As humans we are infinitely capable of inventing excuses. This always begins with the late-night plans, the excited and motivated energy you feel at the very core of your being. Tomorrow, you think, tomorrow will be so productive! For a long time I have been attempting to quantify why this resurgence of ambition and creativity happens mere moments before getting into bed, and if there is some other way to generate it spontaneously (and preferably earlier in the day). Unfortunately it seems there is no “easy solution” to a deficiency in motivation. Motivation doesn’t arise in a vacuum; it is something that must be trained. Challenged. Motivation itself must be motivated!

Now if that doesn’t leave you scratching your head, you’re already ahead of the game. Inertia is a tricky thing to beat, but there is in particular a very good strategy to overcoming it. To tackle a tricky problem, one must themselves employ trickery, on yourself. Knowing where you’re falling short of your internalized standard of performance is half the battle – knowing how to push yourself incrementally is where you will really grow.

I started running two months ago, as something of an experimental outgrowth from my daily low-stress and low-impact walk around my neighborhood. Walking outside is a great way to get started with fitness not only because of its own inherent benefits, but because it works as something of a “gateway exercise,” promoting a healthier lifestyle in general.

It’s also really easy to get started with a walking habit – just half an hour outside on a sunny day will leave you feeling refreshed if only because of a raised level of Vitamin D, which has been brought up in the past as something of a hidden pandemic. The push to get yourself outside to walk really isn’t all that more difficult than pushing yourself to go out to visit someone, or spend time doing some other outdoor activity. You can “bundle” it into something else, which is one way of introducing it through “tricking” yourself.

Two things you can make good use of: Record keeping, and the "buddy system"

I don’t think I would have been nearly as motivated to start walking more if it hadn’t been for two things: having a running buddy to motivate me, and having been given a FitBit.

Having the running buddy, a neighborhood friend of mine, not only helped in that we both kept each other accountable whenever we skipped a day, but that in the back of my mind I felt almost like it was a challenge. That I, on some level, really wanted to put in just a little bit more effort than they were, simply to prove that I could. I would learn later that they were thinking the same thing, making it a win-win situation for both of us. Incremental steps, gradually increasing drive – these are the things that help to establish a habit out of what began as an experiment.

Having a FitBit meant I was keeping regular track of my progress, which meant I was able to push myself more and more each workout and know I was improving. I wouldn’t say having the FitBit was necessary – it just made things quite a bit easier in terms of tracking my progress. Rather than counting laps and relying on a stopwatch to know my splits, I just notified my device when I was starting and stopping my workout and it kept track of all the relevant stats.

I would suggest that in lieu of a FitBit one make sure to bring a watch capable of split timing, and a notebook or notepad dedicated to workout notes, so you can always know how much more you’ve done every day. Keeping a record was something I scoffed at, at first, but now I look at it as an opportunity to further challenge myself! This is yet another way to "trick" yourself into working smarter AND harder - by keeping a record, you're making fitness more of a mental priority. You're thinking about it more, which can hold over to other goals you have for yourself. After a long, hard workout, I felt much more inclined to eat a well balanced meal, for instance.

That's nice but, where to begin?

I started with simply walking around the neighborhood until I felt comfortable doing that for about an hour at a stretch. I then added on a single lap of running around my neighborhood - a brief foray into a more high-intensity level of activity that I was entirely unaccustomed to. Every day I would aim to add a quarter or a third of a lap.

Eventually I got to a point where I simply couldn’t run any longer, where my breath was catching and my chest felt tight. I had gotten very close to maxing out my heart-rate, which is fine in moderation, but I knew I needed to stay at that distance and pace for a little while to allow my body time to acclimate. Over time I found I could add more and more, running for longer distances and faster.

You may be wondering: which should I go for? Time, or distance? You’ll hear conjecture and opinions on both sides of the spectrum. In this case, I’m going to be a bit confusing and say that you should focus on both. Both, because it doesn’t really matter starting out.

If you are entirely new to jogging in general, every improvement counts. If you want to track how quickly you’re able to run a discrete distance (you ran a mile in 11 minutes yesterday, can you get it down to 10 minutes and 50 seconds? 10 minutes and 30 seconds?), that’s great. If you want to track it by distance (yesterday you ran a mile continuously without stopping at a comfortable pace: can you make that a mile and a tenth? A mile and a quarter?)

Incremental advancement: The Key to Success

It all comes down to small but positive accumulations in progress. No matter how small, you should always aim to make at least some sort of progress every day. Even if you have to stop for a little while to catch your breath, “make up” for it somehow. Maybe by taking a break, but running a half-lap when you’re able to, once you’ve caught your breath.

Maybe by taking a few hours to rest, and then going out and running a single lap in addition to what you did earlier. That being said, never push yourself more than you think is safe. You want to inspire your mind and body to go well beyond their comfort zones, but not into the realm of injury. You should feel pleasantly sore after a workout, but not so sore as to it affecting the rest of your daily routine.

Aim to be ever so slightly more active every day, and you will find that exercise and improvement leaves you excited and interested in improving other non-fitness related areas of your life. It has been shown in several studies that even walking three times a week, for just half an hour at a time, can improve your mood and motivation.

If all of this seems too vague and nebulous, fret not! For those of you who want to work your way up to a concrete goal with discrete steps you can measure, check out the Couch-to-5k Program. This program doesn’t advocate daily exercise, but instead suggests interval training done 3 times a week in order to specifically train you for jogging 5 kilometers without stopping (about the equivalent of 3.1 miles).

Whereas my advice would be to gradually add more on every day, they focus on brief sessions of high intensity training that will get you to a specific goal faster. At the end of the day, set your own pace and keep your eye on improvement, and you will see results! Think about asking a friend to hold you accountable, even if they don’t run with you, and make sure to keep good records of every day’s progress.