What are some of the barriers that we need to overcome in order to introduce exercise regularly into our lives?
First, it is painful. It's not comfortable to exercise at say 70 percent of our maximum heart rate. Doesn't hurt that much, but it's more comfortable to sit in front of the television or play Nintendo. So what do we do? The first thing that we can do is divide and conquer. One of the things that especially perfectionists do is that "OK, so I'm going to start exercising. And to be fit, I need to do 6 miles a day. And that's what I'm going to start running. 6 miles a day." And of course what happens very quickly? The next day you get up and you are hurt. But you are a perfectionist. You are tough. No pain, no gain. And you go out for a run again. And what happens? You hurt even more the next day. But you push through the pain. After a few weeks, you get injured. But even if you don't get injured, the schema that is created in your mind about exercise is the following. It is "exercise equals pain". Now our mind does not like pain. And it tries to avoid pain.