Try Something New?

 “Life is short, break the rules, forgive quickly, kiss slowly, love truly, laugh uncontrollably, and never regret anything that made you smile. Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

I’M NOT SURE ANYONE HAS EVER HAD THIS OPINION, BUT Mark Twain would have made a stellar personal trainer.

He would have inspired us to try new things, to love truly, to laugh uncontrollably, to never regret anything that made us smile. He would compel us to throw off the bowlines challenge us to “explore, dream and discover!

Most people go about their exercise lives with the quiet acceptance that exercise is a necessary evil, just another task on their ever-expanding, daily to-do list.

But, it can be more that that. Much more.

If you love your exercise, you’ll do it more. You’ll reap its myriad rewards. And it will be energizing, rather than enervating.

Have you found what workouts work for you? By that I mean, when do you “lose yourself” in physical activity? When are you so profoundly immersed in a sport that you lose track of time, much like when you were a child.

When you find your fitness bliss, working out is much easier to do. The calories burned are no longer the focus of the workout; they’re the natural consequence of the passion-driven activity!

Just because you haven’t found your fitness bliss doesn’t mean it’s not there. Your body is designed to move. It has a genetic directive to move. It thrives on motion. Exercise is a proven panacea for all kinds of physical ailments, and it confers a veritable bonanza of mental health benefits as well.

So, your body loves to move. You just need to find how you love to move it!

It is important to try different things and to find what works for you.

For some, bolting out of bed at 5am and jumping on a bike or lacing up their running shoes is what fills their cup. For others, hitting the gym and using the machines and weights pumps them up. Others haven't found what works for them.

I like to work out in a group. I try harder in a group. I push myself harder in a group—and I feel a cascading sense of accomplishment at the end. We start off as strangers and end up as friends, sort of the trial by fire mentality. When you work out in a group there is accountability. If you don't show up someone notices.

But there is also competition: “if he can do that, so can I (only better, right ladies?).”

When I work out with a group, I work much...much harder, harder than I would have on my own. Why is that? I'm not a lazy person, I have the best of intentions, I want to have a good and beneficial workout, but find I get bored of doing lunges and pushups by myself and soon stop. There’s powerful behavioral science behind that. Some studies show that the “social facilitation” is the most powerful driver of exercise compliance. People love doing things together—and that includes exercise!

I have tried to accomplish the same workout on my own that I could with a group and I just can't do it, I just don't push hard enough, I can't find the rhythm. I have tried a lot of different exercise, personal trainers, work out of the days, apps, classes. I know what works for me and I focus on that, but I still try new things all the time.

You never know when something new might come along and excited, delight and inspire you to work out with more passion—and more gusto.

Maybe Outburst Mobile Fitness can deliver that “fitness bliss” to you.

You never know unless you try, right?

Throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

Kat Filley Brown is the Founder of Outburst Mobile Fitness. She explores, dreams and discovers every day.