Finding your motivation to get healthy, fit and stay active has to start with you wanting it bad… really bad! It takes a strong will to establish a healthy lifestyle. Your will to want to start this journey can be for many reasons. It’s important to fully understand what you want to achieve for yourself. So, before you start, you should foresee your vision all the way through to set yourself up for success.
Learning from experience, you need to be understanding and accept the fact that nothing worthwhile comes easy, and you will have good and bad days that come and go. Being able to adapt, learn, build good habits and overcome poor habits is the key for sustainable fitness. Here are a few ways I’ve learned along the way to help myself and my clients stay motivated.
Set Goals Within Your Goal
In most cases your goal is going to take tremendous time, patience and commitment. Speaking from experience, I know with the stress of daily life, on top of the hard work of trying to attain your end-goal, can be overwhelming to the point of wanting to give up. To prevent this feeling, I found it relieving when I made small goals within my long-term goal. You can establish daily, weekly or monthly goals that work towards the long term. Once you’ve accomplished a small goal, reward yourself for good behavior. This will help build confidence and encourage you to keep going!
Anticipation
I know you want to start your plan right away, but I actually recommend waiting and building up the anticipation. Mark a start date in the future, perhaps a week or two or even a month from now and put it on your calendar. This way you can get your mindset right, set up a plan to execute, become more focused and increase the energy and anticipation for reaching your goal.
Models of Success
It’s very inspiring to follow or watch someone who is working on achieving the same goal as you, or is already successful at it. It’s like a goal mentor. Watching them go through similar ups and downs as you encounter and still pushing through can keep the motivation going for you. You can find fitness bloggers to follow on Instagram, or locally within your own gym, workplace or social group. The important thing is to choose someone who inspires you.
Positive Use of Social Media
Posting your goals on social media can be extremely motivating. Tell your followers and friends about your new fitness plan, as well as what you’re going through on a day-to-day basis. This can help with accountability, encouragement and engagement. No one wants to fail in front of others, so making a public declaration of your plan helps to keep you fighting for your goals because you know people are watching and keeping you accountable of what you say and do. As you’re posting about your progress, you could be an inspiration to someone who is searching for the motivation to start and wants similar goals as you.
Positive Mindset Approach
People with positive mindsets are willing to take actions and invest time and effort following their goals. They don’t allow obstacles or failures to stop them, instead they learn from their mistakes and try again. They believe in themselves and will do what it takes to attain their goals. Be a person with a positive mindset. Celebrate your wins and learn from the challenges.
Keep Your Eye on the Prize
Always keep your end result as a focus in your mind. Nothing feels as good as being rewarded for hard work that you’ve earned! To do this, it’s important to remind yourself regularly of where you were, the progress you’ve made thus far, and where you’re going.
Turn Motivation into Habits
Your motivation is just a state of mind and it will come and go. It happens to all of us. So, you can’t rely on it very long or else you’ll be in a slump. You need to use your motivation to get you on track and into a distinct pattern of healthy habits. As your moving forward with consistency, you’ll start creating healthy habits from the persistence of your hard work. Generally, it takes 3-4 weeks to develop new habits. In the long-run, that’s a drop in the bucket compared to living the rest of your life in the best way possible.
Get Expert Help
If you would like help in creating a fitness plan, I invite you to contact me directly at josh@gohardlife.com. Fitness is my life’s work, and I would be thrilled to help you find your motivation, develop a workout regimen, set a nutrition plan, and determine which of the amazing Betancourt Nutrition products will best supplement your efforts.
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