Cultivating Your Habit Garden

The weeks have been flying by lately, haven’t they? Whether you are training for a specific spring event or looking forward to spending more time outside, the sunshine seems to be beckoning more often than not.

When you are in a training cycle or enjoying great weather, the motivation to exercise may be more powerful, and you may find yourself wondering what was so challenging about exercising only a month or two ago.

Solid habits can see you through the periods when your drive to exercise isn’t as strong as your preference to read a book, watch a movie, or otherwise relax your way through weeks of cold and dark weather.

Spring is a great time to water (and weed) your habit garden.

With a little extra energy from the sunshine, you can plant additional habit seeds, weed the habits that no longer serve you, and cultivate a garden of healthy habits that will sustain you through the next motivation drought.

As you are thinking about new fitness habits to add or remove, consider what works best for you.

What activities do you love to do? Do you have time reserved to do your favorite activities on a regular basis?

Are you more likely to exercise regularly if you work out first thing in the morning? Or do you prefer to exercise during lunch or in the evening?

Do you have a large chunk of time available to reserve for exercise on certain days, or does it make more sense for you to exercise in smaller increments of time?

Also, what is currently in your plan and what activities are missing? A well-rounded fitness program will include cardio, strength, balance, and flexibility. Are you spending most of your time engaged in one or two types of activity and can you add additional activities to round out your exercise plan? Or do you have a variety of exercise types in your schedule already?

If you tend to favor one type of exercise over the others, what keeps you from including other types of activities? Is there something in particular that you struggle with?

Also, are you consistently exercising at or above the recommended guidelines for physical activity? Are you working to maintain, increase, or decrease the time you spend on exercise each week?

As you think through these questions, what new habits will you add, what habits can you work to strengthen, and what habits will you remove to cultivate a healthy habit garden that works for you throughout each season?