Ok own up, have you ever started a diet to find you have come to a standstill within days? Perhaps you aspire to be Mr Motivator (without the unitard)? Or you’ve decided to wait just one more day before actually starting your new fitness regime, to find that months down the line you haven’t even got going? Ever wondered
how some people seem to be oozing with motivation and you are left with all the kit but just not doing it.
We asked some of our members what motivated them (other than all of us at DVCC of course); they included…..‘Progress, fear of failure, rewards (mostly rewards), wanting to get into a smaller dress for a big event and to be fit and healthy for the children.’
Motivation can be described as the process that initiates, guides and maintains goal-oriented behaviours both intrinsically or extrinsically. Motivation is literally the desire to do things. It’s frequently used as an expression to why a person does something.
First of all to get motivated you have to visualise what it is that you want, then you can activate the decision to initiate the behaviour. Persistence is the continued effort toward the goal even with the inevitable obstacles that will come up. Intensity is the way in which we apply ourselves to reach the goal we desire.
Our top tips to getting and staying motivated:
- Visualise what you want to achieve.
- Measure what you are, not what you are not.
- Measure your progress by how far you’ve come and not how far you have to go.
- Train with others.
- Get informed – you could read a blog or two of ours.
- Be realistic – often we say there is no such thing as an unrealistic goal just an unrealistic timeline.
- Be clever - What is the smallest thing that makes the biggest impact – it might be a 15mins walk to start with.
- Be wise – if a new habit takes 21 days to stick, try just adding a little habit on to something you are already doing. Often people struggle when they change everything in one go; often feeling overwhelmed and also how sustainable will it be?
- Have a contingency plan – for example - you planned to go to the gym but suddenly your childcare lets you down.
- Always embrace health and wellbeing before or alongside the cosmetic. In other words – don’t neglect or compromise your health to look a certain way but instead find a way then can work alongside each other.
- Record how you feel so that you can refer back to it – as it may inspire you once again.
- Make YOU a priority.
- Train with us (of course).
Finally…. I want you to imagine you are an aeroplane (you can be Mr Motivator later if you insist)….. When you finally take off you will find you hit a spot of turbulence from time to time and sometimes the wind will push you slightly – but you, like the aeroplane will make little adjustments and actually you stay right on course.
Sometimes you will even find that you can use autopilot and that the co-pilot is often there to lend a hand.
Basically you just have to get in motion to do this. Once you are airborne you can even look back and see how far you’ve come.
