Not everyone is born with a love for fitness. For some, it's another chore like doing the dishes or scrubbing the toilets. There are a few ways you can learn to love it though. Keep reading to find out how you can turn fitness from a chore to a hobby.
There are people that enjoy working out and there are people who would rather rub salt into their eyes with a lemon than get on a treadmill. It’s okay if you fall in either of those categories. Fitness is a broad spectrum; there are a ton of different ways to get fit.
If you’re in the latter category that includes salt and lemons but want to find a way to enjoy fitness and make it feel more like a hobby than a chore, this blog post may be for you.
When looking at transforming fitness into a routine hobby that you enjoy, think about the traits that other hobbies have-hobbies that you enjoy. Most likely, you enjoy your other hobbies because it may be something you can do with friends or to feel a sense of community such as playing a game. You may also enjoy your other hobbies simply due to the fact that you love them and they bring you joy to participate in them.
Turning fitness into a hobby has to embody those key characteristics; community and enjoyment. Keep reading to learn how to turn fitness from a chore to a hobby.
Do it With a Friend
Find a fitness class you can do with a friend, or if you’re a social butterfly you can take a fitness class alone with the intention that you’ll make a friend there. Personally, I would rather watch paint dry than attend any event alone but I admire the people who strike out on their own without hesitation.
Participating in any kind of physical fitness activity is infinitely more entertaining when doing it with a friend. Need to catch up on some gossip? Walk on the treadmill and chit-chat while you do it. Nervous to hit the gym alone because you’re new to it? Take a friend so you feel more comfortable.
Find Something You Love
Sometimes, I think it’s easy to try out one form of fitness and decide you hate it, and it kind of turns you off to fitness altogether. Anyone else? Just me? That was the case for me with running. I thought that in order to be fit and “in shape” I would have to run every day. It felt like every fit person I saw incorporated running into their fitness routine and I absolutely hated it. I did everything I could to tempt myself to learn to love it but it just never clicked. It turned me off to fitness in a big way because running felt like a punishment for me; therefore, fitness was a chore. Another task on the to-do list and not something I enjoyed.
Now I’ve learned that fitness can take form in a variety of ways. I’ve learned that I enjoy jump roping and weight lifting as opposed to running. Both are great ways to participate in physical activity and help me achieve the fitness goals I have. It doesn’t feel like a chore because I actually enjoy both of those activities and look forward to doing them.
You have to find something you enjoy in order for it to be sustainable. Just like any other hobby, you wouldn’t continue to paint or read or bake if you hated it. Find what moves you, literally, and do it.
Reward yourself
You don’t have to be in Kindergarten to appreciate a solid reward system. Take that sticker chart to the next level and reward yourself with something you really want. For me, I’m very food motivated and TV motivated. This means that rewards that work for me are Crab Rangoon on a Friday night if I make all of my weekday workouts or I get to binge watch Alaskan Bush People for an entire day on the weekend if I stick to my meal plan for the week.
Find the reward that works for you and roll with it. Now, setting a reward system for yourself and then having the determination and strength to adhere to that system is a whole other ball game. To keep yourself accountable, share your reward system with a friend who can check in on you periodically to see how you’re holding up on resisting early rewards.
Another way you can keep yourself on track is to actually use a sticker chart. I’m not kidding. Write your goals down on a piece of paper at the bottom of one column you’ve drawn and tell yourself you can’t have the reward till you’ve placed 5 stickers (or completed 5 workouts). Plus, you get to play with stickers again which is nostalgic AF.
For some of us, working out will always be a little bit of a challenge and may not be at the top of our “Good Times” list. That’s okay! You don’t have to love it in the moment to love what it will do for you in the long term.
Think of it this way. You’re only going to spend about 45 minutes working out per session. Multiply that by 3 workouts a week. You’re looking at spending 2 hours and 15 minutes of your life in a single week doing something unpleasant. You do the math, but that’s still a lot of time left in your week to do the things you love, and be in good enough shape to do them.
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