Thinking Differently About Exercise

Exercise.

When you think about that word, how does it make you feel? If you had to choose between a little negative or a little positive, which would it be?

I am not asking if Exercise is good or bad for you. I am asking how you feel when you sit on the word Exercise.

Doesn't it usually feel a little inconvenient and maybe even a little irritating sometimes?

Now obviously not everybody feels this way.

And for those people that have successfully conquered that resistance and built strong and consistent health habits and exercise routines:

I’m genuinely happy for you.

But in this post, I’m talking more to the rest of us.

The people that, even though we realize and acknowledge that exercise is probably important and healthy, still somehow feel these little subtle feelings of resistance and annoyance anyway.

I could hear the little voices in my head sometimes.

“I don’t really feel like it.”
“I’m a little low on energy.”
“I’m a little tight on time right now.”
“Maybe I’ll just skip it today.”

And magically, the second I decide I’m not gonna do it:

I instantly feel a little calmness and relief.

That always fascinated me.

I didn’t even lift a finger and I already felt better.

I’ve had my ups and downs when it comes to exercise throughout my life.

When I was younger, I worked a lot of manual labor jobs and several years in the military helped keep me in fair shape.

But later in life, I ended up mostly working administrator and office worker jobs.

Most of my time at work was sitting at my desk, typing on my keyboard, and staring at my screen.

You would think that after getting older and supposedly getting wiser, and especially realizing that exercise and good health start becoming almost critical during your elderly years, you would start waking up.

You would think with this new insight and this new knowledge that the internal resistance would finally start to drop.

But unfortunately…
not really.

And that’s a problem.

A really big problem.

Finally, a cold hard truth emerged.

“This is not good.
I gotta figure this out.”

And one day, I remember just sitting at home and dwelling on a thought. My mind wandered into thinking about the human body. Then I started visualizing.

All the joints.

The knees.

The shoulders.

The elbows.

The wrists.

And I remember asking myself a simple and ridiculous question:

"what’s the purpose of a joint?"

Well…
it’s so you can bend.

So you can move.

And then I impressively thought:

"wow… those joints are there for a reason."

The answer seemed so simple:

for movement.

And I realized something that felt strangely profound once I saw it:

the human body is designed for movement.

Nature designed the human body this way.

At the simplest and lowest level:

part of the purpose of the human body's physical design is movement itself.

And honestly, I just kept thinking about that.

And the more I thought about it, the more the idea started evolving into other thoughts.

What actually qualifies as movement?

And I realized:

just about anything.

Walking counts.

Stretching counts.

Just sticking your arms out and rotating back and forth from left to right counts.

Slow movement counts.

Fast movement counts.

It all counts.

And without realizing it, the word movement itself and the idea of movement just…
felt good.

It felt so much better than thinking about the word:

exercise.

And that’s when a little light bulb turned on in my head:

I’m not gonna think or use the word exercise for a while.
I’m only going to think and focus on the word movement.

And honestly, that’s when I started feeling the shift.

Why?

Because for me, I realized the word Exercise was a loaded word. A word that was loaded with negative meaning.

Because the word exercise was too closely related to:

• workouts
• going to the gym
• physical exertion
• inconvenience

I decided to cut my ties to the word Exercise and allow it to drift away.

It was replaced by a new idea. A peaceful idea. One that didn't feel negative at all.

Almost a bit pleasant feeling.

movement itself is natural.

And strangely enough, once some of the resistance softened, movement started naturally expanding on its own.

A little walk.

A little stretch.

And eventually, slowly, something I won't name, started sneaking back into my life.

Now, I’m not gonna lie, it’s not like I took a magic pill and everything became perfect.

But I will say with certainty that I felt calmer and more peaceful.

Nowadays, I’m going to the gym regularly with my wife.

Nothing rigorous.

Just pleasant and nice.

I ended up replacing a lot of the negative self-talk with new little thoughts that I constantly repeat in my mind.

"Human movement is natural."
"Human movement is beautiful."
"Just keep moving."

I’m not presenting this as some magical solution.

It’s just something that I tried, tested, and continue to say and use daily.

So maybe give it a try yourself and see what happens.

I’m hoping it’s helpful.

Temporarily suspend the word:

exercise.

And simply connect to the word:

movement.

Start small.

Start simple.

No pressure.