Staying Motivated Throughout The Year.
If you find your New Years Resolutions tend to live and die within January, then I hope this blog may hold some value to you!
Staying motivated has to be one of the hardest things to achieve in any aspect of your life; whether that be a new skill you're trying to learn, a routine you want to stick to, or in our case - a fitness goal. It doesn't help that most guidance out there is largely unrealistic and doesn't take into account that you actually want to live a little along the way. That is where we hope that this small blog can give you some insight on how to realistically achieve whatever goals you have set yourself this year.
Setting Your Goals
It is common for most to fail at the first hurdle; setting your goals. If you sit down on January the 1st and tell yourself you are going to eat nothing but vegetables, wake up at sunrise and do a 10km run every day, unfortunately, you are most likely going to fail and write it all off until next January. The key to remaining motivated is small steps - the power of achieving lots of small wins in your daily life has a major snowball effect on how you can live your life.
Seperate Your Goals Into Smaller Steps
To give you an analogy, you need to treat your goals as though you are trying to get to the top of a flight of stairs.
To reach the top, would you try to jump up to the top in one go? Or would you just take each step at a time until you get to the top? You should set your goals no differently. If you want to lose fat, don't just starve yourself and run like Forrest Gump! You must take each step at a time. You could start by going on one or two walks every week, joining a sports club or even make small dietary replacements like spray oil instead of olive oil. These small changes will not change your life in a week, or even a month, but if you keep committing to each small step you will suddenly find yourself a very different person at the end.
It is also much easier to succeed in achieving lots of tiny steps - and that feeling that you are succeeding will motivate you to do more! Whereas setting yourself large unachievable goals will leave you feeling like you have failed, which is extremely demotivating. If you feel like you're winning along the way - you will win in the end. Split up your goals into tiny steps and tackle them one by one. You will see a BIG difference.
Having A Deadline Can Be Counter Productive
Another key mistake is the dates labelled to your goals. Let's say you want to get fit for your upcoming holiday! You then achieve that goal and think you need not worry about getting fit anymore because you have now achieved it. This results in an endless cycle of getting fit and rewarding yourself by undoing your hard work. There is no issue with using dates to hold yourself accountable - this can be a truly great motivator. However the issue lies in where you emphasise your goals, if your emphasis is on being fit for holiday then what happens after holiday? You may fall straight back into old habits. The trick is to focus your goal into staying fit. Being fit in time for your holiday is a great deadline to work towards - but your goal must be to STAY fit, this means that after your holiday you are back to work keeping what you worked so hard to acheive. It also means a whole lot less work when you next go on holiday! Staying fit is a much more pleasant experience than getting fit - so once your there; focus on staying there!
Everything Falls Into Place When You Enjoy The Process
When you set yourself a fitness goal it is very easy to focus on the end result. This unfortunately is an uphill battle already. As I said above; changing your emphasis is vital. Focusing on the process is a far more effective way of achieving your goals. With social media now it is easy to compare yourself to others and set yourself the target of the 'perfect' body. This is a very dangerous game because if you do not achieve this goal you will beat yourself up for simply not being perfect. Once again leaving you in a position feeling demotivated and unhappy with your outcome. I want to reiterate that emphasising different parts of your goals is so important. If you focus on loving the process, the end goal you aspire will come as a consequence to the life you have been leading. If you create the habits by implementing small changes to your life month-by-month, you will fall in love with the process and begin to lose the craving for your dream body as you realise that the journey to get their is a far more fulfilling experience than the goal itself.
This philosophy translates to so many aspects of your life; If you are a sports fan, do you enjoy the final whistle the most? Or the goals, fouls, freekicks, celebrations and experience from the start to the end. If you like toys, do you prefer seeing your LEGO built? Or do you prefer building it? If you like to cook, why don't you just use ready meals? Because making it yourself is a fulflling and fun experience. You should see fitness goals as no exception and if you can learn to love the process you will success will have no end.
You Are Allowed To Live!
Lastly - a vital component is that you must accept it won't be always be a smooth journey. If you find yourself saying 'it's my friend's birthday this weekend and we are going for dinner and drinks, there's no point yet so I'll just wait till Monday' then your mindset may not be in the right place yet. People have Birthdays, Anniversaries, Parties and all sorts every single year. This is unavoidable. Luckily you can still enjoy these occasions with your loved ones and not give up on your goals. One day doesn't defeat the entire plan! Doing something is always better than accepting failure so even on those busy days, try your best to get active. Even if you have a bad weekend and you think you have failed yourself, you have not! You are only living life as you're supposed to - giving up on your goal is where you fail yourself, just persevere and treat every day as a chance to improve. There is a solution to every obstacle; even the ones you put up yourself! You just need to take everything day by day and stick to your small wins in each of them because you will soon realise how much you have changed.
I really hope this blog has helped you somewhat and that we can play a part in your success this year. Good luck, we believe in you!