When you prioritize movement, you set your future self up to feel your best.
They say the best investment you can make is in yourself. But building strength and staying active isn’t about chasing youth. It’s about embracing freedom. Every stretch, every step, every rep is a step toward a future where you move with ease and feel your very best.
Julie Labrum, Director of Fitness at Treehouse Athletic, shared a future self check.
Julie emphasized that strength now means freedom later. This principle is about ensuring that we have the freedom to live on our terms in the future. “The more muscle and mobility we have now, the more freedom and purpose we have later,” Julie explained.
She advocated for making small changes now to ensure a longer, healthier life. “ It’s easy to overlook the small things,” she said. But, those things add up.
“The small things really are how we do the big things,” she emphasized. By capitalizing on every opportunity to maximize our physical health, we can harness the benefits of exercise in little ways that add up over time.
Overcoming Roadblocks
Starting a fitness journey can be daunting, but, “it’s never too late to create habits,” Julie said.
She suggested starting with simple activities like one to two minutes of movement patterns and gradually increasing mobility and movement every day. This helps you build energy and confidence, making it easier to overcome common roadblocks. “ Our bodies are strong and they respond to activity at any age,” Julie emphasized.
One of the biggest roadblocks to exercise Julie mentioned is unideal situations. “ It’s too early, it’s too late… it’s too cold, it’s too dark, or too hot,” she listed. “ The good thing about those unideal situations is that when we do it anyway, we start becoming unstoppable. The next time that an unideal situation comes up, we remember that we’ve done it before… and we start building confidence in those unideal situations.”
Julie shared four things you can do to set your future self up for fitness success:
1. Creating a Vision Board
Julie recommended creating a vision board to visualize your goals and aspirations. “Visualization is a great tool to start to create habits,” she said.
“If you think you can, you’re right,” Julie emphasized. A vision board helps you build a pattern of belief by asking yourself what attributes and qualities you want in your life. Then you can set purposeful goals and work towards them with small, intentional steps.
2. Earning Your Energy
We often want to feel inspired to get going. “Sometimes we’re waiting for the motivation and that energy to come to us before,” Julie said. “The secret is that energy is created from movement.”
By starting with small movements, you can earn energy, decrease brain fog, improve sleep, and boost your mood. “ Those are the benefits of exercise that come to us when we just start anyway,” Julie emphasized. This earned energy motivates you to continue exercising, even when you lack motivation in the beginning.
3. Compounding Confidence
Confidence grows with each accomplishment, especially when overcoming difficult tasks. “ If you’ve ever accomplished something that’s difficult, you become proud of yourself,” Julie said. “And then you think, ‘Wow, that’s something that I would love to have in my life every day.’ So the confidence compounds.”
By showing up for yourself and achieving small victories, you rewire your brain to believe in your ability to do hard things. This compounded confidence helps you tackle bigger challenges over time. “It’s not always easy, but that’s the best time to show up for yourself is when it’s not easy,” Julie emphasized.
4. Rewriting Your Story
Julie mentioned that some people will say that they’ve ‘never been fit,’ or ‘it’s too late to start.’ “You can always rewrite your story,” she said. “ You can start now for a different finish line, a different narrative, and a different end of this story.”
“ Something that I always say to myself is, ‘I want to know what happens if I don’t quit,'” Julie shared.
Find more fitness advice from Julie on Instagram, @julie_today.
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