Turning your fitness vision into a concrete reality requires long term discipline and consistency. And the best way to do so is by making your exercise routine a daily habit. Let’s face it: Human beings are creatures of habit. This mechanism evolved over 1000’s of years to conserve energy and optimize performance so instead of struggling to perform the daily task, the automatic pilot kicks in and takes control.

Therefore, if you’re looking to improve your fitness level by forming a healthy exercise habit, here are guidelines that can help:

Exercise in the morning

When it comes to achieving consistency with a training program, picking the right exercise timing is critical. For that, and according to many studies, the best time of the day to go for a workout is in the early morning when the rest of the world is still asleep. Usually during this time of the day, there aren’t many things to do unless you prefer staying in the comfort of your bed.

As a result, if you think that you’re up to the challenge, make sure to get ready for the morning workout the night before. Sketch out your training program and lay out your training gears in the open so when the alarm goes off, you’ll know exactly what to do with much second-guessing.

Commit For 30-Days

According to Tony Schwartz, the author of the highly acclaimed book on productivity and management, “the power of full engagement”, the best approach for forming a new habit is by committing to doing the new activity for at least 4 consecutive weeks, non-stop. As a result, make sure to block out a specific chunk on your daily calendar for the next 4 weeks; that’s your exercise calendar.

Commit to another person

Human beings are also social creatures; we dread social rejection and being disapproved of—even by people we don’t really like. So why not use this instinctive mechanism to your advantage. As a result, instead of being a lonely wolf, make sure to do the bulk of your training with a workout buddy. The latter must share your training vision and have similar fitness levels.

In addition, you can hold each other accountable for the actions you need to take while providing encouragement and incentives thus you’ll both see your consistency and performance levels going through the roof.

Check our next blog for additional tips on making exercise a habit.