New Habit

After reading The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, I’m inspired to try a new habit.  He talks about keystone habits in his book; certain habits have a way of causing other habits to extend from the original habit.  Think of a virtuous cycle type of thing; you start exercising first and start eating better as a direct result of your new exercise program.  He talked about it mainly in the arena of business but it has personal application as well.

My new habit is exercise.  I’m not going for a lot, just a little each day.  I’ve been doing a couch to 5k program the last couple months.  I’m not as consistent as I’d like but today I ran two 8 minute stretches with a 5 minute walk in between and felt pretty good about it.  My cue is doing it when I first wake up.  Now I’ve started waking up earlier which is a good thing as well as I feel more accomplished when I wake up early and exercise first thing in the morning.  My dad has done this habit for as long as I can remember and it’s one I’m trying to emulate.

I don’t intend to run every morning.  Some mornings I’ll walk and do some strength training.  Running I actually enjoy though.  Strength training is a burden to me it seems like.  I know I need to do it but I’ve never enjoyed it for some reason.  My friend who is a trainer thankfully gave me some bodyweight exercises so I don’t have to lift any free weights.  I don’t want to be bulky, just toned.  I can’t do all of the exercises he gave me, not even close, but I’m working up to them.  The problem is now after I do them I’m sore for 3 days and so don’t do strength training as often as I should.  Yesterday I went for lower reps in the hope that I can strength train every other day since I theoretically won’t be as sore.

In the past I’ve started exercise regimens only to give up on them fairly quickly.  What makes this time different you may be asking?  I have a cue now, waking up early.  The reward is that I feel good about myself and accomplished.  I haven’t really experienced the runner’s high but know that I will soon enough because I have in the past.  I just feel stronger all the way around when I exercise.  Hopefully that will be enough reward to keep me consistent with it like my dad is.