Tip #18: Don't Cross Anything Off

There is an epidode of the television show "How I Met Your Mother" when the main character, Ted, finds a shirt he once hated and realizes he kind of loves it now. This sends him on a tailspin, wondering if he should go back to a girl he once dated to see if he ends up loving her now that he is older and his tastes have changed.

Now, it didn't end so well for him and the girl (he dumps her and she beats the hell out of him) but there is a lesson to learn here (and it not just to never dump a girl on her birthday)! The lesson is that your tastes do change over time and you have to adjust to that! You have to experiment and try something you may not have thought of before. This goes especially for exercise, because your body changes, just like your tastes. A few years ago, I tried yoga. I was bored and dizzy in the first few minutes, quitting almost immediately and crossing it off the list of exercises I wanted to do. Fast forward to a few months ago and I'm reading an article about how great it is to do yoga and stretch out before bed, so I did it. Now, I can't go to sleep without doing at least twenty minutes of downward facing dogs, warrior poses, and chair poses.

There are a lot of reasons why you might not have liked an exercise regime at first. Maybe it was too boring like I thought yoga was. If you find that your workouts are high impact (aka you're sore for days afterwards) and you need to take a break, but you don't want to actually skip exercising entirely, you might want to go back to the workout you originally found to be a little boring. These are often low impact and, if you can learn to relax during them, you'll learn to love them.

Maybe you found it too challanging. I know I found kickboxing hard the first time I tried it! But you have to build up to something so high intensity. If you are doing another workout routine now and you are finding that its getting to easy for you, try the challenging workout again. It might just be exactly what you need!

All exercise has its upsides and downsides. You have to find one that you like, but since you adjust to your routine, you have to try new things, or things you may have tried before but didn't like originally. Your body might just end up thanking you for it!