Exercise and training programs can take some motivation and effort in order to make into a habit. Building such a habit of exercising can be pretty difficult especially if you see it as just some other task that needs to be done. You must first buy into the idea that exercising is necessary to burn calories as a part of your caloric balance..

Before we look at why people fail, lets look at some common excuses why people dont get on track with an exercise program.

1. Hate To Exercise Excuse

One of the most common excuses people make by not exercising is that they simply hate doing it. But exercise is simply not just those things that you hate to do on a regular basis. Exercise can be any fitness regimen that can range from the usual calisthenics to more enjoyable sporting activities.

There are certainly different forms of exercise and fitness programs that people would like. It helps to match up a kind of physical activity to one’s own personality. For those who like the outdoors, going on a hike or biking around would be a worthwhile fitness activity. For those who like it simple, home fitness training or just simply walking on a regular basis would do just as well.

2. Not Motivated to Stick With It Excuse

Doing exercises for some time now can really leave you feeling tired and stressed just as easily. Not having the right motivation can eventually make you feel bored with your workouts and keep doing them on a regular basis. And with boredom for company, it can be really hard to keep going. And hence, no motivation to do the exercise program regularly becomes the excuse.

In order to fight off boredom, it may be good to change your exercise routine every 4 to 6 weeks. Changes can mean trying out something new or just trying to change the intensity or duration of your exercises for variation. It is also important to remind yourself of your fitness goals and try to keep track of them. Rewarding yourself for a job well done can also be very effective to prevent becoming an unmotivated and bored fitness buff, if there is such a thing.

3. Can’t Afford Gym Membership Excuse

Some people believe that the only way to stay fit is by going to the gym. And just because they can’t afford the membership into one gives them reason enough not to exercise. This can be quite a foolish excuse not to keep fit and exercise.

Getting fit does not necessarily require that one needs to go to the gym regularly. Getting fit is not always becoming a gym member. A fitness regimen can be done just about anywhere. What can be important is by always trying to get the body to become physically active by giving it quite a regular workout.

There are many ways that this can be done. It can be as easy as just walking around the block everyday. You can also purchase exercise and training videos for guidance. Putting them in the player and doing the exercises is something that you can do at home without ever having to spend your money for a gym membership to stay fit.

4. Don’t Have the Time

Not being able to fit in 30 minutes per day or 45 minutes three days per week to exercise, jog, walk or other routine is a lame excuse. The real reason is you are not motivated enough to mentailly be able to just make yourself do it.

5. Focusing on Physical Exercise and Not on Your Diet

People often start to exercise, do it for about a month, then quit because they either dont see results, get bored or get distracted. They really should not start to exercise at all until they change their diets somewhat. Exercising is fine and necessary, but doing it and not changing your eating habits will result in minimal results, and thus lead to quitting your exercising.

6. Not Having a Real Goal or Motivating Factor to Strive For

People say they want to lose a few pounds, get back to high school weight, etc. Perhaps their weight issues are that of being obese. Maybe they have been heavy all their lives. Perhaps they have deep emotional issues and were called “fatty” in grade school.

Deeper issues of emotional pain are sometimes what can motivate someone to stay with a new fitness routine. However, food may provide their way of coping with that deep seated pain and therefore tough to break such an addiction.

That is why is it so hard for most people to lose weight. Intelectually, most people know to eat less calories, and burn more than you take in by exercising to accelerate the process. Easy to say, but extremely hard to implement in the form of behavior. This take us to the 7th and most important factor.

7. Lack of Accountability

This is the number one reason why people fail. Being accountable to yourself is like the fox guarding the hen house. You deceive yourself, make excuses, lie and cheat your way through your so called diet, only to fail in the end. That part of your brain that contributes to the perpeutation of most addictions always seems to win.

Accountability in the form of peer groups, a fitness trainer, instructor, boot camp trainer and the like are great sources of inspiration, support, encourgament and education. A well trained and effective trainer understands you emotionally. Overcoming the emotional road blocks is the most important key to succeeding at your efforts to achive weight loss.

So seek out a form of accountability. It may be a 3-month program at a gym or fitness studio, an online forum, a membership type program where you are indeed held accountable. Often, challenges such as the “90-day” challenge are great for anyone to sign up and participate.

Focusing just on the physical exercise part of a weight loss program leaves out an essential part of the equation = diet (what you eat). But lets look at these two components exercise and diet. We know what to do in terms of exercise (burn more calories) and we know what to eat (watch my calories and make “good” food choices). So we have a handle on the what to do and what to eat, but what about the why, when and what for questions?

Why? After you have made a statement to yourself or develop a new weight loss program and break it up into tasks to do, ask yourself after each component or task: So that ______________ and then complete the sentence. For example, “I chose not to eat red meat as a part of my dieting program… so that … I reduce my intake of saturated fats and force me to eat other forms of protein including fish…”

“I want to lose weight so that I can fit into my prom dress that I already paid for and so people won’t laugh at me for looking out of shape…”

“I am jogging 2 miles a day and getting bored, but I really need to keep this up so that my cholesterol levels and blood sugar levels go down, so that these risk factors for heart disease don’t get the better of me, so that I can still be alive when my daughter graduates from college…

Setting goals and having a reason “Why?” that is not simply a mundane reason such as “Because I should” is important to the mind, body, spirit integration. We intellectually know what to do about exercising, but the mental decision to carry it out is more difficult. Mental discipline, will power, courage, persistence and belief usually need a crutch because if the mind senses that what you are doing is temporary, and as otherwise uncomfortable for you or is painful (both physically and emotionally), it will plan out a method to self destruct, sabotage or simply change your mind about the whole thing with some lame excuse.

Getting a grip on these psychological triggers to self sabotage is key. You must listen to that little voice in your head and know that it is not the voice that set your goals, arrived at your reasons “Why” you are doing these new activitiies, rather, it is a part of you that wants to stay in a routine, a comfortable box that it is used to. Simply put, there is a part of your mind that is afraid of the changes you are embarking upon.

Various techniques can help you deal with these behavioral issues. I consider this mental exericising to be in the category of spiritual. It seems when I examine mentally what I am thinking and why I am making choices, my higher consciousness seems to step in and give me the answers. You may have a different experience, but incorporate some form of spiritual practice so that you can balance the mind and the body and not just focus on the exercise and diet part of being healthy.

10 Tips That Integrate Mind, Body and Spirit for a Balanced, Safe and Successful Physical Activity Program

• Check with your health care provider. If you have a chronic health problem, such as obesity, diabetes, heart disease, or high blood pressure, ask your health care provider about what type and amount of physical activity is right for you.(MIND)
• Start slowly. Incorporate more physical activity into your daily routine and gradually work up to 30 minutes per day to improve health, 60 minutes per day to lose weight, or 60 to 90 minutes per day to manage weight.(MIND-BODY)
• Set goals. Set both short-term and long-term goals to keep motivated. (MIND)
• Set rewards. Celebrate every success—you earned it! (MIND)
• Track progress. Keep an activity log to track your progress. Note when you worked out, what activity you did, how long you did the activity, and how you felt during your workout. Also, record the days that you did not workout and what may have caused you to change your routine.(MIND)
• Think variety. Choose a variety of physical activities to help you meet your goals, prevent boredom, and keep your mind and body challenged.(MIND-BODY)
• Be comfortable. Wear comfortable shoes and clothes that are appropriate to the activity you will be doing. (BODY)
• Listen to your body. Stop exercising and consult your health care provider if you experience chest discomfort or pain, dizziness, severe headache, or other unusual symptoms while you work out. If pain does not go away, get medical help right away. If you are feeling fatigued or sick, take time off from your routine to rest. You can ease back into your program when you start feeling better (BODY).
• Eat nutritious foods. Choose a variety of nutritious foods every day. Remember that your health and weight depend on both your eating plan and physical activity level. Healthful foods will give you the energy you need to be active.(BODY)
• Use a Trainer or Counselor. Join a class or other stuctured program where you will have accountability to an authority figure such as a meditation instructor, fitness trainer or therapist.(SPIRIT)
• Balance Your Activities. Try Yoga, Tai Chi, or Meditation that balance the mind and body as part of their systems. Be aware of breath, movement and the flow of energy around your body. Turn off your mind and focus on the physical sensations of movement of your physical body, its strength, flexibility and endurance.
• Get support. Encourage your family and friends to support you and join you in your activity. Form walking groups with coworkers, play with your children outside, or take a dance class with friends.(MIND-SPIRIT)

Look at yourself as a whole person. What you think, what you do, what you eat, and what you say all affect the state you are in. They are all interrelated, so give them equal time and balance your mind, body and spiritual aspects of your self.

Marketing online is different than offline because you typically do not have the situation in which you strike up a one on one conversation with someone with the ability to engage them and ask them open ended questions which may give you a reason to bring up either your opportunity, your product or both.

Online marketing must be targeted based on what the person you ultimately intend to recruit is searching for over the internet. Of course, you may run into them through social media sites, forums, etc., but for the most part, they are going to find you and what you have put out over the internet first.

The other way to direct market is to create email campaigns. But you must first have a list over wise you may be spamming. You could buy lists of “opportunity seekers” and call them up, but this has very low conversion and the leads are questionable.

Your online presence is centered around your landing page where you capture leads. Your job is to get traffic to come to your site, opt in because of something compelling you say or offer on the site and hopefully convert them into a prospect or sell them something to get them into your sales funnel.

Before you put out marketing strategies over the web, first review these 10 factors so you can narrow your focus to various targeted niches, otherwise your approach will be too broad, too scattered with little results.

1-Decide if you are marketing to the users of the product.

If your product has great name recognition or is desired by millions of people, is low cost, then leverage these benefits and market the product to attract them to your landing page

2-Develop a marketing plan to target people who may be interested in being a distributor or preferred customer, but not have to recruit people and form a downline.

Many people object to the term MLM or want nothing to do with having to recruit people. In other words, something they see as out of their box. These people can still be approached, but on a more low-key manner in which you offer part-time opportunity or distributor, franchise owner, reseller type positions. If they see value in the product, they will see a way for them to resell it without having to sign up as a full blown member of your downline.

3-Develop a plan to target people looking for a business opportunity.

This targeted group is the one most often targeted by all MLM marketers. Promises of thousands of dollars per month for doing virtually little work form their headlines. The lure is the amount of money potentially earned and not the product or you as a brand or respected leader who has something they could learn. However, this approach must be fine tuned into a more targeted niches.

4-Break down your targeted group in step 3 into groups such as home based, MLM or residual income.

Basically, you are talking about the same thing, but you are using different keywords with slightly different angles to color your marketing messages. Home based is centered around the lifestyle of working at home. MLM is for those that are comfortable with and believe in the MLM model. Residual income speaks to those who believe in the power of compounded effort and of long term wealth accumulation.

5- If your marketing is targeted to other MLM people, you must create a campaign to brand YOU as an individual separate from your MLM (people need to get to know you before they join you).

6-Contine branding yourself by marketing online about how knowledgeable you are as a leader, a trainer, an MLM expert, by writing articles and doing videos that show your potential downline how valuable you are to them

7-As you brand yourself to create value as a leader, leverage the value of your products to convince them that your MLM is the one to join.

At some point along the way, your prospects with have reached the point that you are likeable, knowledgeable and perhaps a good leader so they will naturally want to find out what exactly is your primary business opportunity that you have yet to reveal. At this point, you can reveal your product and company and convince them why your are dedicated to it and that they should join forces to get in on the opportunity.

8-Target business opportunity seekers who are either with another competitor, people who are looking to start an online business or people who are struggling with their current MLM.

Position yourself as someone who has the tools and the training that they have been missing. In other words, get into their mind and understand the feelings they are going through, know what they need beyond the broad niche of another opprotuntiy seeker.

9-Use the attraction marketing model and stick to it.

Market yourself in a totally giving manner without ever mentioning your primary opportunity – target other MLM people or home based business opportunity seekers.

In this way, you avoid all the confusion and the face-offs between two people who are pitching their MLM opportunities to each other without the slightest interest in the other person or what their opportunity is.

10-Target people already in the product niche (such as “people looking to lose weight”) and present them with an opportunity to make money and lose weight together to provide an source of residual income.

If someone is already using a similar product and understand the market potential of which that product is situated, they have never realize how much of a financial opportunity there may be getting involved in the distribution and reselling of the product, let alone starting their own downline.

People have a hard time relying on their own gumption. It comes and goes. its hard to stay excited, motivated, enthused all the time, especially when you encounter a roadblock. Sometimes, you need a real deep moment to spark a fire in your belly that creates almost a spiritual form of inspiration and motivation.

I ran across this video excerpt from Jim Rohn, a well known motivational speaker who tells a story of a woman who one day asked her husband for $10 to which he responded: “What for?”.  She was so affected by this event, that she reached deep into her soul, sort of “hit bottom” so to speak and decided to change her life.

In this video, Jim Rohn mention four keys that surround this life changing event and what goes on in your mind that allows you to do something to change things around:

disgust, decision, desire and resolve.

Have you ever had such an experience? Share your thoughts on this blog. This is powerful stuff and you can’t buy this sort of advice in a book. You have to experience it first hand and therefore it cannot be bought or sold.

Traps are unexpected pitfalls that set you back, keep you from moving forward, takes you off course and if at all possible, to be avoided.

I do not consider lack of a website, no email campaign, not using an autoresponder system or not having a Facebook page to be traps. They are all highly promoted marketing techniques that most people do follow.

It is said that “if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will do”. Your goal may be to make a lot of money at the end of the road, but this leaves out the process of getting there. The actual goal should be to accumulate a lot of money as you go down the road. In this way, you will be cognizant of your steps, making sure your direction is on course and be wary of roadblocks and obstacles that can throw you of course.

Trap #1 — Not having your own business plan.

People can make the mistake while developing their online weight loss business by following someone else’s plan. This is typically done by purchasing one of the many “businesses-in-a-box” programs sold on the internet. Internet marketers know people want it fast, cheap and easy, don’t want to have to work hard, are impatient, want instant rewards and are often gullible in that they fall for the incredible claims made by these marketers.

I’m not saying don’t buy one of these programs, I am saying, know what you are going after before you buy one and then only use it as a tool to get you down the road. People get so wrapped up in the process of choosing the hottest niche, the “super-article submitter” software or falling for every pitch that shows up in their inbox and get totally distracted, and never achieve any progress along their own path

Trap #2 – Not Educating Yourself

As you proceed from the beginning steps of building your online weight loss business, you will discover many marketing techniques and strategies that are essential to utilize and understand.

An effective networker must take advantage of the various tools that are needed to market themselves on the internet as well as offline. Proper methods of content marketing require basic written and verbal communication skills. Writing articles for search engine optimization is a learned skill, far beyond putting your thought on paper. Creating a video requires techniques of verbal communication and involves body language, self confidence and video production skills. Even experts continue to learn more and more about what they consider to be their forte.

Trap #3 Not taking action

My mentor always repeated these words of wisdom: “You don’t have to get it right; you just have to get it going”. She in turn heard it from her mentor.

There are certain personalities that tend to procrastinate, putting things off until things are “just right”. I fell into this trap when I created my first website. I put off marketing and list building and driving traffic because I didn’t feel the website was worthy to be shown to the masses. I was afraid that I would be labeled as a “rookie” or less than I wanted to be seen.

The problem is, a website will never be perfect, it’s an evolving work in progress. The other problem with this thinking is putting off marketing of your weight loss business can really hurt you because of the lag time involved in catching momentum and building synergy with all your various efforts.

Trap #4 Not taking risks

The root of procrastination contains elements of fear. I feared people would think my website looked unfinished, amateurish or just plain lousy. I did not want to risk these perceptions, so I did not publish the site until my fear of acceptance was gone.

Fear, doubt and hesitation can kill your weight loss business before it even has a chance to prove itself to be a winner. The business is a reflection of you. You can build a beautiful website that is very dazzling, very user friendly and may even win an award for best website design, but if you’re in the online weight loss business and rely on website traffic to build your business and nobody visits your site or knows of its existence, it is all because of you and your resistance. Giving into certain doubts, fears and hesitations will cause its demise.

Take away tip: Do as the brand Nike says and “Just Do It”.