How to Stay Motivated in Your Exercise Routine

Nancy Shidler, administrative director for INTEGRIS PACER Health Services, gives tips on how to stay motivated and keep your exercise routine exciting.

Today we're going to talk about how to stay motivated. You've been exercising for a while now, you're getting a little tired of it. Not sure if you want to continue to do this, so you're kind of finding other things that might happen. I think there's a couple of very important things to consider.

You've got to have a buddy. You've got to have somebody that you can check in with when you're lacking motivation, and they can check in with you when they're lacking motivation. You may not exercise at the exact same time, but it's very helpful to have a buddy.

Setting goals is a great idea, so that you've got something that you're working toward. Another thing, if you have any kind of an iPhone or smartphone, or a FitBit, or a Jawbone, those kind of tools are very helpful to keep you motivated, because you're writing everything down. You're getting to see all of the great things you're doing. You look back and see what your progress has been, and it kind of keeps you on track, especially if you're somebody who likes to write things down and keep those logs. Very, very helpful.

But I think most importantly is to mix things up. If you've been doing the same thing day after day, or exercise time after exercise time, just change the order in which you do it. Do a different exercise at a different time. That will help a lot as well.