Our brain's mission is to protect us. It weighs up risk quickly and will always go for the option that it thinks is the safest - the one that conserves energy and keeps us away from danger. It's why when our alarm goes off at 5:30am to go to the gym or for a run, our brain naturally tries to convince us to stay in bed - that way we can conserve energy for when we need to go hunting later... ummm... except that we are no longer cavemen that need to hunt further than our fridge or our nearest coffee shop.
Mel Robinson has written a New York Times best selling book called the "5 second rule" in which she explains her simple method for beating your brain's risk adverse tendencies by essentially launching yourself like a rocket - i.e. by counting backwards from 5 and on 1, just doing the thing you wanted to do. Using the run example, when you wake up, don't wait for your brain to tell you all the reasons why you shouldn't get up ('it's cold', 'you can work out later tonight', 'you should really get some more sleep', 'you can go tomorrow instead', 'your calf is kind of sore' etc etc), just count backwards from 5 and LAUNCH yourself out of bed!
5, 4, 3, 2, 1... GO!!!
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