How to keep your motivation levels up…

One of the key factors in reaching your health and fitness goals is motivation. In fact, it is probably the most important factors. Without it, you simply have no chance of sticking to your exercise and nutrition plans. As such, here are a couple of different ways to keep up your levels of enthusiasm when you feel them starting to wane.

Get a training partner…

Training by yourself is tough. Dragging yourself out of bed at 5:30am or finishing work at 6:00pm and then getting to the gym is difficult if the only person expecting you to show up is you. By having someone else who expects you to be there and will hold you accountable for not being there you are more likely to get your regular training sessions in. Especially on those days where you just don’t feel like hitting the gym – and trust me we all have them.

On a personal note, I have also found it easier to push myself in terms of what I am capable of doing once I am in the gym if I have a training partner with me. There is also the safety aspect to consider. This is more relevant to those of you trying to lift heavy but is just as important for anyone lifting weights – a partner can spot you for heavy lifts and can correct poor technique (if they themselves know what it looks like that is).

Make short-term goals, not just long-term ones…

Setting goals is important for reaching fitness goals. But all too often I hear of people setting goals such as I want to lose 10kg or I want to run a marathon. Both of these (for most people) are long term goals. It is important to add some stepping stones in between the shore (where you are now) and the island (that big audacious long-term goal). An example of this would be something like this: If the long-term goal was to lose 10kg, two short term goals could be to track all of your meals each week and to exercise at least 3 times each week.

These goals should be reached each week and then re-set each week rather than having ongoing goals worded exercise 3+ times a week. By wording them in the short term it makes them more achievable. Rather than looking at a big mountain and wondering how you are going to climb it, you are looking only at the first ledge, then moving on to the second and so on.

Celebrate the small wins…

This one goes along with the short-term goals. You need to celebrate achieving those short-term goals once you have achieved them. Too many people wait until they reach major milestones to feel proud of themselves. Don’t. Feel proud of yourself for eating to the plan for a whole week – you deserve to. It is a great deal easier to keep aiming for the short-term goals when you know something good is coming at the end of it. It doesn’t have to be elaborate, but something as simple as buying a new song for your gym playlist can be enough to keep you on track. Try it out.

These are just a couple of quick ways to keep your motivation levels high. Everyone has those days where they just don’t feel like working out or eating to a plan. The key is to find ways that work for you and use those tools to get to the gym or to follow the plan. I’d love to hear what tools you all use to help you keep your motivation levels up. Let me know!
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