If you’re anything like me, one of the hardest parts about staying healthy is that I am easily distracted away from working out. This is not because I don’t like to go for a run or do yoga, quite the opposite. After working out I feel great! So what is my, and most peoples’, reason for not working out…. We’re lazy.
Let’s all take a minute and be honest with ourselves, we can have the best intension but at the end of a long work day the desire to just relax becomes very tempting. You might find yourself searching your mind for reason’s to not go for a run or hit the gym. Reasons like… I didn’t eat that much for lunch it’s probably best to not workout if I haven’t eat enough, I ate too much for lunch and my stomach isn’t feeling right, I’ve had a long day and I’m just tried, tomorrow is definitely a better day, I don’t have enough time, ect.
So, how can you motivate yourself to work out? Here are some tips that might help.
1. Stop making excuses. Every time you find yourself trying to come up with a reason to not go to the gym, replace it with a reason you should go to the gym. For instance replace “I can go tomorrow” with “I didn’t go yesterday” or “tomorrow I can relax, today I workout”.
2. Get a workout buddy. Most people know of this one, it’s a classic, but make sure your workout buddy is someone who regularly works out. If not, then you will just help each other find excuses why not to work out.
3. Schedule it in your calendar. Pick a date and time and schedule it like any other appointment, write it down or put it in your phone. This will increase your chances of working out.
4. Find your inner motivation. Why are you going to the gym? To lose weight? To be healthy? To increase your endurance? Whatever your ‘true’ motivation is for working out you need to find it and remember it. This way working out is not about something you have to do, but rather something that you want to do to get you where you want to be. Write your ‘why’ down and put it somewhere you can see it every day as a reminder.
5. Change up your activities. If you always do the same 3 or 4 things it can get really boring. Try coming up with various type of workouts, different paths to run on, ect to keep yourself interested and entertained. You can even try creating cards with different types of work outs and ‘pull one’ randomly and that is what you do for the day.
