One of the most important factors of any workout isn’t your form, how you split your routines, or how heavy you’re lifting. While all those are important, there’s one that stands above the rest.
It’s if you’re having fun.
But why? Isn’t fun just for playing games and hanging out with friends? Well, yeah. But it’s more than that.
If you aren’t having fun doing something, you’re less likely to do it. That’s a problem when physical fitness depends so much on consistency.
You could have the most effective workout in the world but if you don’t show up again after the first week, you aren’t losing weight or gaining muscle.
This idea applies to other things that require consistency for success.
Investing. Learning an instrument. Maintaing a clean house.
“Fun” doesn’t always mean you’re smiling all the time, however. Fun means that you enjoy the activity and you see the meaning behind it.
If you don’t, at some level, enjoy the activity, it’s going to be much harder for you to stay on track to reach your goals.
How to Have Fun
Who would’ve thought we'd have to be taught how to have fun? Not me. But some things are so boring and tedious that we’d rather stare at the wall. What’s worse is that it’s often those “boring” things that we need to do the most.
What do you do? There’s a couple ways that might help.
Some ways to make something more enjoyable is to have a social component to it. Find friends you can go to the gym with or talk about investing with.
Other ways are to listen to some of your favorite music while doing it. In Effortless by Greg McKeown, he needed to find a way to get his kids to help clean the dishes after dinner. His solution was perfect: play Disney songs while doing the dishes. Now, every time they finish dinner, it’s a karaoke session with the family.
Another way add some fun is to gamify it in some way.
In my previous job writing articles, there’d be times when it was just difficult for me to finish writing. You know those days, when you’d rather do anything else but work.
What I did was to set a timer for myself. One article by lunch, another by 3, then another by 5. Having that time trial aspect made the process much more exciting (plus it made the day go by much faster too).
By finding ways to make necessary things more enjoyable, you’re more likely to keep doing it. And when you’re consistent, you’ll reach your goals much faster.