Exercise is just as much a mental battle as it is a physical one. First, while exercise has physical benefits it also improves mental focus, stress levels, and self-esteem. Even just 3-4 days of workouts per week will significantly boost your brain. But just like exercise tests the body’s physical limits to make progress, it is also a test of mental determination. Usually, you will reach a mental limit before a physical one. Sometimes, it may be hard to start a new exercise program or continue to work out if you feel that you’ve hit a wall and can’t improve more. That’s why it’s important to stay in the right mindset.

Tuesday, I finished a 30-day program that I was working on. For the first few weeks living at Penn State, I found it hard to make time to workout. I was focused mostly on classes and lost a lot of progress I had made before coming here. Then, September 16th, I started a program to get back in shape, and 42 days later I finished it. I feel so much better about myself now, and even though I took some unplanned rest days, I got it done. I’m going to share the top tricks I used to get myself motivated and push through it.

1. Make Time

Schedule time into your day to work out. Times that I found best were before dinner (because who doesn’t love to eat after), late afternoon on weekends, and 10-11 pm on weekdays. If I’m doing schoolwork at night, I love taking a break to workout and then finishing up after. It helps me relax and de-stress, and it’s a lot easier to force myself to do economics homework at midnight than it is to force myself to exercise.

2. Flexibility

Don’t set goals that are too strict. They must be realistic. It’s okay to work out at different times each day and take unplanned rest days. For my routine, if I took an unplanned rest day, I knew that I would workout at least the next two days in a row. Sometimes, a body part may be hurting. It’s okay to shift something that was planned to another day. It’s better to be one day behind and be careful than to be a week behind due to injury.

3. Remember Why You Started

Everyone has goals in mind and a reason for why they want to exercise. Remembering this is the key to consistency. Even if you’re only 10 days into a 30-day program, that means you’re 1/3 done! It’s easy to feel like you’re never going to reach your goal so just take it one day at a time and think about what motivates you.

4. Caffeine and Music

That’s it.

5. Progress Checkpoints

This is the most effective way of keeping yourself on check. Progress checkpoints can be recording how many reps you perform of an exercise, how fast you ran, or how much weight you lifted. Not only is this good to know for the next time you workout, but it allows you to look back at a log and see progress not over months, but just a few weeks. If you’re focusing on cutting fat or building muscle, taking pictures is a great way to track this. They never have to be seen by anyone else or posted anywhere, but they will motivate you. Every day for my 30 days, I took a few pictures from different angles so that I could look back and compare myself. I think it additionally helped me remember why I started.