How to Boost Your Willpower to Workout

By: Kari Ann Levine

orangeMaking a commitment to ourselves and actually keeping it is one of the best feelings in the world. When we make commitments, many of us rely on willpower alone to follow through. While strong willpower is absolutely needed to make good on our commitments to ourselves, it often times isn’t enough.

As humans, we are subject to many natural human conditions such a fatigue, hunger, and stressors of all sorts and sizes, that can make our willpower… well, not so powerful. Not to mention, did you know that when we exercise our willpower it becomes weaker throughout the course of the day? Just like how our muscles get weaker when we exercise them during the course of our workouts.

One of the most important commitments we can make to ourselves is the commitment to put our health, wellness, and fitness first. But in today’s fast-paced everything — from fast food, to fast reply e-mails, to getting on the fast-track at work — how can we set ourselves and our willpower up for success when we finally decide to make the commitment to start hitting the gym?

The following list isCrossFit Surf City ’s top strategies for staying committed to your fitness program. Get these in place and you’ll get in shape in no-time flat!

1. Make going to the gym the best habit you’ve ever formed. Human beings are creatures of habit. These habits can be bad habits — like smoking or eating sweets at night. Or they can be amazing habits — like exercising every day or meditating every night. Habits require willpower to start them out, but after a while they stick and don’t require as much mental determination to accomplish. Whether you decide to go to the gym first thing in the morning, during your lunch break, or every night after work — pick a time a stick to it! Before you know it, hitting the gym won’t demand your will power, because your habit will have become powerful all on its own!

CrossFit Surf City makes creating this habit easy. We offer classes throughout the day, seven days a week, so you can pick the class times that allows you to form a fitness habit that will stick. Check out our class schedule to see which times work the best for you!

2. When your own willpower isn’t enough, your accountability to others is. Not only are human beings creatures of habit, we are also social creatures. It is built into our DNA to desire feeling accepted by the communities we value. We can use this essential human characteristic to our advantage when it comes to committing ourselves to a workout regimen.

By becoming an attendee during one of CrossFit Surf City‘s class times, your bonds with your fellow classmates will grow quickly. As your feeling of connection to our community grows, so will your desire to show up and work out every day! Plus if you don’t show face for a few days in a row, you can bet someone from the gym will call to find out where you’ve been!

3. You don’t need will-power when you’re having fun! When we first decide to commit to more healthy habits — such as working out, eating healthy, or getting adequate sleep — it requires lots of willpower because initially these are not things we enjoy doing. Over time however, all healthy commitments begin to positively reinforce themselves… We have more energy, we lose weight, we don’t get sick as often, and suddenly these once-hard-habits become habits we genuinely enjoy!

Not to mention that working at CrossFit Surf City is a ton of fun! We never do the same workout twice, so things always stay fresh and interesting. The built-in friendly-competition with your classmates makes working out feel more like a game or sport than a chore. Plus, once you become a part of our community, coming to class where you get to see your friends and get a great workout at the same time will quickly become the highlight of your day! No will-power required when working out is this rewarding!