Finding time to work out

For years before I even started to work on changing my life, I would say "My health is one of the most important things in my life- if I don't have that, everything else goes away". The problem is, I didn't really act like it, because I would also say, "I don't have time to work out". Let me talk for a minute about a few thoughts from my current perspective about those two statements together.
First, it doesn't just have to be scheduled workouts. I take the stairs instead of the elevator. the time difference is nothing these days, and was very little even when I struggled more with those stairs.When I go to lunch with people from work, those of us taking the stairs ( for three flights, in my case) beat the ones on the elevator every time. For a while, I had decided that if I extended my stair climb of  three flights of stairs a bit, I could probably get a significant gain in my daily activity. I generally have at least four trips on the stairs in a day- coming up in the morning, going down and back up for lunch, and down at the end of the day. For a little over a month, I decided that I could manage to travel up the nine flights of stairs to the top of my building every time I took the stairs, then go to my destination. It was slow and hard for a while, but then I got used to it and it wasn't so bad. And all of those extra trips didn't take up enough time in my day to even notice- I had the time to do that. You can always find this kind of time, if you want to.
Secondly- if health is my priority, then exercise has to be a priority. Improving diet is important, but I do believe that exercise is even more important for health. To get the health results I want, I have to have an active life that includes some vigorous exercise. So how can I say I don't have time for a workout? There are 24 hours in a day- if exercise is as important as I say it is, there's something else that I could give up to do it. I can get up a little earlier, eat a little later, something. So, if I'm saying I don't have time to work out, I'm really saying that it's not a priority. Once I understood that, it was much easier to really make the changes that gave me workout time. It was still hard, but I started acting like it was an actual priority.
I still had to listen to my body, and make sure I was getting my sleep and meeting the other obligations in my life. But I found the time, and you can, too. Just think about what you are trying to accomplish, and why. you are trying to do this. Then you can easily act like it's important- because it is.