How to Stick to a Workout Routine (When Motivation Fades)

I’ve exercised in some form for most of my adult life, and I’ve still fallen off the wagon more than once. Sticking to a workout routine isn’t about having endless willpower. It’s about building something that survives busy weeks, tiredness and the odd stretch where life gets in the way.

These days I do yoga most mornings, walk for at least an hour a day and go bouldering once or twice a week. I’m self-employed, I work long hours and I’ve got two school-age kids, so none of it has to be perfect to count. Here’s what actually helps me stick with it.

What my routine looks like at the moment

Yoga is the backbone. I aim for an hour a day, five to seven days a week, mixing power yoga, vinyasa and slower stretching and flexibility sessions depending on how I feel. On really busy or recovery days I only manage 15 minutes, but I try never to go lower than that.

I also walk for an hour minimum every day, and some days it stretches to two or three hours. I tie my walks in with things that need doing, like posting parcels, or taking a backpack to the supermarket and carrying home a basket’s worth of shopping.

On top of that there’s bouldering at our local climbing centre once or twice a week, plus tennis or hiking with my husband when we can fit it in. In the summer, as we live by the coast, there’s also paddleboarding at our local estuary and river, as well as bodyboarding and kayaking, but these are sporadic rather than weekly commitments.

I’d love to add running and weights back in, and I will when there’s more time. For now I’ve stopped pretending I can do everything at once while running businesses, working 40 to 60 hours a week and being a mum.

Why I fell off, and what got me back

Earlier this year we cancelled our gym membership after a drop in household income. We’d been going almost every day, so it was a big change overnight. When the mornings got lighter I started running again, but the pressure to make money took over and work swallowed everything else.

I never stopped moving completely. I still walked instead of driving wherever I could and played tennis every now and then. But intentional exercise pretty much stopped until August, when I joined the climbing centre, and I took yoga up seriously again in September.

What brought me back was remembering how much better I feel when I move. I’ve always exercised for health, fitness and longevity rather than just for how I look, and I missed it.

Make starting as easy as possible

Every bit of friction gives you a reason to skip. When I used to run first thing, I laid out my clothes the night before so I could get up and go without waking my husband. No decisions, no rummaging around in the dark.

Yoga works the same way now. I do it on a mat on the kitchen floor and my iPad is always in the kitchen, so I can pull up a YouTube video and be started within a minute. If I can’t manage my full hour, I find a 15 minute video instead.

Fifteen minutes still counts. It keeps the habit alive on the days a full session isn’t realistic, and it’s far easier to build on a habit you’ve kept going than to restart one from zero. My guide to how to build healthy habits goes deeper on this if you want the wider picture.

Protect a time slot

My kids leave for school at 7.45am, so the two hours after that are mine. That’s an hour of yoga and an hour of walking before I sit down to work, and I try never to skip it. I don’t usually start work until after exercise, errands and household chores like the never-ending pile of laundry (usually around 12), then I work through until bedtime with a break for making and eating family dinner, so mornings are the only slot that’s reliably my own.

I also tend to exercise before midday when my energy is highest. Picking a regular time and treating it like a meeting makes a big difference, and a few easy morning habits can make it feel less like a battle. My routine is flexible, but having a default slot means I’m not renegotiating with myself every day.

If I left it until the evening, there’s no chance I’d exercise each day. By then I’m tired from the day’s work, busy mum life and chores, and not just physically but mentally too. Half the month I also get crashing fatigue in the late afternoons from perimenopause, so evening exercise just isn’t realistic for me.

Pick a time that suits you, when you know you have energy, and work around that.

Walking counts too

Even in the months when I wasn’t doing proper workouts, I kept walking. I’ll always choose to walk over drive when I can, and it stopped me from falling off completely. It’s low pressure, it clears my head before work and it adds up more than you’d expect.

If a full workout feels like too much, start there. A daily walk is an easy habit to stick to, and it makes it much easier to add something harder later.

Housework counts too

I hate cleaning. I love keeping things tidy and organised, but the actual cleaning is a chore to me, so I try to see it as exercise instead.

Our kitchen needed a deep clean recently, so I cleaned out the fridge, all the cupboards and the oven. It was laborious and otherwise boring, but I treated the scrubbing as a workout, which made it far more motivating. It took a couple of hours, so I counted it as my exercise for the day.

Not every day needs a structured session. A couple of hours of moving around the house still counts, and the jobs get done at the same time.

Don’t let tracking turn into a chore

I used to track everything. I logged my runs and wore a Fitbit for a couple of years, but I’d sometimes arrive at a 6am gym session and realise I’d forgotten to put it on (I didn’t wear it overnight). Then I’d feel stressed and add the workout manually, which is when I realised tracking had become a chore.

What mattered was that I’d exercised, not whether a device had recorded it. Giving it up felt freeing, and I sold the Fitbit on eBay and got some of the cost back even after wearing it daily for a couple of years.

Now I sometimes glance at the health app on my iPhone for my steps, though it isn’t always accurate as I often leave my phone at home. I might track again one day, but for now I’m taking a break from digital tracking. If you do enjoy the data, there are plenty of easy ways to track your fitness activity that don’t take over your day.

I do still keep a mental tally. I weigh myself on the scales each morning as a quick nudge to cut back on food or move more, but I don’t write it down or log it in an app, and it’s very personal so it wouldn’t suit everyone.

I also set myself goals and time lengths for certain exercises, like an hour of yoga per session and at least an hour of walking a day. It gives me a clear target without needing a device to tell me whether I’ve hit it.

Find people to move with, and something you enjoy alone

Having someone relying on you makes it much harder to bail. My husband and I play tennis, hike and sometimes run together, and we all go bouldering as a family, which makes exercise feel like time together rather than a task.

But it’s worth finding something you enjoy by yourself too. If you always need a partner or a team, you won’t go when the other person can’t make it or the session gets cancelled.

I exercise on my own a lot every week. I go for long walks alone, do yoga by myself at home, and can head to the climbing centre on my own whenever I want. I might join a yoga class one day when I’ve got the time and money, because there’s something to be said for having it in the diary with other people turning up.

Do you need a personal trainer?

I haven’t used one, mainly because they’re usually too expensive for me, but I can see the appeal. A good trainer should understand your body and your goals and tell you which exercises, and which weights, will get you there.

For example, I have big, strong calf muscles, and if I wanted them leaner a trainer could tell me which exercises to do and which to avoid. It’s not essential, but if the budget stretches, it could be a useful way to get a routine set up with some built-in accountability.

Exercise is about far more than weight

Some people see exercise as purely a way to lose weight, and that’s a quick route to giving up when the scales don’t cooperate. It’s so much more than that. It helps with circulation, muscle strength, lung capacity and mobility, and with keeping your bones and back strong, which matters when you’re thinking about avoiding falls later in life.

I’m in my 40s and perimenopausal, and I’ve noticed it takes more effort to stay fit and toned. I bruise more easily, I take longer to recover, and the cravings for sugary, fatty food can be relentless. If you’re going through something similar, my perimenopause symptoms story covers what it’s been like for me.

I just keep going, because I’d like to be fit and healthy as I age. Thinking about future me helps when I’m tired or when moving feels like too much. Building muscle matters here too, and the benefits of strength training are worth a read if weights are on your list.

You can’t outrun a bad diet

One of my favourite sayings is “you can’t outrun a bad diet”. If you’re not eating well, exercise won’t make you feel as good as it could, so food and movement have to work together.

I’m vegan, and our food stays pretty constant. Lots of home cooking, fruit, veg and wholemeal grains, organic where we can, with more crisps and treats at weekends and on holiday. Good food makes the exercise feel better, so I try to get the basics right for most of the week.

For the past four months I’ve also followed OMAD (one meal a day), eating in a window of three to four hours from late afternoon and exercising first thing before I’ve eaten. It suits my routine, but it isn’t for everyone, so please don’t take it as a recommendation. I used to have a plant-based protein bar or a protein powder in a smoothie around workouts, but not at the moment.

I take a few supplements each day: either a shot of Floravital or Animal Parade Liquid Gold, vegan collagen gummies, a turmeric capsule and around ten spirulina tablets. None of them replaces a varied diet, and I’m not claiming they do anything for my fitness.

If you’d like to try supplements, most reputable online pharmacies and health food shops stock the basics, and a pharmacist can tell you what’s sensible alongside any medication you take, although I prefer natural and whole food supplements and avoid synthetic ones where possible. My piece on understanding your basic nutritional needs when vegan is a good place to start.

When life gets in the way

Busy work days are the biggest thing that derails me, because making money always takes priority. The weather is the other one, since winter storms on the coast can wipe out a walk. When that happens I shrink the plan rather than drop it, so it’s a shorter yoga video indoors or a walk later in the day.

I’m also quite self-motivated once I’ve set myself a challenge, and I get properly annoyed with myself if I miss a day. That won’t suit everyone, but a small personal challenge, like yoga every day for a month, can give a routine some backbone. If the school run and work are squeezing your time too, my tips on how to exercise as a busy mum might help.

Starting from scratch

If you’re just starting, go slowly. Push through the first few days when you really don’t fancy it, because it does get easier and then it gets enjoyable.

When I went back to yoga recently after a long break, maybe a year or more, it was hard. In the first few sessions I wanted to quit! My arms and wrists hurt, and I felt rigid and out of shape in the postures.

After a week or so I got my flow back. My arms found their strength quickly, the postures felt more natural and it started to feel enjoyable again. If I’d given in to those first few hard days and the wanting to quit, I’d never have got to that point.

Now I look forward to each session, and I can feel my strength and flexibility improving each week. Some aching is normal when you start, but ease off if something properly hurts rather than pushing through sharp pain. My workout motivation tips cover how I keep going when the enthusiasm wears off.

The bottom line

You don’t need a gym membership, a tracker or a personal trainer to build a routine that lasts. You need something easy to start, a time slot you protect, people or a challenge to keep you going, and the patience to get through the first few days.

My routine looks different to how it did a year ago, and it’ll change again. That’s fine. The aim is to keep moving, in whatever form fits your life right now.