Finding Your Fitness Passion: A New Year's Resolution You Can Actually Keep

If your New Year's Resolution is to join a gym and start working out regularly, you may as well make a donation to your favorite homeless shelter--at least you'll get a tax deduction. Next to being nicer to your mother-in-law, committing to regular exercise has the dubious distinction of being one of the most popular and least kept of all New Year's resolutions.

Think about it, if you really enjoyed working out, would you have to make a New Year's resolution to do it?

The idea of exercise may conjure up images of profuse sweating and baggy PE gym suits (or worse, perfectly shaped women at the health club in Spandex who are not you). Even the word "exercise' sounds like work as does the phrase "working out" (which even has the word "work" right in it).

When it comes to fitness, we can learn a lot from children. You don't hear too many children say to their friends, "Let's go outside and work out" (unless they're lampooning mommy and daddy). When children move around, they're not concerned about burning calories, building muscle or boosting their immune system (in fact, if children knew exercise was good for them, they'd probably stop doing it). Most children stay in perpetual motion because they enjoy it, whether it's kicking a ball, skipping rope or just running around for no reason.

If your biggest form of exercise is walking to the refrigerator for snacks, it's time to find a fitness passion that can compete with the thrill of lying on the couch watching infomercials. Your fitness passion must be so compelling that you would rather move around than sit still and collect dust.

Here are three great ideas to help you find your fitness passion:

How to Find Your Fitness Passion Idea #1: Give Yourself Permission to Have More Fun

Before you can have a fitness passion, you have to give yourself permission to spend more time having fun. Sure you can think like an adult and rationalize that exercise will help make you feel better and save money on medical bills as a way to justify squandering precious productivity time. Chances are that type of rational adult thinking will not lead to a pattern of sustained fitness activity but rather "appointment fitness," much like penciling in a root canal. Instead, tip the see saw and add more hours of fun time to your work / life balance. This will open the door emotionally to your discovering a fitness activity that you will engage in for the sheer fun of it.

How to Find Your Fitness Passion Idea #2: Go Back to Your Childhood

Pick up some good clues on what kind of fitness program you could become passionate about by reminiscing about the types of activities you enjoyed as a child. Did it involve running or jumping? Was it competitive? Were you in the water or on land? For instance, if you enjoyed dancing as a child, you may look into a fitness program that involves dancing, such as Jazzercise or Zumba. If you liked to punch your little brother, think kick boxing or Turbo Jam.

How to Find Your Fitness Passion Idea #3: Survey Your Friends

Go into research mode and start asking your friends and acquaintances, heck even the checker at the Piggly Wiggly, what they do to stay in shape. Chances are you will hear a range of activities, from Pilates to pickup basketball. Note how passionate the person seems about the activity and ask detailed questions about it. Picture yourself doing the activity and tune into how it might feel physically and emotionally. If you think this fitness program may appeal to you, ask if you could join the person the next time they do it, or go on the Internet and research how you could try out the activity on your own. Then (to borrow a phrase from Nike) "just do it! Repeat this process until you find at least one or two fitness activities you are passionate about.

Once you find your fitness passion, you will never again have to "work" at being fit or staying in shape. The small amount of time you spend finding your fitness passion will pay you back many times over in increased physical and emotional health and well being.

Source:
Personal experience