Enjoyment Before Effort – After you finish any work out, ask yourself what parts you enjoyed and what parts you did not. As a rule, the enjoyable aspects of your workout will get done and the rest will be avoided. By focusing on how you can make workouts more enjoyable, you can make sure you want to keep going to the gym.

Stress Relief – What do you do when your stressed? Chances are it isn’t running. But exercise can be a great way to relieve stress, releasing endorphin which will improve your mood. The next time you feel stressed or tired, try doing an exercise you enjoy. When stress relief is linked to exercise, it is easy to regain the habit even after a leave of absence.

Isolate Your Weakness – If falling off the exercise wagon is a common occurrence for you, find out why. Do you not enjoy exercising? Is it a lack of time? Is it feeling self-conscious at the gym? Is it a lack of fitness know-how? As soon as you can isolate your weakness, you can make steps to improve the situation.

Go for Yourself, Not to Impress – Going to the gym with the only goal of looking great is like starting a business with only the goal to make money. The effort can’t justify the results. But if you go to the gym to push yourself, gain energy and have a good time, then you can keep going even when results are slow.

Make it Fun – If you don’t enjoy yourself at the gym, it is going to be hard to keep it a habit. There are thousands of ways you can move your body and exercise, so don’t give up if you’ve decided lifting weights or doing crunches isn’t for you. Many large fitness centers will offer a range of programs that can suit your tastes.

And by the way, the equipment should suit the interests and fitness level, of as many members of the family as possible. Your chosen activities should be enjoyable and yet challenging enough that your able to progress to higher levels. If you find the equipment boring, you won’t use it.

Have a happy fitness!

I agree, variation is the key to staying interested and most importantly motivated. I revise both my workout routine and nutritional diet every 8 weeks. This lets me look at were I need to improve on my training and nutritional needs, so I can change it to accomodate were I need to be.

I think also a lot of people start an exercise program wothout knowing exactly what they’re doing. When I say that I mean they don’t know how toexercise properly.

People get stuck in a rut of doing the same thing every time they go into the gym. To actually progress they have to do more than they did the last time, and I think this is what a lot of people don’t realize.

Thsi is why they don’t see the results they’re after, and then lose motivation.

Your part about taking a break, and not making it too long is spot on. Once you give up for a period of time you always end up finding something else to do instead.

Great post.