A few years back, I sat in a conference room full of fitness professionals, coffee in hand, half-listening to the speaker. I was just there to get my CECs and call it a day, but this guy had other plans.
Immediately, he asked the whole room to stand up, raise our arms overhead, and sing the Rocky theme song together.
I was like, are you kidding me? I did not come here to work. I came to sit, sip my coffee, learn a little, and earn my continuing education credits to keep my personal training certification up to date.
But the room stood anyway, and eventually, so did I.
Here’s what I didn’t expect: singing a silly song with a room full of strangers actually shifted something. I felt more awake, more open, more ready for the day than I had five minutes earlier, sitting in my chair resisting it.
As a personal trainer, and more recently, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, I’ve come to believe this is one of the most useful things I know: Motion creates emotion. Sometimes we need to move before we feel ready.
We tend to wait to feel motivated before we act, to feel like going to the gym before we go, to feel confident before we speak up, to feel ready before we start. But motivation is often the result of movement, not the cause of it.
There’s a reason Nike’s “Just Do It” became one of the most famous slogans ever. It wasn’t “Just Do It If You Feel Like It.” People put their sneakers on, and often, motivation follows.
I see this constantly with my clients, both in the gym and in the therapy chair. Someone arrives exhausted, certain they don’t have a workout in them. Twenty minutes later, they’re energized. In therapy sessions, I tell clients, “Do it mad, do it sad, do it angry.”
Taking care of the basics doesn’t solve everything. But movement, nutrition, and sleep can put us in a much better position to handle what life throws at us.
This matters for physical health, obviously. But it matters just as much for mental health, maybe more.
Anxiety and low mood have a way of convincing us to wait for the right mood, the right moment, the right amount of confidence before we do something that might actually help us feel better.
That waiting can become the trap. We don’t always have to feel ready before we act. Sometimes taking action is what helps change how we feel.
If you’re stuck on something today, maybe it’s a workout you’re avoiding, a conversation you’ve been putting off, or a task sitting untouched on your list. Try this: commit to five minutes.
Not the whole thing. Just five minutes of the physical motion involved before you evaluate how you feel about it. Set a timer. At the five-minute mark, decide whether to keep going.
More often than not, you’ll find the motion has already decided for you.
Kim Musikant is a Cranford-based personal trainer, Licensed Clinical Social Worker, and co-owner of Active Life Fitness. Her book, “Stop Waiting to Feel Ready,” is available now on Amazon.
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