Movement: The Business Performance Tool Sitting Right Under Your Nose
Your business will only ever be as healthy as you.
That principle becomes particularly literal when we talk about movement.
If your working day involves hours at a desk, your body can gradually become something you barely notice until the stiffness, afternoon energy dip or reduced mental sharpness starts feeling normal.
For two and a half years, I knew I needed to exercise.
I told myself so every day.
Nothing changed.
I was living with arthritis, which kept me largely sedentary. The less I moved, the harder movement became. The harder it became, the less I moved.
It was a kind of hell loop I created myself. Eventually, I stopped waiting to feel motivated and made a decision. That decision started with seven minutes.
Why does movement matter to business performance?
We tend to put movement in the fitness box. Something you do to lose weight, improve cardiovascular health or stay physically strong.
For a business owner, there is another reason to take it seriously: your brain is part of the body you are moving.
A 2024 systematic review and meta-analysis of 42 randomised controlled trials involving 2,881 healthy adults aged 45 and over found that aerobic exercise improved three important areas of executive function: cognitive flexibility, working memory and inhibitory control.¹
Those terms can sound clinical, but their business application is straightforward.
- Working memory helps you hold and manipulate information.
- Cognitive flexibility helps you adapt when circumstances change.
- Inhibitory control helps you resist distractions and inappropriate responses.
In other words, they contribute to how you solve problems, switch perspectives, stay focused and make decisions.
Physical health and business performance are not separate conversations.
Is sitting all day really affecting how you think?
This is where some particularly interesting new research from 2026 strengthens the case. A systematic review published in May examined 25 studies involving 707 participants. It found that breaking up sedentary periods with physical activity produced acute improvements in cognitive function in many of the studies, with the clearest benefits appearing in executive function and attention.²
An even newer meta-analysis of randomised trials found small acute improvements in executive function when prolonged sitting was interrupted with physical activity. Light-intensity activity, walking and short three-to-five-minute activity breaks all showed favourable results, although the researchers stressed that the certainty of evidence remains low.³
That qualification matters. I am not suggesting that walking around your office for three minutes will suddenly turn you into a better CEO. But the research does suggest something much more practical:
Movement during your working day deserves to be treated as part of performance maintenance, rather than something reserved for before or after work.
The World Health Organization makes a similar point from the broader health perspective. Its guidance recommends limiting sedentary time and replacing it with physical activity of any intensity, including light activity.⁴
That means your movement does not all have to happen in a gym.
Are you blaming age for something movement could improve?
This question matters particularly to me because so many of the people I work with are building businesses in later life.
You notice that you are stiffer.
Perhaps your energy is not what it was.
You feel less physically capable or mentally sharp and quietly start accepting that this is simply what happens as you get older.
Some change with age is real. I would never pretend otherwise. But ageing and inactivity are not interchangeable. Research involving adults over 60 consistently associates greater physical activity and less sedentary behaviour with better physical performance, muscle strength and cognitive outcomes.⁵
And that gives us an important distinction:
Do not automatically attribute to age what may partly be attributable to inactivity.
That was one of the strongest points I wanted to make in this week's Routine Reset. Gradual decline is easy to normalise precisely because it happens gradually.
For a later-life entrepreneur, that assumption can affect more than your health. If you start believing you are inevitably becoming less capable, you may begin making decisions based on that belief.
What if pain is the reason you are not moving?
This was my reality.
When movement hurts, being told to move more can sound ridiculously simplistic. Yet my experience with arthritis reflects established clinical guidance more closely than I realised at the time. NICE identifies tailored therapeutic exercise as a core treatment for osteoarthritis. Its guidance explicitly acknowledges that joint pain can initially increase when exercise begins, while explaining that regular, consistent exercise can reduce pain and improve function and quality of life over time.⁶
That does not mean ignoring pain or pushing through regardless. Exercise may need to be adapted to your health and physical circumstances.
Mine is certainly adapted. I do not jump around. My joints would object strongly. Instead, I do simple standing exercises with weights. Ten minutes on a later morning, usually fifteen. I stretch on Saturdays and go to the gym on Sundays.
It is ordinary, and that is precisely why it works for me.
Why motivation may be keeping you stuck
This is the part I challenge most strongly. You do not need to feel motivated before you start moving.
I spent two and a half years proving that waiting does not work.
What finally changed things was determination. I made one decision. I got up ten minutes earlier and exercised in my bedroom for seven minutes, three times a week.
Then three times became five. Five became seven. Seven minutes eventually became ten to fifteen minutes. Every day.
This is what I call the Determination Cycle:
Determination → Action → Result → Motivation
Motivation is the rewarding feeling that can arrive once you have acted and experienced a result. Then you make the decision again.
It also fits surprisingly well with official guidance. WHO explicitly advises inactive adults to start with small amounts of physical activity and gradually increase the frequency, intensity and duration.⁴
You do not need to begin with 150 minutes a week.
You just need to begin.
Why another wellbeing tip is not enough
Recent research identified an important shift in the wider wellbeing conversation. People are increasingly challenging superficial fixes for deeper performance problems and questioning advice that treats one intervention as the answer. I agree.
Movement matters enormously to me, but movement alone is not the answer. You can exercise every morning and still overload your diary. You can walk every lunchtime and still sleep badly. You can go to the gym and spend the rest of your working day mentally overwhelmed.
This is why the T.E.M.P.L.E. Method™ connects Time Utilisation, Intellectual Health, Mental Resilience, Physical Vitality, Spiritual Health and Emotional Intelligence.
Your professional performance is produced by the whole system and movement is one powerful lever within it.
What can you do tomorrow?
Forget the perfect exercise programme for a moment.
Choose something small enough that you have very little reason not to do it.
Seven minutes worked for me.
Perhaps yours is a ten-minute walk before you open your laptop. Three minutes of movement between focused work blocks. A short strength routine while dinner cooks.
Then put it in your diary.
Do it before you feel motivated.
If you are wondering whether physical health is the only thing quietly limiting your performance, take my free Hidden Bottleneck Quiz. Twelve short questions will help you identify which part of your personal operating system may need your attention first.
Take the Hidden Bottleneck Quiz
Your body is the engine pulling the operation. Maintain it accordingly.
Remember, a healthier you makes a wealthier you.
References
1. Ye, M. et al. (2024). Effects of aerobic exercise on executive function of healthy middle-aged and older adults: A systematic review and meta-analysis. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 160, 104912. PubMed record
2. Li, Y. et al. (2026). Acute effects of physical activity breaking up sedentary behavior on cognitive function, biological mechanisms, and practical recommendations: a systematic review. Frontiers in Psychology, 17, 1767939. PubMed record
3. Effect of breaking up prolonged sitting with physical activity on executive function: a three-level meta-analysis (2026). PubMed record
4. World Health Organization. WHO guidelines on physical activity and sedentary behaviour. WHO guidelines
5. Sattler, M. C. et al. (2021). Objectively assessed physical activity and sedentary behavior and global cognitive function in older adults: a systematic review. Mechanisms of Ageing and Development, 198, 111524. PubMed record
6. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). Osteoarthritis in over 16s: diagnosis and management, NG226. NICE guidance