How To Start Exercising Again
A foundational approach to restarting an exercise habit
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Exercise habits are easy to fall out of, and getting back into them can feel disproportionately hard. But here’s the good news: whenever you start again, you gain more knowledge and experience to apply the next time.
Habit formation, like regular exercise, can feel like a complicated math problem because it is! It’s so complex and nuanced that behavior change is a full field of study dedicated to understanding how humans adopt and sustain actions that support their physical, emotional, and mental health.
So, if you’ve ever struggled to start exercising or to restart after time off, welcome to the club. I have a BA in psychology, an MS in Kinesiology, five nationally accredited fitness certifications, and 20 years of professional fitness experience, and I have also fallen out of the habit at different times. No one is immune to it.
What to know about behavior change
If you’re currently out of the habit of exercising and want to get back into it, it’s important to understand some basic components of behavior change.
Habit change is hard
It’s hard to make a change! Not just for you, but for everyone! It takes real, intentional, strategic effort, and simply wanting to change isn’t a strategy.
Habits fall out for many reasons
Whether due to injury, illness, travel, a busy season of life, or simple boredom with your current routine, all reasons are real and valid, and the judgment or shame we place on ourselves for it is not beneficial or useful.
You don’t need to be more disciplined
I wrote a full issue on why discipline fails as a behavior change strategy. Give it a read.
Stopping and starting is part of the process
An annoying but true fact about behavior change: Stopping and starting are part of the experience and a valuable part of learning about yourself. Paying attention to the details of why you start or stop is how you learn what works for you.
Consistency doesn’t mean perfection
When thinking about exercise habits, we usually think of following the same exercise program every week without fail. Not only is that unrealistic, but it’s also not an accurate representation of exercise consistency. Instead of aiming for perfect attendance, think big-picture: over a three-month period, did you mostly participate in your planned activities?
You might not be ready yet
Change requires you to be ready to implement, and while you might feel like you’d like to change or want to change, that’s different from being truly ready to make a change. Not being ready yet is literally part of the behavior change process, according to the research. So, if you’re not quite there yet, it’s okay. Keep reassessing. Exercise will be here when you are ready.
Sustainable change is a process that requires intentional effort. It also requires less judgment about where you are and more curiosity about what you need next.
Where to start
Investigate
This is where most people skip ahead: they think, “I need to change something,” and immediately jump into planning or action. But without understanding the full picture, those plans often don’t stick. Before planning, investigate what’s worked, what hasn’t, what you need, what you want, what’s meaningful to you, and how you feel about it all. Instead of going straight to planning, start with curiosity.
Here are a few questions to answer for yourself to begin the investigation. And a tip: do not answer any of them with shoulds, only what really feels true for you.
What do I need to help me feel more physically well?
Why does exercise feel important to me right now?
What contributed to getting out of a previous habit?
What have I liked about my previous experience with exercise?
What have I not liked about my previous experience with exercise?
Where in my schedule could I add time for exercise?
What types of new-to-me exercises might I like to try (if any)?
Am I ready to implement a change right now?
Plan
Once you understand yourself better, you can start creating a preliminary plan. Here are a few tips to keep in mind as you plan your exercise habit.
Choose experiences that help you feel closer to yourself
The best way to make an exercise habit stick is to identify how the experience helps you feel more connected to yourself. What does it mean to feel closer to yourself? That’s for you to determine. If you’re thinking, “That’s a tough question to answer,” you’re right. It takes real effort, but the answer is where you’ll find a more consistent, long-term habit.
Make a realistic plan
Days, times, locations, exercise modes, duration, intensities, etc., all based on what is realistic for your life. You can even plan what you’ll wear to exercise or which podcast you’ll listen to. Plan as much as you can based on the information gathered during your investigation phase. The more information you include in the plan, the more data you have to reassess later.
Start small
Like, really small. Even just one bout of exercise a week, for 10 minute, is meaningful to the change process. A common problem with change is that most people practice all-or-nothing thinking: going from no activity to a five-day-a-week exercise program. Research has made it pretty clear that all-or-nothing almost never works for long-term change.
Ensure your plan is meaningful
You’re more likely to engage in activities that are personally meaningful to you than in activities you think you should do, so choose experiences that align with you or your schedule. If you’re trying to make it work, it’s almost certain it won’t.
Make it something you look forward to
You’re more likely to be successful if you plan experiences you can look forward to, for one reason or another. Maybe it’s seeing friends at a dance class, the view from a hike, the competition you feel in a sport, or the quiet, alone time you get on a walk. Whatever it is, plan something you look forward to.
Practice
Practice your plan for two weeks, then review. How it felt, what works, and what doesn’t. During the review phase, hold off on judgment or shame. This is simply data.
Whether the plan works or not is not a referendum on whether you are good or bad, strong or weak, or disciplined or lazy. It’s just a matter of having the right information for what you or your schedule needs right now.
Here are a few questions you can use to review your experience:
What about the schedule worked or didn’t work with my everyday life?
Did the experiences I chose feel meaningful to me?
What changes might I need to make to the schedule or activities to make participation easier?
What resources do I need to help me be successful (Personal Trainer, running community, childcare, etc.)
With these answers, you can adjust your plan, then practice for two more weeks before reviewing.
Re:Start: Spend more time investigating and getting curious before you plan. You can always start again, and each time you do, you understand yourself a little better.
Need more support restarting an exercise habit? My self-paced course, Your Fitness Foundation, does just that! If exercise has felt confusing, inconsistent, or hard to stick with, this course explains why and how to do things differently.