I tell myself if I don’t want to run or lift, I’ll walk.

No range goal, just at least 1 hour, wearing athletic clothing, usually with an audio book.

Makes me still feel active/on track

I find taking break is a normal part of good exercise routine. You need recovery time, after all.

To get back to it, I usually start small. 30 minute easy run or gym usually does it for me, and by the end of it I actually want to do more. My thinking process is usually something like “I don’t feel like going, but I owe myself at least 30 minutes. Tomorrow I’ll do something more.”

For me, with biking, I don’t just need a destination, but an objective.

So I’ll bike to get blood work done, then bike home. That’s a good 20 miles with a break in the middle for something productive.

Sometimes it’s the grocery store, or the post office, or the pharmacy. I start associating local destinations with exercise… as opposed to exercise for the sake of it.

Do you switch up your run routes at all? I get the same way after running on the same bike path a few times. Changing the scene could be helpful. Maybe a trail run if you only run on pavement, or driving to a destination for a scenic run.

For me with running, it’s just do something, maybe a mile at a slow pace, then start building the confidence and the habit again.

The hardest part is starting and not having an expectation of what you should be doing. Doing something is good enough.

Try something different. Take a cardio boxing class, or try a group run and meet some new people. Just getting out of your routine for a day can be enough to get out of that rut.

One of the questions I think is worth asking yourself is why do you run. Do you like the feeling? Do you want to be faster? Is this to burn calories? Or maintain a healthy heart and cardiovascular system?

Motivation can come from all sorts of places. While usually a combination of these goals exists for a lot of us, some factors can serve as more motivation than others, and the importance of those factors to us can shift at any time, meaning more motivation emphasis on whichever factor is highest at the moment can keep us going.

I did see you mention the Steam deck with @RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world commenting about Cyberpunk’s new DLC. These kinds of things are a huge motivating factor for me. When I play these games and have one of those incredible fights that makes me feel awesome, it makes me take a look at my real life capabilities and want to improve. When I do cardio kenpo or plyometric circuits, I often put on the combat music from Cyberpunk 2077 which helps motivate my goal of being faster, more agile, more capable.

There’s a lot of good advice from people on your post and I think a combination of these will go a long way. If you’re getting bored just running, switch it up and work on your boxing combos. If you’re losing motivation because you’re not getting any faster months later, take up plyometrics for a bit and up that explosive speed, increased agility and higher jump height. If you lack the time, try 60/120s or any sprint variations instead of a long run. Conversely, if you don’t want to give 110% and just want a nice run for the endorphin release and cardiovascular movement, go for an easy, longer jog. If it’s all about losing weight, dive into nutritional changes, or if it’s about staying healthy then throw in more resistance training instead.

Most of all, look at your outside influences for motivation! Change up that playlist. Be on the hunt for new music that makes you want to get up and go. Look at what TV shows or movies or video games make you want to get going too. Watching disaster movies always motivates me to want to run faster and climb higher to escape that spreading fire or zombie horde. Action shows and games make me want to be able to fight off that super attacker. I use a combination of music and TV shows to keep me going. The fight music from a show like One Piece and video games like Castlevania always make their way onto my training playlist, alongside rock jams like the Peacemaker soundtrack and 80s style aerobics music like from the show Physical. Keep it fresh! And keep what you like – I even still have songs from Saints Row the Third and Saints Row IV on my training playlist because they can keep me in the fight when the newer music additions start to get stale.

@tyo_ukko@sopuli.xyz brings up another important factor. Make sure to take a break and have an active recovery week for your training schedule. If you’re going all out, take a week off every 3-4 weeks and do some casual hiking, yoga, swimming, hangliding, whatever you like, to keep somewhat active while you recover. If you go moderately hard, take a week off every 6-8 weeks, and if you’re all about going for the stroll of it and not the intensity, take a week off ever 12 weeks or so. Basically, you’ll feel when you start to plateau, when you’re tired all the time, when you’re too sore to move, or have no motivation, and thus when you need a week to recover. But make sure to do light stuff like that, whether stretching or pickle ball or whatever, to stay somewhat active while not sweating profusely or working too hard to recover properly. Just don’t eat chips on the couch and binge watch shows for a week. Even if you say “I don’t feel too sore, I don’t need an active recovery week,” remember it’s not just about your muscles, or even just about your joints and tendons, but also about your central nervous system. If you’re going all the time and your body can keep up, your central nervous system still needs that recovery week every now and then.

And don’t punish yourself! Make sure you enjoy what you do. I hit a point where I just didn’t like running that much anymore and my new home had awful routes – it was a chore to keep doing. Focusing more on weight training and martial arts cardio/plyometrics really helped me find a routine that’s right for me. If you force yourself to do something it’s always harder than doing something consistently that you enjoy. Check out things you might like to mix in and keep it fun. From there, remember how you feel when you stop for too long and start to regret it. It gets easier, but you have to keep doing it, so make sure you like what you do!

Lol, this exact scenario just happened to me. Went to a class, overcompensated a bit too much for prior laziness, then strained my left ankle. Just went yesterday again after a few weeks. Plus…Cyberpunk and Phantom Liberty didn’t help matters at all.