minutes of exercise, this is better than no exercise at all.
Techniques to Implement
To assist you with overcoming perfectionism and procrastination, I have put together my recommendations:
Workout as soon as you’ve woken up, before you can think of excuses. You will feel really great after as you will have a sense of achievement right from the beginning of your day.
Set a timer for 5, 10 or 20 minutes, whatever is achievable for you. You will find that you may keep going past the time you set as you’ve built momentum and you’re already warmed up and motivated.
Organize to work out with a friend, you will be able to motivate each other and it’s also a great way to maintain your social life, you can even do this on zoom if you don’t live near each other.
Eliminate distractions! A lot of the time, we end up not working out because we’ve spent too long on social media before work and have now run out of time. If this happens to you often, make it a rule that you aren’t able to check your social media until after you have finished working out, it will be a great incentive.
If your workout was short or you weren’t able to hit your goals, don’t beat yourself up, simply try again the next day. Only compare yourself to who you were yesterday, don’t compare yourself to anyone else’s progress. Motivation is what gets you started. Habits are what keeps you going. If you are diligent and implement habits, like scheduling your workouts and healthy eating into your calendar and actually complete the tasks when the time comes, you can rely on your discipline when you don’t feel motivated. The body achieves what the mind believes. If you can master your mind, you’ll master your body.
I hope these tips were helpful! As always, stay tuned for more motivational blog posts and remember to follow me on Instagram at @midnightfit [https://www.instagram.com/midnightfit/].
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