How about this: does your alarm give you a kick-start, encouraging you to get out of bed and exercise? My guess would be no, nothing of the sorts. I bet the snooze button is practically worn off the surface. But what if I told you that you could train your mind to get you excited to go to the gym or go for a run when you hear that "bone-chilling" buzz or beep? Would you believe me? Read on.

When people come to my office for weight-loss, the number one excuse that I hear for not exercising is that there's just not enough time. And when I say, "how about getting-up a half hour or forty five minutes earlier in the morning and doing it then," most of my clients cringe. But I can tell you this; I have helped countless people to do just that, including myself. It's all relative; whatever your mind believes, it will produce, and when it associates exercising at 6:00 A.M with being tied to a whipping post, it's not likely that you're going to get out of bed and do it. But this is changeable. You just have to change the way your mind thinks.

Power Programming is a system I created that will teach you how to associate excitement and determination with waking-up and getting your workout in then. It's pretty simple in fact. All you have to do is train your mind, but most of us don't really know how to do this. The techniques are pretty simple in fact. Here's how it works:

1. The first step is to dedicate 15 or 20 minutes of your time, several times a week. Go find a comfortable place with no distractions. Close your eyes and begin breathing deeply and let your mind drift into a comfortable, relaxed place for a little while. Anytime you do this, you are opening your subconscious reservoir, and this is the part of your mind that is easily programmable. This is how you change the way you react to your thoughts.

2. Once you've reached a relaxed state, the next step is to use some simple imagery. First see an image of yourself, exactly how you want to look and feel. Make the image vivid and get excited about it. Make it your goal. Next, imagine yourself feeling more motivated than you've ever felt before. See and feel yourself walking or running briskly on your treadmill. See and feel yourself pumping iron at the gym and feeling good about it. Create whatever you want, but feel it baby, feel it.

3. Finally, imagine the sound of your alarm and say to yourself over and over again in your mind, "from now on the very first thing I think as soon as I hear that alarm go off is leaping out of bed and exercising." Surprisingly, you're going to see that this indeed will be the first thing running through your mind when you hear that alarm. And instantly, all of those positive feeling and images you created earlier are going to emerge. You will actually feel motivated to get out of bed and after you do it for a couple of weeks you're going to start feeling excited about it. I know it sounds too good to be true, maybe even a bit quirky, but I'm telling you it works. Everything is mind over matter. Soon, getting-up and getting-in your workout in the morning will just be another part of your day, much like brushing your teeth or taking a shower. You just have to dedicate the 15 or 20 minutes of mental work to make it happen.

If exercising in the morning is something you long for, or, if you are in a little bit of a rut with your workout routine, training your mind should be the first thing you do. Soon you will see that the agonizing sound of your alarm clock isn't so agonizing after all. It's all in your head and once you learn how to change what goes on up there, anything is possible.

Thomas J. Kersting, LPC, Ph.D is the author of FAT PROOF: Power Programming Your Bodies Weight-Loss Computer (Harbor Press, coming in Winter 2006). Dr. Tom has helped countless people to lose weight with his methods.