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I’m always curious about why people do things: what motivates them to change, and more importantly, stick with changes they make to their lives. I started thinking about transformation around the New Year when, with the rest of the Australian population, I made resolutions, broke ‘em and moved on. I’ve decided that the best way to manage this annual hypocrisy is to make the following resolution first on my list: ‘If circumstances change, I resolve not to keep any of the following resolutions’. The happy clincher is that in most people’s lives, change is constant, so I’ve got an easy out.

Having said that, one of the resolutions I haven’t broken is the vaguely formed plan to ‘get stronger’. Regular readers of this blog- a tiny population I admit- will know that I’ve recently become fascinated by the alignment between mental and physical strength. I’m curious about how training affects my mental processes, and via versa. I’m also wondering how a stronger sense of embodiment, or how comfortable you feel living in your own skin, influences my creative work.

So, to this end, I’ve been trying to find ways to make exercise more sustainable. This includes either stuff that makes it more likely I’ll actually get to the gym, and stuff that affects what I do when I’m there. Here’s my list of hacks:

  1. I’m currently working part time for my local university. Changing into my workout clothing before I leave for the day means I’m less likely to chicken out of going to the gym. With winter fast approaching, if I leave this until I get home, it’s just as likely that I’ll pop on my pyjamas.
  2. Continuing this theme, I’ve put my workout clothes in the top drawer of my chest of drawers. This form of organization is supposed to represent fitness as a life priority. In other words, all the crap I never wear goes into the bottom drawers, where I have to bend down and scrabble to retrieve.
  3. Workout clothes in funky colours: during winter, a vivid patch of colour is an enormous psychological boost.
  4. Putting dinner in the oven before I leave for the gym, meaning that I know I’m coming home to nice smells and quick nourishment. Like certain breeds of fat pony, I’m always twice as fast on the way home.
  5. When ‘not feeling like it’, I remind myself of the cost of gym membership. This involves saying, in a Scottish accent, ‘I’ve paid for this’. (Approximate translation: ‘eye’ve paayed forrr thes’).
  6. Also useful, when contemplating a pike, is imagining the best tiramisu I ever ate (ironically, in an Italian charcuterie in Glasgow). I comfort myself that with exercise as part of my life, I can eat such dishes with relative impunity.
  7. During exercise, and this may sound strange, but I like meditating on the beauty of a straight line, particularly when lifting something heavy. I get grumpy if I can’t see a nice vertical anywhere in the gym. I call this strategy ‘Zen and the art of it really doesn’t hurt so much, does it?’
  8. Reading very funny fitness blogs like this one.

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