If you’re anything like us you’ve found yourself googling “how to motivate yourself to workout” trying to get your fitness mojo back on track. Our exercise routine has been put out of whack with iso lockdown, we're in the coldest month of the year, and we are struggling to get ourselves motivated. So we asked our Facebook VIP group for their top tips to feel good and stay motivated to exercise. Here’s the five most popular suggestions to find your workout motivation:
Don’t rely on motivation
Motivation is fleeting and unreliable. When we rely on feeling motivated to get us to a workout we are never going to be consistent with exercise because our motivation will come and go. It’s natural to not feel like working out sometimes, and we are all great at finding reasons or excuses to skip a session. So if you want to make exercise a habit, or hit some fitness goals, then you’ll need to find reasons or goals that will remain constant and get your moving when you don’t necessarily feel like it.
“My coach tells me that motivation is a feeling that comes and goes. Rely on your “why” and focus on goals instead.”
Early workouts — no snoozing!
For many of us, it’s early or nothing. While getting up early might sound (and feel) awful to start with, you’re more likely to stick with your exercise intentions for the day before the demands of work, family and life start and the last thing you want to do when you’re exhausted after work at 6pm is a sweat session. Once you’ve woken up early regularly enough your body clock will adapt and you’ll love starting your day on an endorphin-high knowing you’ve already achieved something.
“If I don't jump out of bed when the alarm goes, I'll over-think it and stay in bed and not exercise - particularly in winter.”
Be organised
Planning and preparing for workouts help us get them done consistently. Planning your workouts for the week — whether it’s a calendar entry, a date with a friend or booking a class through an app — it sets our intentions and clears time for us to exercise. Set out your clothes and everything else you need for your workout the night before (or in the morning of if you’re an evening exerciser) to remove one more barrier. Not just your clothes, but also shoes, water bottle, towel, hat/hairbands, headphones and car keys. You don’t want to be searching frantically for your car keys at 5.20 am! Trust us, we’ve been there.
“Being ready the night before is the difference between me going to the gym or staying in bed. Every time.”
Remove choice
Hand-in-hand with being organised, removing choice means we head to the gym on autopilot with no opportunity to talk ourselves out of it or choose the more comfortable option (looking at you Netflix).
For many of us, that means moving our body every day. Our rest days become active recovery days with a light walk, cycle or stretch session and we flex our exercise habit to get it stronger every day. No more “Is today going to be a workout day?”
“Workout every day so there is never an option to make a choice - it’s just a given - like any other daily habit.”
Something is better than nothing
On those days where you cannot. be. bothered. exercising just commit to a few minutes. If after ten minutes you’re really not feeling it allow yourself to stop. But most of the time you’ll do more, and feel better for it.
“Just press play ... commit to just 10 minutes I bet you end up doing more”
A constant theme throughout these strategies is to delay gratification. Sure a warm bed in the morning brings happiness at the time, as does a slice of office birthday cake. But if they’re not helping you reach your workout goals then the happiness is only short term — unlike the satisfaction and pride when you reach your goals and are leading the healthy lifestyle you’ve worked to create.
Head over to our Facebook VIP group for more ideas and to share your tips.