With 2019 well and truly under way and the Christmas dust settled it is a perfect time to talk about goal setting, motivation and maintaining it! This is the ideal time of year for setting goals and everyone seems to have an extra bounce in their step after the holidays. However, it isn’t much good to jump straight into it only to fall off the wagon a few weeks later and get absolutely no where. So with that in mind what are the best ways to keep that motivation tank full for the whole year? After all success in anything, especially health & wellness comes down to consistency.
What is your why?
Motivation is the need or reason for doing something so having a good understanding for what your motivation is and connecting with that is a great place to start when it comes to reaching health and fitness goals and maintaining your motivation. Look beyond the aesthetics, numbers on the scales, how do you want to feel? What are the important things that you really want to do? Think from the heart, is it that you want to be able to keep up with and pick up your grandkids, is it a sport or hobby that you want to continue, is it a way you want to feel, a holiday you want to go on. Then ask yourself how you will feel when you can do that. Also think about what it looks like when you have succeeded, connect and visualise with what it really looks and feels like. What are the secondary benefits?
Think big and break it down
It is really helpful to think about where you want to be and what you want to have achieved in 12 months’ time or even 5 years’ time and then start to break it down. What is it that you have to do today, what do you need to invest your time in to reach those big goals? These day to day activities are what makes up the big ticket goals. Its these things and doing them consistently day in day out that will get you there.
Forming good habits
When you have clarity around what you want to achieve its around making choices aligned with those goals and values. Creating good habits can be really difficult. A common but brilliant one is getting up early and getting your exercise in at the start of the day. When forming new habits again it is really good to break it down, start with setting an alarm 15mins earlier than your current wake up time and just stretching, reading or pottering around the house. Then start to creep it earlier and start adding in the exercise. There is an abundance of good apps and habit trackers around these days to keep you motivated so make use of those. One we use and recommend is ‘Better Habits’.
Rest and recovery
One of the most common mistakes when it comes to maintaining exercise & health motivation is that people go full throttle only to fall off the wagon within weeks. This is how we burn out, injure ourselves or we just start something that is unmaintainable. The key is making it maintainable. So make sure you have rest days, lighter days and if you aren’t well or sore seek advice from our team on how to replace sessions with recover and rehabilitation sessions. These are just as important as the exercise sessions as maintaining adherence to your sessions long term is the goal.
Staying positive
Our internal self talk has a lot to answer for in terms of adhering to exercise programs and health interventions. So start tuning in and listening to how you are talking to yourself. Are you being supportive, encouraging and kind? Or are you berating yourself. I don’t know about you but if someone is taking negatively to me I tend to feel pretty negative. A really good way to shift negative self talk is starting to think about the things you are grateful for. Jot down or even just think every morning and night 3 things that you are grateful for or that made the day great. Again there are plenty of apps for this that we can use to help us. One we love is ‘The Five minute Journal’.
New years resolutions and goals are great, it’s a great time of year with an abundance of positivity and drive to kick start our health. Harness that energy and make sure that you can maintain that energy and positivity all year round. What you do today and tomorrow is what is going to get you to where you want to be. Connecting with it, keeping it simple through habits and being kind to yourself is all part of the process. Need help with your health goals? Speak to one of our friendly team today and set some daily tasks that will help you on your way.