Have to Exercise in the Morning or it Won't Get Done
My job has unpredictable hours. As a network technician, when something breaks, it has to be fixed and you have to work on it until it is. On top of that, all maintenance and system upgrades have to be taken care of off hours or on weekends. Because of this unpredictability, I often found that my evening workouts wold get interrupted or postponed or flat out skipped because of work.
I always enjoyed working out after work as it was a good way to blow off steam and release stress. This was especially true when I was working in a position that I didn't enjoy. The problem was too often I wasn't getting in the amount of gym time that I knew I needed to see results. Because of this I had to formulate a new plan.
Getting up early in the morning, especially to workout was never one of my strengths. It was far too easy to change my mind after the alarm went off and snuggle back down in my cozy little bed. However, after evaluating what was going on with my current routine , I decided it was going to be the only way.
While I have a pretty strong will, it has it's limitations and keeping the motivation to get up early and workout only seemed to last so long before it waned. Fortunately for me, my hero Steve Pavlina wrote an article called How to become and early riser. Amazingly, I was able use the tips and ideas in his article to formulate a plan, establish a morning routine and get that workout out of the way before it could get derailed.
Of all of the advice suggested, I think the A#1 thing that helps me get up every morning is the programmable coffee pot! Just knowing that there is hot coffee already brewed and waiting for me is sometimes enough motivation to pull me from the sheets.
Now I'm not going to tell you I work out every single morning. That is not the case. But I am much more likely to make it to the gym if I'm already up and out of bed. Sometimes my morning is spent at the gym, sometimes I do some yoga in my house and other times I just blog, drink coffee and spend some quiet time alone.
One of my long term goals is to increase the number of times I workout to no less than four. There are weeks lately that I only make it once or twice and that isn't cutting the mustard in my mind. To be honest I've been getting distracted by blogging so I am going to save the blogging for the evenings and get back on track with my morning workouts.
I hope that my trials and tribulations are helpful to others. I know I would benefit by having someone checking on me...if anyone wants to nag me to go to the gym, I would appreciate it! I'll return the favor if you'd like.
Please feel free to share your thoughts and ideas about how and when you get your workouts in. We would love to hear new ideas!
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