Motivate Yourself

This has got to be the hardest thing to do when we take a look at exercise in our lives. I guess this is really a carry on from my last post Exercise Time, where I wrote about finding the time to make exercise part of our daily routine.

Once we have allocated a certain amount of time in our lives for the participation in some kind of exercise we then have to think about the motivation behind it, or lack of it. Obviously the Main Motivation for exercising is the health benefits and also looking good. But it can be hard to keep it up when we just want to veg out on the couch.

To get up an hour earlier in the morning to exercise is the hardest to get motivated about, especially when it is a cold winters morning, it is much easier to pull the duvet over our head and go back to sleep. It is also hard to start a workout after we have been drained all day by our job, much easier to collapse on the couch and forget about physical activity.

This is why it is a great motivator to write it into our daily schedule, the same as we would write in that we were meeting a friend for lunch or scheduling a business meeting. If we have it written down it becomes a real part of our schedule and we are more likely to actually do it than to forget about it. If we just say to ourselves that we will do four mornings a week cycling before work, that doesn’t really motivate us to actually do it, if it is there in our diary we are more likely to keep to it and a feel good factor can be had if we tick every session we stick to, so after our exercise and shower we can look at the next thing on our schedule and tick the workout we have just completed.

Looking back on this will motivate even more if you have many ticks and even if you haven’t it will motivate you to get more ticks.

Another great motivator for keeping up exercise is the results you see in the mirror, so a good thing to do before you start a training program is to take body measurements. Measure your calves, thighs, hips, waist, arms, chest and shoulders and any where ever else you can think of. Take new measurements every month, this can be a big motivator to keep it up.

Different things work for different people, so workout how to motivate Yourself, even if this means you treat yourself in some way for every workout you complete. Stay Motivated to exercise and be healthy and look good.