I recently wrote about challenging yourself to try something new. While I am still working on my professional challenge of guest posting that I wrote about in that post, I am also starting a physical challenge this week to fight exercise boredom.

I think everyone is pretty aware of the benefits of exercise. It’s no secret – move more = good, lay on couch = bad. I love working out so exercising regularly isn’t the challenge.

My struggle is with exercise boredom. Sometimes when you do the same workouts over and over again it gets boring. Like so boring that I roll out my yoga mat and, instead of doing my workout, I lay there and stare at the TV. Not effective.

Now that it is light out at 5:30am, I have started running again. I love to run, but even my beloved running gets boring. I throw in a little weight lifting at the end and maybe one day a week I’ll do a different workout but it’s hard to stay motivated while fighting boredom.

In the past, I have done triathlons to help motivate me over the summer. It was a great way to change up my workouts, have a goal, and see results. I also crave that feeling of accomplishment once you’ve overcome a huge challenge like that. I just don’t have time for that kind of challenge right now.

Enter the 30 Day Plank Challenge. I joined a 30 Day Plank Challenge run by a friend of mine who is a health coach and fitness instructor. I like the idea of this challenge because it doesn’t add a significant amount of time to my daily exercise routine, yet changes it up enough that I’m excited to start.

Today was the first day with a 20 sec plank. By the end of the 30 days, I am supposed to be doing a 5-minute plank. I’m a little nervous about getting much above one minute since that seems to be my limit since having children. I’m so nervous that while I was running this morning I had a conversation with my myself.

I gave myself a pep talk. I’m not sure that I believed me when I told myself this was good for me and I would get through it. I haven’t talked to my myself like that since I was pregnant and had to reassure myself that I would return to normal(ish) when it was over.

This first day was successful. I want to succeed and the worst that could happen is I fall on the floor while trying to break my own plank record. I am going to track my progress on my sidebar for the full 30 days to keep myself accountable.

Do you find yourself getting in an exercise rut? What do you do to motivate yourself? What kind of challenges have worked for you?