Endorphins and energy guaranteed at Outside Fitness
Yeah yeah, you’ve heard it all before. Exercise is good for you. It must be, everyone says so. But if getting a bit of a sweat on is good for your heart, your waistline, your self-esteem, your mood and your energy levels, why do so few small business owners get up off their bahookies to do some?
Probably for exactly the same reasons that so few of the general population can be bovvered. Exercise is hard. It takes effort and commitment. It costs money, takes up too much time, makes you sweat, messes your hair up and makes your face glow like a rosy wee radish.
Yep, as a lifelong campaigner to get more Scots moving, I’ve heard every single excuse on the menu of exercise aversion, including the one about how you’re just too busy running your business to be out pounding the pavements. Frankly, many of us just cannae be arsed. And that’s a great shame, because being arsed is not just good for your buns, it’s great for your small business too.
But before you captains of commerce get all uppity and hacked off with badgering by yet another member of the fitness fascist brigade, consider this. As a small business owner can you really afford NOT to be in fine fitness fettle? Are you actually doing your business a great big disservice when your back is buggered and your eyesight shot from sitting in front of a monitor all day long, when your blood pressure is soaring and you’re stressed out of your mind, when your waistband’s expanding and your stamina is down to a pathetic wee peep? Would it not be better to add some energy and eureka thinking to your entrepreneurship with the addition of something as easy as endorphins?
And hey, don’t get ideas – I’m no Liz McColgan. I’m not fast, I’m useless at fitness classes that require any degree of co-ordination, I don’t care much about time, distance or PBs, and I don’t look all that great in Lycra. But this particular business burd simply will not sit still all day long.
I resist all expectations to run my small business 24/7, but I will run. And swim, and cycle, and do press ups in the park with my pals at Outside Fitness. Not every day, and not necessarily for long, but for me, it’s a business no-brainer. Because, not only am I in pretty good nick for a wee woman of a certain age, but I get all my best biz ideas when I’m on the hoof or in the pool. Even half an hour of swimming, running or cycling sees stress slip away, energy levels soar, and problem solving strategies kick in.
So, colleagues in commerce, before you throw the towel in when you haven’t even tested the water (at the local swimming baths), please join my call to arms – and legs, tums, bums, boobs, brains and backs – and get moving, for work’s sake.
