Look at most any survey out there for what people are prioritizing for 2026 goals and you’ll find a goal around health and wellness. Losing weight, eating healthier, and working out more tends to follow an annual trend of priority. If you have a goal centered around either starting back up with working out or working out more often, now’s the perfect time to explore the why behind the importance of exercising.
The obvious answer starts with the physical aspect. We want to feel good. We want to achieve a certain weight or physique. We want to achieve at least some level of accomplishment at our annual doctor physicals. But there’s more to this story we need to unpack. When we start to dig more into the why, we’re going to see reasons well beyond just the need for physical change. One of the biggest value-adds that we need to explore from working out comes from the mental gains. Let’s look at 3 “why’s” that can help you keep a strong grip on consistently exercising.
Keep promises to ourselves:
One of the best ways to build inner confidence is keeping promises to ourselves. Working out can be a grind. There will be a lot of days we want nothing to do with conquering the workout in front of us. The excuses are a mile long – I’m tired, I don’t feel well, I didn’t get enough sleep, I’m too busy, and on and on. If we can work through the struggle and days we want to escape the gym and still decide to work out, it’s extremely rewarding to both your body and mind.
When we keep the promise we made to ourselves to follow through on the workout no matter how motivated we are, we prove over and over again we can do hard things. When we continuously work out even when we don’t feel like it, we start to normalize the discipline of following through on our promises. And the crazy part about it, it starts to creep into other parts of our lives and soon we see how rewarding keeping promises to ourselves can be.
Longevity:
One of the most impactful books I’ve ever read (thanks Sri Reddy for the recommendation) is Outlive. This book attacks the importance of extending our healthspan – not just how long we live but the health condition of those years. One of the best gifts we can give our body is movement. When our body makes it a standard that we incorporate movement as we age, our body normalizes activity. We embrace opportunities to go for a hike, play with our kids or grandkids, walk to explore a new city, take a bike ride on a beautiful day, along with so many other experiences our body can provide for us. No matter our age, movement must be a normalcy for us to not just extend our years of life, but to extend the years we have strong and active health.
We owe it to ourselves:
We get one body in our life. It’s up to us on how we build, strengthen, maintain, and become resilient on how we handle what life throws at us. I will never pretend to be able to predict what’s up ahead, only that I know life will throw us plenty of struggles to overcome. My question to you is when you come to a moment of struggle, who do you want to show up as? While the struggle may be incredibly difficult to take on, I like my chances of conquering the difficulty if I show up in shape. And when I say in shape, of course I mean the physical aspect, but I also mean the mental shape that comes with consistently working out and building discipline. We owe it to ourselves to be able to show up to all the peaks and valleys of life in shape ready to take on all opportunities we’re lucky enough to experience.
When we look at the idea of resolutions and how it ties to our health and wellness, go beyond just losing “x” lbs. or sticking to a specific diet. There’s more to unpack on creating a why to working out. We’re not just making decisions for today. The decisions we make for today can have a huge impact on our future about how we evolve both mentally and physically. Show up and work out and be amazed at just how much growth you will see.
Take your step: keep it simple and the next time you’ve made a promise to yourself to workout (walking, running, lifting, or however you define workout) and you don’t feel like it, tell yourself “I’m someone that carries through on my promise”. See how this shift in mentality helps with carrying out your workout. You no longer are focused on a feeling taking over your body or relying on motivation but instead, focus on who you want to be and the importance of keeping that promise to yourself.