Overcoming the barriers blocking your exercise routine
“Working out during the week? Impossible, I don’t have time.” This phrase has become almost automatic.
Yet, working, training, and taking care of yourself are not incompatible. The problem isn’t always available time, but how we use our energy and organize our priorities when facing barriers to exercise.
Time or energy: identifying the real overload
Some activities require little time but are energy-intensive; others require several weeks of investment, like preparing for an Open Swim event, but they fuel motivation and well-being. The perceived overload isn’t always linked to time, but often to the energy mobilized. Confusing the two frequently leads to burnout.
Visualizing your schedule to find balance
A simple method consists of drawing your schedule, distinguishing between professional, athletic, family, and personal areas using colors. This exercise makes imbalances visible and allows you to ask: is the time spent on each area consistent with your priorities and needs?
Detecting invisible emotional barriers
It’s easy to get rid of a visible obstacle because you can see it. Emotional barriers, however, are more complex to spot: they settle in gradually and influence our behavior without us always being aware of it.
Giving them a shape, an image, or a feeling often allows you to regain control and create distance from what is hindering you.
- Giving them a shape, an image, or a feeling often allows you to regain control and create distance from what is hindering you.
Two scenarios
- The barrier disappears on its-own: leave it behind, no need to cling to it again.
- You identify the key to freeing your-self: act, like pulling off a bandage, rather than letting the discomfort settle in.
The links between chronic overload, burnout, and health are analyzed in this Inserm report on stress.
Prioritizing to find breathing room in your daily life
To lighten the pressure, it’s essential to prioritize your activities—professional, athletic, and personal. Priorities vary depending on the period, deadlines, and fatigue levels: what is a priority one week isn’t necessarily one the next.
Accepting this flexibility allows for better adaptation and avoids constant guilt when a schedule changes.
Sharing to be better understood
Showing your color-coded schedule to your loved ones can make it easier for them to understand what you’re going through and pave the way for more appropriate support. A training partner or a relative who can see your weekly load concretely will more easily understand why a session is moved or shortened, without seeing it as a lack of commitment.
Do you feel like you lack time, but also energy? It might be time to review your organization rather than giving up on what does you good.
Overcoming barriers to exercise isn’t about giving up: it’s choosing to move forward with more clarity and efficiency.