I recently started mountainbiking, and I often excert myself way too much to the point of having to get off the bike and just resting. After watching the tedx talk "How "normal people" can train like the worlds best endurance athletes" I made it a thing to go out on the bike and _be slow_. Just go as slow as possible up the hills instead of almost collapsing.

Now I feel like going out almost all the time instead of thinking "ooh, wow I was sooo tired the last time I was on the trail!". Made it much much easier to keep a routine of getting out regularly. Also my pace is much more even, and actually not much slower in total on my "slow" runs, since I never have to stop and rest.

Yeah, people forget that we are animals too.

We get as conditioned as Pavlov dogs. If every time you get out mountainbiking you suffer, you create an anchor mountainbiking = suffering.

if you do it a lot, it gets reinforced a lot, and your body subcounciously will oppose it.

Learned helplessness is a particularly insidious form of this. What's fascinating is that in the studies, some animals never get it, they just keep fighting it. I wonder if that trait can be tapped in to, I doubt it' an all-or-nothing parameter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness

This is why I advise gym newbies to quit and go home while they're feeling pumped, and not to stay so long that they feel exhausted and cranky. It's more important to create the positive subconscious association with the gym.

Well, you didn't do it.

I mean you did not start the activity. This trick works only when you have already started the activity.

I suggest that next time you become serious about it: There is no way you could let yourself not doing the minimum activity BUT you can leave after you have done your minimum.

For example: Your minimum activity is going out and running for a minute. You do it, period.

Your mind will try to put excuses, like "I don't have time", but because the activity is minimal you don't have to think about that, you spend less time doing it than thinking about it.

Another suggestion: Only complete minimal activities first, and feel good about it,until you get used to going out each day.

Going out for running just minute over 30 days is much much better than running kilometers one day, being exhausted, feeling pain( and guilt) the next.

After 30 days you will have established a routine. It becomes harder not going out each day than staying home.

Thanks for the practical tips!

I should've expanded on my original comment a little more. I'm currently on a run streak of 130 consecutive days, including a motorcycle crash and international long haul flights.

One of the most frustrating things is I have no idea why I have managed it this time but not before.

The other failure mode I have is procrastinating leading up to the activity. Yesterday I woke up at 6am with the intention of going for a run like I had managed to do for the past 2 weeks. After much procrastination I finally managed to go at 3pm.

I think I've been quite successful over the years in doing exercise but the lack of insight into my habits and motivation is maddening....

That sounds like me. No matter how hard I try, I just can't seem to get the time from wearing normal clothes to running to having showered and wearing normal clothes again, down to less than 2 hours if it just includes 25 minutes of running. Trying to do the "just one minute" approach when you don't feel like running, still becomes a "just 1h36" problem. Or indeed sometimes, quite randomly, worse.

PS: Now , After you have already run for a minute, it will sound ridiculous not doing one more.

The important thing is establishing the routine. Do not try too hard. If you do you will create pain and condition your body against it.

> PS: Now , After you have already run for a minute, it will sound ridiculous not doing one more.

Unless you don't work like that. Maybe I'm weird, but if I promised myself "just one minute" and I trick myself into doing more minutes, I'm going to remember that next time I'll tell myself "just one minute". I might say "just one minute and then see how you feel". But again, there shouldn't be anything ridiculous about it if I just do one minute, because who is being ridiculous next time they say "just one minute" ?