Why We Work Out

Exercise is essential for a healthier body and mind. We all know this but why is it that not everyone has exercise as a top priority in their lives? Why is it that some people choose to make exercise a priority in their day, something that must be accomplished to keep the momentum alive, an activity that cannot be missed in order to keep energy levels and mental focus at a high state and some people choose to ignore exercise or make it a not so important priority and have distractions or make excuses to not exercise? Yes, I do realize in the hectic and busy world we live in, exercise is just something that does not make the list of things to do on a daily basis but what about on a every other day basis? Weekly basis? If the answer is still yes, you are on the right track and I encourage you to keep going and working your plan until you reach your goals and full potential. If the answer is still no, let me ask what else makes the list of your priorities? Think about that for a moment. Think about what else makes your list of priorities and ask yourself if you can substitute even some of that into time at the gym or even time taking walks in the mornings or evenings. Everyone has their own reasons for working out whether it’s to lose weight, gain muscle, improve your mental focus, increase your energy levels or even to be a part of a community at the gym or at the local running club. I remember someone telling me at the gym that he works out because the clothes he wears isn’t what makes him look and feel good but how his body looks in his clothes. Powerful! No matter what we work out for, the benefits are available for everyone and below are a few not to typical reasons why working out and exercising should be a priority in your life. Exercise builds discipline and toughness. Making exercise a priority and leaving the pleasures of home and leisure to work out consistently builds a habit which can turn into a routine. Habits are powerful hacks in life which can transform your day, weeks, months and years. The trick is to use hacks in a positive and productive way and by just consistently exercising you are developing the habit of deploying discipline. It takes discipline to avoid distractions and commit to something like exercising. It takes discipline to leave other habits that may not be as productive for your body and mind to go to a place, or to put on those running shoes and exert stress and pain on yourself in an effort to improve yourself. All this leads to the next reason working out should be a priority for all of us. It builds toughness. Toughness to withstand the next sets and reps that once seemed impossible. Toughness to overcome fatigue and endure more stress to compete and win. Toughness to get the results you want in and out of the gym. Building your toughness is necessary in a world where the competition for everything seems to be raising and becoming more difficult. Being tough and enduring seems to be the only way to outwork and outlast against the competition you will face at school or in our career. Nowadays, being mentally and physically tough is a competitive advantage and by exercising you are gaining and building your toughness. If you or anyone you know does have a hard time being disciplined and keeping up with their commitments start by introducing smaller victories such as exercise and working out. Very often the feeling you get from one work out does lead to another and another and another. Eventually, this habit will become so engrained into your lifestyle you won’t even need the discipline you once did to work out. This will also be carried over into other areas of your life. Each work out is a small victory on the road to fully transforming yourself into a disciplined person with only the best in mind for yourself. On to the next point which is not enough people are talking about the networking potential you can have by exercising or working out. Think about it, since exercise is a positive habit and since most people exercising are demonstrating a great quality that does transfers into other areas of their life, people who exercise are typically strong willed people who care about how they feel, how they look, their dietary habits, how the sleep etc. If you fall into this category, wouldn’t you want to know and become more social with other people like you as well? Wouldn’t you want to create mutually beneficially relationships with other people who share your ideals? If you answer like me and say yes, the gym or the local walking club is a great way to meet more people who you do have things in common with. Exercising is an escape and in this escape there are people who share many of your realities, victories, challenges, visions and desires. These people are all around you and since you know they are disciplined enough to exercise you know they are tough and can handle much more than someone who isn’t there with you. Personally I have found the relationships I build with people at the gym to be some of the most rewarding and inspiring I have. In the gym for example, the peer pressure is positive and my friends push me to do better just like I do for them. There are no distractions and no conflicts that bring us down. It’s all about working out, hitting our goals and helping others hit their goals as well. The best part is taking these relationships outside of the gym and into other areas where we all know the potential to do something else really big is obvious. I mean, we know we are tough, disciplined, have goals and want to execute. This is a really powerful combination that not everyone has but if you look hard enough you will find these people all localized in one place and it is called the gym! Finally above and beyond all other reasons why exercise should be a priority, such as increasing energy levels, obtaining a healthy body and clearer mind, looking and feeling great, what caused the biggest impact for me was the personal growth I achieved by keeping exercise a priority. Personal growth, the ability to see yourself doing more and taking on bigger and better challenges, seeing the transformation in the mirror and by way of increasing the context I have for myself was by-far, the most addictive part of exercising. There is something about starting to lift weights or starting to step on the stair master on day 1, noticing you are becoming better at it and dong it with more ease on day 10, deciding to increase your capacity by adding weight or speeding up the machine on day 15, to noticing the gains in your body on day 25, to using that as fuel to lift even more and step even faster on day 30, to deciding to learn more about your body and what you can do in combination in an effort to speed up the results, to becoming more clear about your fitness and life goals and expanding your vision, to acknowledging the fact that because you did improve at the gym giving you the confidence to know you can improve in all areas of life and spread that knowledge. This is the personal development that is life changing and the credibility you will feel once you start spreading what you know in an effort to help those around you is an amazing feeling. This is all possible and it can start on day 1. Even though the road may look gloomy on occasion, if you stick with your plan and execute the decisions you’ve made to become healthier and happier, there will be a day 10, 15, 25, 30 and even more ahead. If you didn’t, I now hope you do know working out and exercising should be a priority for you, so now the only question that remains is…what are you waiting for?