Two strange ways (that work) to make exercising into a habit

Fabulous Traveler, there is only one thing to remember about habit formation: to instill new habits, you need to transform the world around you to make the habits easier.

You'll need to remove any kind of effort needed to start your habits. I'm going to suggest two ideas that can seem far-fetched at first. But they are highly ingrained in science, and isn't far-fetched the better solution most of the time?

Sleep With Your Gym Clothes on

When you wake up, you don't have enough discipline to make a decision. You're stressed because it's departure time, and everything seems to have less priority than 5 more minutes of sleep.

Even the act of putting your gym clothes on can seem like a burden.

Remove this burden from your morning by sleeping in your gym clothes. You will remove one more obstacle making it difficult for you to exercise.

"I had to find a way to decrease the activation energy, make it easier to start it. I just went to sleep in my gym clothes. My mom wonders why I'm single. It's experiments like this." Shawn Achor, "Positive Psychology: The Science of Happiness", Harvard University.

Put Your Feet Into Your Sports Shoes

Fabulous Traveler, there is also a second idea that works great with the first solution.

If you're going for a run, put your running shoes next to your bed.

You wake up in the morning and put your feet into your sports shoes. Then, pause for a moment, and observe yourself.

I can guarantee you that you'll have a rush of emotion pulsing through your veins, Fabulous Traveler, pushing you to get outdoors, and just start running!

"We found that something weird happens in the human brain if you put your feet in your tennis shoes, the calculus gets messed up and you think it's easier for me to go work out than to have to take all this stuff off again."

Fabulous Traveler, what we're also doing in the Fabulous is promoting a culture of experiments. If wearing your gym clothes before sleeping works for you, that's great, you've acquired a lifelong habit. If it doesn't, we'll try other things, until you get this habit in place.

You will prevail, Fabulous Traveler.