When not feeling motivated to exercise, is it better to force yourself to do a shorter, halfhearted routine, or to wait until you feel up to doing what you normally do?

As I know myself, putting my daily full routine off because of motivation will produce a high risk of me not doing anything. Then, I usually go for a smaller, less demanding session. 20 minutes of stretching or yoga can be enough on a stressful 12h day. Being kind to myself not only by celebrating my achievements but also by avoiding overachiever expectations directed towards myself will eventually keep me on track in the long run, I hope.

I’ve found it’s more important for me to maintain the habit of daily exercise, so I have a few favourite easy yoga routines that I do on days when I can’t manage my normal workout.

Do a half hearted one, pushing it to do the next breaks your spirit. Believe me you’ll be happier doing something then nothing at all. It keeps the ball rolling.

I just start moving, once I get going activation energy gets me the rest of the way through and I feel really proud of myself afterward for powering through. The hardest part is starting.

Unless you’re actually ill or injured, it’s always worth forcing yourself to at least put on your exercise gear and start even a mini routine. Chances are once you get moving you’ll feel invigorated and want to do more - and if you don’t that’s ok, you tried!

Force yourself. I find it better to exercise in the afternoon, but I cut a bargain with myself if I skip the morning, I have to force myself to do anything, even ten minutes, exercise wise in the afternoon.

I used to wait until I felt like it which caused me to skip ome days. Now I opt to do a shorter routine which at least keeps me regular and cumulatively totals to more exercise time per week

My first suggestion would be to pick an excercise that you love with all your hearth, in my case I picked cycling But when I find my self struggling about some excercise then I do it in a short amount of time, and limited to that time, therefore I can say to my self “it’s only 10 minutes, let’s go” Also, if you come from more than a week of doing excercise and you feel you don’t want to, it’s probably fatigue, in such case, I would skip that day and continue the next

I struggle with this so much and what I’ve found is that if I just force myself to do a quick pinterest workout or something that’s not my regular workout, I’m way more likely to do it. And any exercise is better than none. So definitely just do the small ones, quick ones, half assed ones, until it becomes a habit and then when you’re ready, you can do your scheduled ones.

I think it’s better to do something. As General Powell said "Agood plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week." While this is an exaggeration, it suggests that something now is now ideal than something great later. I believe in this philosophy as I have seen it work for me when I follow it and the opposite is true. If I wait too long the effects are more detrimental.